I want to start with the caveat that I didn’t watch the video and didn’t read all these posts. But as a triathlete I have thought for a while there were too many intense sessions per week in the TR plans. There is scientific evidence and anedotal evidence that people can continuously handle and improve with two or three high intensity sessions per week. You need a day in between these sessions because tendons and ligaments are weakest 24 hours after high intensity so doing high intensity two days in a row tends to lead to injury.
You CAN do high intensity day after day. But eventually your nervous system and endocrine system will get too stressed to be able to recover and super compensate. There was a study in runners where they did four high intensity sessions a week and they did improve but after only 4 weeks they started to breakdown.
Since this limitation is due to endocrine and nervous system stress, it carries over to different activities. For instance, heavy weight lifting or lifting for power is very stressful for the nervous and endocrine system. Doing that twice a week and trying to do two high intensity interval bike rides a week will eventually cause burn out or injury.
This makes triathlon training very difficult. The Science of Triathlon recommends one high intensity bike, one high intensity run, and one high intensity swim per week. That’s already three HI workouts per week. You can’t do more without eventually breaking down and long term consistent training is what you want.
The kicker here is what is considered a high intensity work out. There’s a high degree of agreement that threshold, VO2 max intervals and heavy weight lifting or power lifting are very stressful. But there isn’t agreement on what sweet spot is. Stephen Seiler did an experiment to try to figure this out based on heart rate variability. I’m not convinced heart rate variability is the best measure but he found that any workout over the first aerobic threshold (perhaps a heart rate of 120 or 130) increases the time it takes heart rate variability to recover and is therefore stressful.
So putting aside labels like polarized, pyramidal, etc. The fundamentals to building a training plan for long term improvement would be that you can do 2 or 3 workouts a week above the first aerobic threshold and the rest of your workouts – regardless of how many hours or how many sessions you do per week – would be in zone 1 or 2.
So if sweet spot workouts are stressful to the endocrine and nervous system (which is still a big if) then TrainerRoad workouts contain too many high intensity sessions per week.
I was excited to have the TR podcast hosts do a triathlon because I wanted to see if they would be able to tolerate their own plans over months. I was betting they would get injured and/or burned out.
Im just trying to keep this simple. We all know how deep into the weeds it can get when we are talking about training and nutrition.
It is the 20 minute test. And I say that because THAT is where it all started. THEE 20 MINUTE test was the one everyone was talking about. The standard. Trainer roads philosophy came from a lot of Hunter Allens as far as the 20 minute aspect of it. Allen also was an advocate of the 95% of a 2 minute test.
So, what Im only saying here was back when TR started, one simple thing that could have made a significant change in the wave we rode as aspiring cycling athletes is to have a mindset that was a little different than stating your FTP is 95% of a 20 minute hard effort test.
This metric change alone has the potential to change the trajectory of all conversations that are about training.
And what you’re saying about the RAMP test is the exact same thing Im saying about the 20 minute test.
No matter what test we use, simply lowering the percentage to a more realistic number for MOST athletes would again, change the trajectory of training in general.
Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but some folks do seem to be hyper-sensitive to criticism—certainly more so than anyone officially affiliated with TR.
Words of wisdom 
. Still not being heeded 300+ posts later though 
.
Yep you would have thought its in everyone’s interest for the product to improve. Yet some fight tooth-and-nail to say it’s already as good as it can be.
Why is watched in quotes?
Typical distribution with any contentious issue… far right, far left (who are the most vocal) but most fall somewhere in the middle.
Like most thing in life, the truth is somewhere between the middle.
This whole thing was my first exposure to Dylan. It really shows his immaturity and lack of respect for science.
His immaturity because he sells his own plans. But instead of promoting those and building around it, he attacks competitors (I don’t like Zwift but he attacked them as well). He also specifically hones in on the high and mid volume plans but ignores what they say for low volume. He doesn’t touch on build or specialty.
He grabbed some science papers with the intention of backing up his claims and pulling things out of their context to do so.
