That’s the dilemma for TR isn’t it? How to provide a training plan that works in the short turn and keeps customers seeing higher FTPs and getting faster. While in the mean time provide a long term training plan that continues seeing cyclist improve year over year. Well, I guess that’s where the podcast, article and forum come in to fill in those gaps and allow you to coach yourself.
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It is obvious from the progress on the app vs the relatively static nature of the plans where the company’s priorities lie – TR is a software company focused on developing and selling an app.
It’s a good app and the plans are certainly adequate to feed the app and work for a big swath of their market but lets be honest - TR is not really a coaching service striving to be progressive on that front.
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To be fair, TR, do actually promote a polarised/pyramidal approach if you use TiZ.
They definitely don’t promote POL.
And only slightly suggest PYR.
They also never use TiZ explicitly, it’s all about TSS.
Here’s a cursory zone breakdown of a general TR MV plan by session (SSB/GenBld/RollingRR):
Z2 = 36%
Z3 = 34%
Z4 = 17%
Z5 = 22%
I dunno what kind of distribution that is, but it’s a lot of intensity. It’s not that it’s only 5hrs/wk, but that it’s repeated sessions of intensity, it’s 5 days of intensity/week. I guess if you’re a 47 year-old with lots of family and life stress plus carry some extra weight and think, “Yeah, my heart [and CNS and endocrine system] can handle only 5hrs of training a week”, then go for it, let us know how you make out.
Most podcasts they say it’s best to do low volume and add in endurance.
Sooo…I need to pay for the TR service, use Plan Builder, and then listen to “most podcasts” in order to fill in all the gaps (not to mention spend time on the forum)? I guess it’s not quite the set-and-forget service as most hope. I lasted ~3 months before outgrowing TR plans, kudos to those who stick to them for years on end.
I will say that I do enjoy the main products of the TR suite – calendar and workout catalogue. They are both easy and fast enough for me to plan and move things around w/o having to create my own workouts. I’ve got grandfathered pricing so the value is still there for now. Both the plans and podcast (and blog posts) went by the wayside long ago.
:
The difference between a coach (DJ) and a company (TR) is the coach will use whatever training modality bests serves the athlete, they have no allegiance; a company whose business model is centred on a specific modality will do whatever it can to defend and promote that model, regardless of athlete.
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“Vanity project for Nate and Chad”. That’s interesting and I hadn’t thought of that before. @Nate_Pearson for sure. Chad? He doesn’t strike me as the type to give a sh*t…
Nate sure does love him some Nate though…
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No comment other than to say I wanted to see this quote repeated.
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Totally agree. Nearly clicked off when he introduced the 3 Zone model to base his arguments on.
If you’re going to trash a training plan use common language and compare apples with apples.
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“There’s no such thing as bad publicity”
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I don’t think this was really meant as a smear against TR, Dylan certainly made that clear and I think it was much more accurate and objective than what we saw from FFT a while ago.
We need things like this to shake stuff up and get improvements. I’m on my third year and not much has changed or improved here at all, plans are basically the same, there’s some new integration for outdoor but I keep hearing there’s some big thing in the works for like a year yet it’s never revealed.
All love and respect for the crew, I don’t plan on leaving, but I do wish they would tweak and improve the plans a bit because no matter what I choose now I have to make some tweaks to the plan. That said I’ve gained 60w and transformed my riding with TR so certainly not unhappy but also don’t want to be complacent and would still like to see them improve other things
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And $380 a month.
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He sells training plans too. That’s why it’s easy to distrust his objectivity and motivation for this video. A few weeks ago he was touting these on his channel. $50 a pop!! 
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I don’t think u understand bro
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Should we also not trust the TR podcast crew for objectivity because they also sell a product?
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They are not publicly trashing another platforms training plans. They overtly discuss and debate methodology. Imo there’s a difference.
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Aren’t CTL low volume training plans full of 4 days intensity? Asking for a friend
I thought it was strange he compared TR SS plans with 3 zone models. Maybe recent research studies only compare those???
From watching a lot of DJ videos I didn’t think he was in the polarized camp. I’ve watched his videos on getting fast with 5,10,15 hrs/week and I would guess the distribution was roughly pyramidal and based on a 5+ zone model.
I’m glad that DJ has analysed TR’s training plans. He is not the first to criticise TR’s training methology.
I don’t understand why TR doesn’t offer a polarised training plan. I’m not convinced that their collected training data is backing up their current sweet spot approach. as long as I don’t have access to an aggregated, anonymised analysis of this data.
To justify the price for a TR subscription, TR would have to offer the following features:
- As a user, I would like to be able to select training plans from different methologies to find out which methology suits me best.
- As a paying customer and data donor, I would like to be able to see aggregated, anonymised training statistics of all TR users. This would increase the credibility of the TR platform. And it would be fair to all users as they share their data with TR.
- (Off-topic) As a user, I would like to be able to select training plans with integrated strength and stretching exercises to increase the effectiveness of the training. Other cheaper platforms offer such plans.
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I’d sooner hear them talk with someone respected and who’s contributed to the research like Seiler…
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He titled the video “The Problem with TrainerRoad Plans” and the thumbnail says “Bad TrainerRoad Training Plans” with a big red X. Then a “look of disgust” with his expression. Aside from any legitimate claims he makes, let’s call a spade a spade. It’s a clickbate smear video.
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You seem very adamant on trashing someone who has made more objective points than you have in this entire thread. If you actually watched it, you’d realize he made valid criticism without resorting to the kind of attacks you have personally against him.
And as far as clickbait goes, it’s everywhere, even from the TR podcast which claims to discuss something but doesn’t really discuss it
If this thread was about the video he made a few years back about how Zwift plans are bad, everyone would be cheering “yes we know tr is better zwift is for amateurs”
Even a solid half of posters on this thread AGREE with his points, so if it took a little clickbait to get people to discuss the obvious problems we have maybe it’s worthwhile
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Someone should steer DJ towards Seiler’s recent tweets about all the Zone 2 workouts he’s been doing to see if his head will explode.
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