Dylan Johnson's "The Problem with TrainerRoad Training Plans": it's gonna be a busy day around here

Here is the one issue I have with DJ, he always talks about his successes or failures, and people have mentioned here what a great and notable rider he is, which I do not doubt.
I have watched a number of his videos, and other than talking to himself in the alter ego he rarely speaks to another person so we can hear what they have to say about his methods or plans.

Why not bring in athletes that you have sold plans to, and show what your plans have done for them. Instead of this what I see is DJ talking about his successes or failures, but it seems he only promotes himself as the success of his plans and you never hear from any clients. TR invites top riders to the podcasts often, and this is where the real testimonials of these top riders can speak to what TR has done to help them become better athletes.

I always feel like TR tries to learn from the responses they get from their guests, actually listening to the reply instead of making assumptions. This is one of the other things TR does well at least in the podcasts I think Jonathan asks for users and listeners to tell what is missing or what they want to see improved or different at least 4 times for every episode.

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Do you think DJ makes a significant amount of his money selling plans/coaching? I always assumed he made money from clicks and sponsorships. I know he has plans he sells online, but I never thought that was his main source of income.

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What top riders? Keegan, Alex, Hannah, Sofia? They might use the TR platform to sync workouts from their coaches from TrainingPeaks to TR. The other pod they do, that is good to hear about users using TR and accomplishing their goals which I listen to as they come out.

As for DJ, I think he does pretty well selling plans and coaching.

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No idea how he makes his money. I would just really like to hear from his clients and see what they think especially if they have done both his plans and TR. I don’t get anything worked on at my house without 3 estimates, why should my training method be any different. Everytime I see his videos I can’t stop and think he was a CTS coach, and I know those workouts are successful I have used them myself. So I would also like to know did he actually develop his own plans or is he just selling CTS.

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He develops his own plans and has not been at CTS in quite awhile.

I think some (most, all?) coaches at CTS develop their own plans and use CTS as a platform to reach customers…Dylan realized they were taking a huge chunk of the money he generated and decided to put out his own shingle. Smart move.

As for testimonials, Dylan usually backs up his ideas / findings with studies and statistics, which IMO, far outweighs anecdotal evidence.

Neither Dylan’s or TR’s plan are revolutionary…both offer necessary structure in order to improve as an athlete. Is one “better” than another? There is no way to determine this…too many variables, including individual responses to training stimuli.

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Dylan sells his plans in the TrainingPeaks marketplace. He is a certified coach and doesn’t recycle plans/workouts from other programs really. TP sellers keep a keen eye on that sort of thing.

My past coach and I are friends and I was going to go back with her as she helped me get and stay a cat 2 on the road at the age of 41, but I was thinking of going with one of Dylan’s gravel or xc plans as that is my focus now and want to try something different.

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I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think of him as a Coach. I think of him as a media influencer and bike racer. I could be wrong, but it never occurred to me that coaching was where he makes most of his money these days. The TL;DR version is “I don’t see him as a competitor to TR”. I just went to his YouTube page and the first 5 videos I see are:

  • Is cycling running your testosterone and what can you do about it - the science
  • Is there an optimal cadence - the science
  • Make this your best year ever. How to plan your season.
  • My 2020 gravel race bike setup
  • Most of your training should be easy - Polarized Training with Dr. Stephen Seiler.

I just feel like you’re comparing apple to oranges. Again, maybe I’m just blind.

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This is not accurate.
I have not watched that many of his Youtube videos, but within the few I have watched. He has had long form interviews with people like Dr. Seiler and the the owner(?) of Silca.

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The media thing, I get it, but you should absolutely be focusing as much time as available to Youtube or IG as a way to sell training plans. Plus I genuinely think he just enjoys it - sharing his knowledge and such. They’re interesting to watch.

To drum up training plan sales or get more clients, you should be marketing yourself. He’s probably at the point where he is turning away clients or has assistant coaches under his umbrella who work with others.

Let’s say he has 30 clients and charges 200/month and then makes 2-3K a month in training plan sales. Not bad.

You’re exactly right!
Charges 210$/mo. Fully booked but can get you in touch with coaches working for him.
https://www.dylanjohnsontraining.com/plans-pricing

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Plus the sponsorship $, youtube and IG revenue. Pretty good.