TR is far from perfect because nothing is and can be improved. However, if he actually wanted to improve it and not drive away TR customers, then his video would have been much longer to actually go into depth.
he is not wrong, i stopped tr workout and only did recovery + some classic (3*8 is my fav) workouts and i had my best form ever last year.
He sells his own plans. Call me a cynic but he did this to sell his own plans and get subscribers to his YouTube channel.
Great post and my sentiments exactly.
It does seem like a lot of users have taken the criticism extremely personally 
Unfortunately he has to deal with his audiences’ attention span…
“On an average day when we were drafting this post, we found that in the top ten most popular YouTube videos , the shortest was 42 seconds, and the longest was 9 minutes and 15 seconds. The average video length was 4 minutes and 20 seconds.”
That’s not my problem. Your comment detracts from my main point.
This is correct.
I did the Tri build last year and it was spot on! perfect IMO!
Good point. One of the frustrations I have with TR is that there is so much good information on how we as individuals can best use their plans buried within multitudes of 2+ hour podcasts filled with “deep dives” that many of their subscribers simply cannot access due to the time commitment required. Putting together an instructional video and/or informational text that skips the deep dives and gets straight to the point of how to best use and modify their plans for the best individual result would be a huge improvement to their product in my humble opinion.
Edit: How many times have we heard Coach Chad preach “minimal effective dose” on those 2+ hour podcasts? I can’t help but wonder, if that was plastered all over the TR website and across the app, would TR be receiving the level of criticism it currently is?
I look forward to seeing some data on that.
Likewise with TR replacing longer endurance rides with shorter SS sessions (and overall shorter intervals) because people need to be entertained.
wow… I read to the bottom, click reply and another 3 posts appear. I posted this on the Facebook and got a few likes, I will copy here in the hope that trainer road folks read it:
My qualifications are sports science degree and some coaching qualifications.
TrainerRoad is good and will work in the context of your lifestyle. The methodology is nothing magical and when you sit back. It fits into a typical 4 week periodisation load/recovery, test, repeat.
A lot of people in 2020 found a lot of time on their hands just went high volume and burned out. That’s not TR’s fault but a lot of people wanted to use the time effectively. If you’ve raced and finished in the top 10 of anything you will get things wrong, do to much, not enough
The issue I think is that the ramp test whilst accurate is probably 10% off and unless you really really commit to it. You might not get what you need from the workout. You need your fans pushing you on to the end and really really have to bury yourself to the bitter end
Or
Maybe you’re strong enough for 20 minutes or so you get a higher ftp than you deserve and over train. which is where I think a lot of us are, we are coming out with an ftp of 350 and the workouts are just to much for you and you over train.
Personally, my feedback
If there was an option to put in lactate thresholds from bloods or alternative testing to set the ftp. E.g. alternate the ramp with the hour test or put in longer tests for seasoned athletes. to have a weight or an adjustment to finer tune to the FTP or the workout. Maybe your FTP is not proportionate to your LT or AT. Maybe your trainer is a little rubbish and you can game the system?
It would also benefit from a “how are you feeling” was “it achievable”. To many negatives and it might scale you back.
It totally beats the couch every time and gives you structure and the plan builder allows you to shape your schedule around your life. Sit back with your partner and ask does this work for us. She/He might say “Look honey, I want you on Fridays and the Sunday I want family time” you can work it all around that…
Fundamentally It’s a structured workout programme based on a performance test. Most people will improve with structure.
The Future is the TrainAsOne running app changes the programme as you complete workouts. Every workout you completes affects your next one.
To much tss and you end up with a 20 minute easy jog. Ignore that workout you just get shorter and shorter workouts until you take a rest and the clever stuff re-inputs proper workouts.
We need a solid trainer environment with great feedback on workout adherence and measurable outcomes of the sessions and then some logic to change the next session dynamically. We all disable this option on our Garmins but why aren’t we listening to the feedback of “your doing to much”.
For most of us this is supposed to be fun. You might grimace at the time but come away having achieved something. not thinking… I really don’t want to do this.
Having someone on tap to coach will yield mega results even if you have an average one you will improve. But most of the coaches I approach cost per month what TR costs per year and so for me and my back of the pack lifestyle TR value for money, structure and flexibility!