Sweetspot ≠ Threshold
Most of the TR Sweetspot workouts aren’t particularly challenging if you have respectable muscular endurance.
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The Sunday sweetspot ride is probably my favorite of the week. It usually feels so easy after the threshold ride.
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Because no pro cyclist follows a polarised training plan…according to the CEO:
:
So then the base plans as they are generated and prescribed by the company are NOT POL/PYR.
They only become as such if the consumer alters the product.
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Typical 6 zone model puts threshold from 91-105% ftp. TR’s sst zone is 88-94% so it’s top tempo/low threshold. Working in mid Z3 every day is bad enough but z4 is crazy
Sounds like you weren’t ready for HV. A plan TR note is for very very few people.
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I think something that everyone needs to realize is that science is hard, especially hard in exercise sport science, and nutrition. First, it’s just tough to test any variable accurately (maybe impossible), and second, you have everyone on the internet giving their anecdote, with the addition of people trying to make a profit from that scientific work. Basically, the science to public pipeline in ESS and nutrition is a cluster fuck.
That being said I listen to both Dylan and Coach Chad because they both do a great job communicating what evidence is out there. But they are both trying to sell a product. And when your product is trying to serve a larger group the harder it is going to make everyone happy. Don’t know much about Dylan’s personal coaching but there is no way that he has a tenth or 1% of the clientele of TR.
So I believe that TR has a very difficult task to take the scientific evidence and package it up so it works for most people. And personally, I think this is where they need to up their game (and maybe they are working on this). But the future is going to be more algorithm-based personalized training where TR and other programs can work with gramin or whoop and can sell a “personalized” training plan but automate it.
Signed up for the HV plan and feeling burnt out? Well new tech will tell you before that happens and prescribe more Z1 work for you etc. I love TR but if they want to get on the future band wagon they shouldn’t be hitching their post to SS and offer more diversity which will allow them to be a more complete brand in the future.
Just my two cents for this cluster of a thread. 
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No, but my original point was that in almost every podcast they tell people to follow the low plans and add endurance. So it’s like they are telling people to train polarised/pyramidal but don’t actually have a dedicated plan for that type of training.
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I absolutely dread Z2 indoor riding. Getting through Petit every wednesday is hard enough, recovery week rides are an absolute pain. Sometimes the amount of intensity feels a bit much, but I don’t feel burned out following the mid-volume plans. TrainerRoad and Sufferfest plans may not be the optimal plans overall but for me, they are the optimal plans that I follow consistently.
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Basically, the science to public pipeline in general is a cluster fuck. 
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As I have pointed out on this forum many times in the past, the problem (if you believe there is a problem) is even worse than Dylan supposes. The implicit basis of his video is that TR users are performing the prescribed workouts BASED ON THEIR FTP. For a substantial number of TR users, TR is overestimating FTP. In fact…I suspect & have posted data that suggests…a significant number of TR users are training using an FTP number that is overestimated enough to make many sweetspot workouts actually VO2max workouts.
So if you thought high volume sweet spot base was too much with an ACCURATE FTP…trying doing it with an overestimated FTP…
But I’m still gonna be a TR user. 
Probably forever.
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And if I don’t listen to the podcast…???
Selling a product and then expecting the consumer to use another one of your products (at the cost of time…when said consumer is already time-crunched!) in order for the initial product to be most effective is…disingenuous at best.
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Then read the blog posts. You can lead a horse to water…
I agree. It’s also odd that this is their recommendation but in the same breath they slate at least one of these training methods.
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Haha, I am a scientist, and probably no one outside academia reads my work. I would be mortified if someone on YouTube or a podcast was taking a single sentence or a single p-value I said and using it for evidence.
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I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the TR workouts/plans? But as I said, the majority of the workouts in the plan you mention actually aren’t very challenging, it wouldn’t be sufficient stimulus for me in terms of TiZ, but perhaps from a block periodisation/density point of view it might work. Perhaps I’m an outlier??
Haha yes. it’s so awful. My former boss did research in micro plastics in water and did a interview with a local TV station. They talked about a lot of stuff, but in the end they twisted a piece of a half sentence of his into the headline: “Professor wants to ban Christmas decoration” 
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Again, if I’m a time-crunched cyclists who doesn’t have time to read blog posts or forum posts because my life is too busy and that’s why I signed up for TR’s think-for-me 3 hours/wk plan…? If the consumer has to do extra work in order to make the product better…does that mean the original product is sold as inefficient?
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Why doesn’t TR publish aggregated, anonymised training statistics of users that show how efficient their plans really are?
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too bad not too busy to post…
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