Don’t be obtuse. Obviously I was referring to cycling performance.
The thing is, Nate is a very fast cyclist. He has had enviable improvements in his FTP and quickly moved up the cycling ranks to a Cat. 2. But, any high level athlete walks along the razors edge with their training - too much and they get injured/sick, not enough and they don’t reach their potential. Nate seems to be pretty competitive so it is not likely a surprise that he leans toward the train too much camp.
No we don’t.
Yes but remember, no serious company would justify this with a response.
I’m a Nate fan, but “very fast”? At the end of the day nearly every one of us here are bald men fighting over a comb.
They know you are 4+ W/kg so it is a fairly easy assumption to make that you are already well trained.
Bruce
I’ll bet the Dylan Johnson forum is blowing up as well. …oh…wait…
A very fair and well presented view. I have been using TR for around 5 years. IMHO TR is the best platform out there and has been for some time. For the first couple of years i had great success with the workouts until halfway through the build phase- at which point the wheels would come off and I had to back right off. I learned from this and adjusted my workouts accordingly. However, because the plans are presented in such a positive, achievable way it’s hard not to feel like a failure when you crash and burn. As a now 59 year old i have put my failures down to age related decline but its good to know that younger peeps also find these plans tough. On a personal note, it would be really great to see some age related adjustment/guidance to plans and recommendations on changes we should consider regarding intensity and frequency to allow us oldies to make the best of our time on and off the bike.
His video has 1100 posts at the moment… so that is whatever it is…
And our thread is short of that… so that is whatever it is…
I’m cool with the plans and the platform since it isn’t gimmicky. Any plan is better than being on the couch and quite frankly if you’re grandfathered into a low TR price than this is the best value around.
My only criticism of the video is that it’s comparing the TR plans against a 3 zone model. Coach Chad and Nate have repeatedly stated that they are following Dr. Coggan’s 5 zone model. This video isn’t really about TR, it’s comparing Dr. Coggan’s philosophy against Dr. Seiler’s philosophy. All TR did was pick a side and roll with it.
I give TR a lot of credit for sticking to their guns. That being said, it can’t be that hard to reshuffle the deck and provide a polarized approach for those that are interested. I can definitely envision a future where TR will offer a “pick your poison” approach and offer SS alongside polarized.
Here’s my wish list:
- I agree that SSB is a bit grueling. TR should stick to 3-on 1-off
- More variety on rest days. I’ve had enough of Petit on Wednesday
- Include Strength training suggestions that progress with the plan. Pin it to the strength recommendations that TR has already posted. Help us be better humans.
Thank you, I have spoken.
Read the plan notes, it’s noted in pretty much every week.
Maybe… but I imagine there are plenty of more talented individuals who would be similar but not well-trained in which case the assumption would be false… and you also don’t know if well-trained is from cycling or another sport, in which case you might expect future improvements to follow different trends. I.e someone who is well-trained but not in cycling would probably develop more initial gains than someone who is well-trained in cycling because of specific fitness
TR collects a lot more than their own plan data, no?
All my strava/garmin cycling activities import to TR. That means if I take the summer and do way more outside easy riding while while sprinkling in TR supra-threshold workouts they can still see all the time in zone data on that and my (theoretical) increases/decreases in FTP.
I’m sure plenty of people create their own plans that are more or less polarized than TR’s baseline either accidentally or intentionally, and there’s probably a huge subset that choose a low volume plan and supplement with easy outside z2 rides and maybe a hard weekend race/group ride and it ends up being remarkably polarized. They’ll see all that data and be able to see trends…etc if they know how to process it correctly.
What, are you suggesting users should actually read the instructions?!!
I know, that’s a crazy thing to ask men to do.
“Bulls make money , bears make money , pigs get slaughtered”
I’d just like to throw a little shout out to @Nate_Pearson and @chad and the rest of the TR leadership for showing admirable restraint in freely allowing people to congregate in their yard (this forum) to take a shit on their house (their product) without shutting it down.
I don’t know if I’d be able to show similar restraint. There is debate. And there is abject disrespectful behavior.
I like it here and am appreciative of the hosts who allow us to freely trade ideas and insights.
Good luck🤘
Yup, I guess so. All that does is distort the analysis of the stand-alone TR plans thus making all that “big data” kinda useless.
This is one of the top synthesis of what’s playing out (and there are a lot of other great replies on here, too). I’ve begun reaching similar conclusions but you’ve articulated it so well.
I’ve lived both sides of the market ‘profiles’ you described: “I want fast results!” vs now “I want the best results.” The irony is that I had way more time in the early young days when I wanted fast results, and now I have less time in my older and wiser incarnation that’s looking for the long term results.
My first season I reaped the benefits from Sweet Spot and high-intensity to jump from 156W => 305W. Maybe I am a fast responder (would love to see TR release response slopes for Average Joe/Janes), but the following seasons I plateau’d and even started regressing below 300W. For my personal scenario, I hit a wall with progressively overloading on SS. I also think you are bang on with adequate sleep/nutrition also being the cause, as each season brings different external life circumstances.
But I love cycling and I have faith that this is my forever-sport. I realize I am no longer in the camp that wants to spend 20% of my time to reach 80% of my peak fitness. But it took me a really long time to realize this. Looking back, I also realize SS is one of the most efficient paths to get fast results, especially for those without an accommodating schedule. But I also learned that: quick to gain, quick to lose… and I’m looking for long lasting fitness that can be sustainably maintained.
(unrelated to your excellent response) In regards to Dylan’s video, my takeaway was that his main beef had to do with building in more recovery if one is to pursue SS, specifically some of TR’s higher volume plans. This was the wall I hit with SS myself, and I found it increasingly harder to keep on progressively overloading on SS. I followed the podcast and listened to my body about taking adequate recovery, but at some point a key constraint became finding the optimal balance between training frequency/intensity and recovery. So now I’m looking to pursue the long-game. I’d be really happy to get back to where I was, and make +4W gains each season.
Simply put, I’ve moved on to a different demographics camp… but I will never forgot the benefits of SS and eventually might find myself coming back to it after my next journey is complete.
TR would get most of its users’ Strava files too. There are a lot of TR subscribers who don’t religiously follow TR plans.