Has it been decided yet if TR plans (esp HV) have too much intensity or not? 
Excellent points. I’d also add that the discussion of polarized vs. sweet spot seems inadequate to capture entire training plans. If you have a race or you would like to become good at a particular thing, you eventually will have to practice just that. Dylan seems to be best at long-duration events, so a training plan that is good at lifting his 70-80 % power seems ideal — for him. If you look at TR’s crit race specialty plan, then the efforts mimic those in a crit race quite closely, and it’d make sense to me that these will make you a better crit racer than sticking to polarized training throughout. Or similarly, if you are on a 40k TT plan, they prepare you for the gruesome task of spending about 1 hour at FTP. That’s a huge mental challenge, no matter what your FTP is.
So the success of e. g. the specialty phase is not captured by measuring your FTP. Again, I’m not saying TR’s plans are “ideal” or “optimal”, you should always adapt them to yourself whenever necessary. Just that how you measure success of a particular training plan can influence the verdict of whether or not you are doing well in races or the efforts you want to be good at.
I am looking forward to tomorrow’s podcast to learn how Coach Chad and Coach @ambermalika think about that. Perhaps @ambermalika can share how she trained when she was a pro, how that compares with TR’s approach, polarized training and pyramidal training. And whether with hindsight she’d change something.
Oh yes, same here, recovery weeks indoors are ugh. Last weekend it was really nice for the first time since November, and I did a recovery ride outside. It was amazing, because I knew I had done my work and could just cruise along the coastline. Having to do mostly Z1/Z2 rides indoors would be much harder mentally.
I reckon that doing only 80:20 year-around would likely wear me out mentally really quickly. I’d still like to see TR offer a polarized training option (perhaps in the guise of an updated traditional base plan).
And it’d be nice if we could give Plan Builder more input to adapt training plans. For example, you could tell Plan Builder that one of your weaknesses is endurance, because you can only hang 2 out of 3 laps with the first group on a rolling road race. Or that I’d like to work on my sprints a bit more, because they are a limiter of mine. That being said, I think it’d be nice if TR found a way to customize your training plans more. I’m sure they are working on that, because that’s a really hard problem.
PS I enjoyed your video on the topic.
I agree with this, easy to read a study, different skill set / experience required to critically review.
Exercise and nutrition research seems to be hot garbage given the difficulty and cost $$$ of doing good research. On top of that, how well versed is Dylan in reading, and more importantly, in understanding and critiquing the literature he’s reading? I’m curious what his stats background is? Does he have any formal education in stats or professional research experience? Does he know what confidence intervals are? p values? If you haphazardly google studies to support your priors you can find plenty of papers to support anything.
I’d be very suspicious of anyone trying to debunk someone else’s views using “science” without actually having a background in said science. Maybe he does though? The video just came across fairly elementary to me, which I guess could be on purpose given his audience?
Doing a mid-vol SSB on 2nd year with TR is likely too much too soon, unless you come in with extensive endurance background. Like you, I also found it unmanageable. So dialed down one of the hard rides.
Now, some 4 years on TR (never stopped). Mid-volume SSB is routinely doable, on top of ~ 50+ km running and occasional swimming per week in the mix.
As the TR crew say all the time… start from the plan, listen to the body, and make minor adjustments as you go.
Fair point! My general feeling is that research is not advanced enough in this space to inform your training (I could be wrong about this. Please tel me if I am). So in TR’s case, I don’t care what the science says. I care what the general consensus is amongst the best coaches and best pros.
For a more extreme example, take bodybuilding. I used to lift obsessively and boy oh boy the scientific literature on bodybuilding is crap. If you had a choice between learning from all the research in the world or the ten best bodybuilders in the world, you choose the bodybuilders with real world experience every time. Is their advice gonna be perfect? No way, but it’ll be a good starting point for me to play around with.
Now if we wanted to know which car battery is best, I’d go to consumer reports and not the top local mechanic even given the mechanic’s decades of experience with failed batteries. Edit: and why would I do this! Because conducting research on car battery performance is easy
I guess in the end, the evidence feels too shallow and the discussion feels too nuanced to even have a strong opinion on.