The other plus is, he can sell plans and you can even use TR to execute the workouts when inside.

I’m not a coached athlete of his, but have purchased a couple of his training plans. I am currently using his base training with weight lifting plan.

I used to use TR, then got a CTS coach for two years. I’d say his plans are structured fairly similar to my old CTS coach. My experience with the coach helps me to adjust the plans as needed.

The last two seasons I’ve done a hybrid of his plans, my own planning and I occasionally do phone consults with a coach to review my plan.

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Surprisingly true. Having had a couple of different coaches and having also used some stock plans, I see lots of similarities in the plans I have gotten. I really think I could get a decent training plan from lots of different sources, including TR*

Where coaches really help is being objective in terms of scheduling recovery and also helping you work on weaknesses and poor habits (like poor fuelling on the bike).

*I am not at all a fan of the TR HV plans which I think are the result of trying to sell high volume training within the constraint of indoor riding. But I think I would have done well on LV/MV with added volume (not added intensity).

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Agree. And I especially when I have a workout that’s meant as an easy or recovery day I get instructions like “don’t let me see your HR go above XXX” or “power should never go above XXX”

I’ve think I’ve learned enough from my current coach about proper rest and recovery and their importance that I could apply those concepts if I self coach. I’ll eventually probably go back to using TR LV or MID Volume plans. But realize it’s okay to skip or workout or do an easier workout. Years ago I’d think I’d need to always suffer

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Most YouTube videos make about 50 cents per 1000 ad views. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Considering he puts out a video every 2-4 weeks I don’t think he is making very much money off YouTube. Maybe companies are paying him for product placement but unless you have millions of followers there’s not much money out there, especially for a fringe sport.

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Awesome result! really shows the benefits of consistancy!! can you share a screenshot showing training stress + FTP Progression? :slight_smile:

(understand if not)

People always “recycle”, because he bases his training off of the same basic principles. He’s in the polarized camp, which is perfectly fine, but it is a well-treaded path, too.

That’s not a dig, but IMHO coach ≠ workout selector and successful training plans aim to do similar things. Keeping an athlete motivated and consistent is in my mind a lot more important than what preference for your intensity distribution you have. Coaches also understand things like having to take care of the kids on the weekends, and the kind of constraints and limitations this places on their athlete’s training.

I don’t think he makes much money off of Youtube, in the grand scheme of things, he is a small Youtuber. I think his motivation is to use that as education and marketing material for his coaching business.

Again, this might come across as dismissive, I don’t mean to. This is entirely legitimate and he attempts to make his Youtube videos informative and fun. And he is in good company: TrainerRoad and FasCat Cycling do the same. (I listen to the latter regularly and watch Johnson’s Youtube content occasionally.)

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Exactly.

But…better race results though.

With these goofy new YouTube thumbnails TR’s been using I imagine we’ll get a version of backwards hat Jonathan real soon :blush:

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Is this what you were wanting?

I really like admill’s suggestion. I do multiple sports and even the low volume plans hard to use when I add in strength training, skiing, trail running or mountain biking.

I don’t think the issues with trainerroad plans are just a labelling/misunderstanding. They just have too few plans that are appropriate intensity for most athletes.

I think for a subset of people-like highly trained athletes who can ride at 85% FTP for hours on end or people with very time restrictive schedules, sweet spot training is a nice time efficient intensity level to be at. However, for many of us, sweet spot is too high intensity-either due to formula overestimating FTP or that sweet spot in general is just too close to FTP to be easy/repeatable for that particular athlete. Most coaches and sports scientists I read or listen to generally recommend no more than 2-3 hard workouts/week which means you need to add lower zone workouts if you want to train more than a couple hours/week. This gets even harder when adding strength training.

It would be great to have plans that supplement low volume sweet spot or threshold/vo2 with endurance or tempo rides for those who are not severely time constrained. I know you can add workouts later, but this requires a fair amount of editing and you end up losing that sense of being “coached” and once I start microediting myself the plan starts to fall apart.

I love the trainerroad platform and podcast. The polarized plans are a nice addition. It would nice to have more plans that combine manageable sweet spot/high intensity with endurance rides.