Edit: sometimes I feel like Chad’s attempt to back up his opinions with science are silly given how flimsy the science is. But to be fair he does often note that there “is only 1 paper on this topic.” I guess I just prefer to hear what he and ambers anecdotal take on the matter is rather than a sillly paper with an n=10
An interesting philosophy. My personal view is that there is a lot of information to be gained from the research in endurance exercise. That said, we shouldn’t expect research to hand us a “perfect” training on a silver platter. Rather, the research can be used to support a particular practice, and we should always be measuring and evaluating the outcomes as applied to ourselves.
Good points 
I hear what you are saying. My power drops off after the interval but it is obvious it takes a bit of time for the body to get caught up and is still in “sweet spot mode” for sometime after the interval – especially as the bout drags on. I took on SSBMV last year and it’s effect on my body was noticeably greater than TBMV, but I believe nutrition tactics played a huge role in that. I suppose there is a fairly rigorous and standard way to categorize a workout, by IF range?
I see where you’re coming from. Serious question: why don’t those with complaints about the intensity of the plans just delete 1 sweet spot workout per week and replace it with a zone 2 ride? Or why not just lower ftp by an extra 5%?
It seems like people want trainerroad to provide the perfect program that neither under trains nor over trains, but at the moment that seems impossible. So why not just make small tweaks to fit your physiology? It seems so straightforward to me but maybe it’s not? Or maybe the people complaining don’t use TR anymore and they instead just have an axe to grind?
I think this take is very sensible.
There is also another way in which these studies are useful, namely the ideas and principles that lie at the foundation of each approach. Polarized training works in a 3-zone model where the zones are delineated by the two lactate thresholds. The idea seems to be that what matters for your training is where your effort is relative to the two lactate thresholds. Implicit in this is a mechanism, that helps you inform your training. The aim of polarized training seems to be to raise both lactate thresholds by staying just below LT1 and crossing LT2. Training in between LT1 and LT2 is too hard for your body to raise LT1 and not hard enough to raise LT2.
Sweet spot training works within a 7-zone model, which is based on energy systems/demand types in addition to lactate thresholds and the ventilatory threshold. The idea that is explained in the podcast is that exercise in a specific zone stresses your energy systems in a particular way, and that training in a particular zone makes you more efficient in that zone. But you need to offset that with diminished ability to spend time in zones the higher the zone gets.
Of course, these are my interpretations of what seems to be the idea (as a non-expert!). But still, I think it is scientifically interesting and relevant to the discussion that both approaches are based on different paradigms, which to me imply that different physiological processes are deemed important.
Superb post.
This thread feels like a percentage of the TrainerRoad community voicing legitimate concerns related to too many hard days in a certain training period.
It suits some, but is too much intensity for others.
Obviously, many customers love TrainerRoad and have had fantastic results on the platform. These people are defending what they see as an attack on something they care about. It is perfectly normal human behavior. I guess one would call it, tribal.
Sadly, it usually ends in bickering and insults, as it has done here, to a small degree.
An open and calm discussion on the subject really does benefit all of us. There’s a lot we could all learn here.
Takeaways so far, this is just how I’m seeing it… I could be WAY off.
TrainerRoad needs to do
- Add custom masters and veterans plans, kinda urgently.
- Be dramatically clearer to customers on why a Z2 endurance day is ABSOLUTELY NOT a compromise, but a necessary change a user should make, if they are feeling even remotely burned out. It needs to be very clear. If it supposedly is already, make it clearer.
- Be more open to adding additional training philosophies, or at least interventions. There is an incredible abundance of evidence demonstrating better or at least equal results from other training distributions. For them to continue to refute this evidence and not at least offer their customers some alternative options, would be stunning, given the response here.
What TrainerRoad doesn’t need to do
1 to 1,000. Everything else, they are killing it.
So, they are doing 1000 things right and there’s, maybe 3 issues that need to be addressed, based on just this thread. Seems like an easy fix then.
I have also noticed that a small percentage of TrainerRoad users are legitimate fans. I personally would categorize myself as a big fan. However, regardless of how much we love something, that does not mean it is not immune from faults.
One could use me as a perfect example.
I cannot use TrainerRoads plans as they are not specific enough for me. I know my phenotype, I am 100% a fast twitch athlete. An actual sprinter. Sweetspot and threshold workouts are terrible for me, they crush me and very rapidly burn me out.
I listened to Caleb Ewan’s (World Tour sprinter) coach explain how he had incorrectly trained him, using too much SS and threshold. He’d since switched him to a far more polarized approach and Caleb has gone onto incredible results. Funnily enough, so have I.
My point. TrainerRoad do not offer an actual fast twitch sprinters plan. Why? Because it’s likely a very small percentage of the market and an incredibly boring way to train indoors. Vast volumes of Z2 with very little intensity. Only ramping up intensity very near an event. Boring as hell, but incredibly effective. However, I doubt a single human would comply with it indoors.
Does that make TrainerRoad’s plans bad? Well for me, yes. For most endurance athletes. No.
Unfortunately, beginning athletes have no idea of their phenotype. Hence, they could be training in a far from optimal manner for them.
Actually, I’ll add one more point for TrainerRoad to work on.
4. Add in some phenotype testing for new athletes after their first training block is complete. This is kind of what Sufferfest do with their 4DP test. Once you’ve got some training under the belt a short test session would greatly inform TrainerRoad on how to best train the athlete in front of them. Because, it’s absolutely certain, you cannot train a sprinter like a TTer.
Sorry, rant over 
Do TR plans contain too much intensity? Answer is (kind of) simple – yes.
Training is composed of two parts: time and intensity.
Time, aka volume, is still the dominant factor, almost all people respond to an increase in volume (and I think some people would be shocked by just how much volume they could actually handle). Intensity, while very important, will always be the Poulidor in endurance training.
If volume is reduced to as minimal a quantity as possible, all that’s left is intensity. And not everyone responds well to intensity. As I think @TheBandit said, TR is endurance training without the endurance part.
Right out of the box, not only is there too much intensity, but there’s too much of the “inferior” training factor.
Exercise on two wheels is great, but I think time-poor TR users need to be realistic about what they can achieve with only one wheel — intensity.
There will always be more than one way to train. They all have their merits. I have tried different ones but have found TR to work for me. I see no reason to change & I’m sure TR will only get better and better in the coming months/years. ‘If it isn’t broke…"
100% agreed. 
Did you just pose a question then wait 5hrs and answer it yourself (with no evidence just your personal opinion and conjecture)?
Wow.
I had no idea David Brent cycled.
Since I see a little discussion here about, people throwing around scientific studies, and (for some reason) I want to add my mustard as well.
I think there is three main aspects to keep in mind for understanding scientific literature:
- knowledge of the subject: you have to have at least some understanding of the basis of the study. (Say physiology/metabolism in the case of most exercise studies), otherwise it’s very easy to misunderstand a study.
- similar to first point: Language: Science kinda uses it’s own language. Many terms and expressions have a very specific meaning, that is often different to their meaning in every day language. (one example would be “significant”. In the general populous it’s often significant = big, but it is a specific term in statistics, that has nothing to do with the general meaning. I’ve even seen Coach Chad make that mistake on the podcast)
- and the most important one in my opinion: Context. No scientific research paper exists by itself. It is always in the context of the whole body of research. This is why Research papers reference dozens of other papers. Too understand the context of one paper, you kind of have to read all of the research papers in a given (sub)field. And I mean all of them. If you submit your own research for publication, one of the comments you almost always get from the reviewers is: “oh I see you didn’t reference paper X, why is that?”.
And this is where almost all of the people here (including me, obviously lol) would disqualify themselves from properly understanding one given research paper. Unless it’s your job, I doubt you spend the time digging through all of the literature. Plus most people probably don’t even have access to most scientific papers. Not everything is on PubMed. Most research is (sadly) still hidden behind a rather large paywall.
My advise for people who want to dig into the science of exercise (or whatever field floats your boat. Lots of cool Science out there
). By all means do so. Just try to find experts in the field, who spend the time, trying to communicate the science to the public. And do it with a bit of humility. 
Actually, not true.
Not consistently, for sure, but I’m on their 18w SS plan and next week has the following (bearing in mind that i don’t do Mon-Sun weeks, but still, it’s 5 days in a 7d period):
- 2.5h of freestyle SS
- rest
- 2x10 threshold
- 3x10 SS w/ bursts
- 3x8 SS
- rest
- group ride w/ SS
Edit: I forgot to mention: I’m on a basic plan, the lowest volume possible.
And, having looked through my calendar, that week is the hardest week of the year, to put it in context.