If you say so. Though I likely have missed about 60% of the thread. The tons of likes I have received for some of the posts would make me believe that some users found value or at least agreed with what I had said. A pity it wasn’t you.
He starts the video (1:28) with “I don’t want to steal business from TrainerRoad”. Oh and he linked to his plans, his merch, and also all his affiliate links including a promo code in the description. That’s as disingenuous as it gets.
You questioned my contribution and I highlighted it for you and now you try to ridicule me for it?
Do you have anything to contribute to the statement you challenged me to? Can you see how this could have pushed his business? Or can you see why people blame him for it (see screenshot)?
You mean those affiliate links he has in every single video description? No I don’t see how that’s an attempt to steal TR business or any business specifically
Pretty poor to ignore 90% of my comment while trying to reframe the rest. Ditto for trying to make me look like I said something that I did not. For the record, I didn’t say he was trying to steal business from TR. I said that he benefits from the publicity and that I would argue it was desired.
Anyway, DJ reviewing other training platforms while pointing to his coaching business, advertising his plans, advertising his merch, and also his paid sponsorships is disingenuous.
One could even argue that a disclosure statement might be required as per FTC legislation. Though I am not specialized in US law. In Europe he would be requested to disclose it.
Regardless of the legal aspects. It’s understandable that people took offense by him doing so. However, happy to disagree with you on that point.
Not sure why people take offence to DJ’s vid, it’s soft core compared to the vastly more insidious and destructive profit-tactics utilised for decades by much larger and well-loved corporations. Hope y’all weren’t expecting the cycling biz to be any different just because it’s bikes.
To be fair, if someone lobbed mild criticism at one of my wife’s favorite Barre 3 instructors on a public forum, the howls of outrage from their partisans would make this thread look tame. Fitness is a cult for some people.
Erm I don’t think that is necessarily true. I may be splitting hairs here, but I would say that what they were was saying was that increasing intensity is an acceptable substitute for greater volume, especially when greater volume is off the table due to time constraints.
I don’t think that is exactly the same as ‘favoring’ intensity over volume.
I don’t think that’s the case. TrainerRoad only acknowledges the reality of most of their users. Most are lucky to get away with 5-10 hours per week on a continuous basis. Many less.
“The right balance of Endurance training depends on your training phase, available training time, and specific goals. Because Zone 2 is not as immediately productive as higher intensities, low-volume athletes should prioritize training at more productive workloads that can bring the same adaptations in less time. (…) Traditional Zone 2 training assumes you have almost unlimited time to ride at a slow pace. Whereas Sweet Spot Base assumes you have a limited schedule like most non-professional cyclists, which compensates for the lack of duration with an increase in intensity.”
For those not so time crunched, they have traditional base plans which consist predominantly of endurance rides.
So yeah, no idea where this need for talking down on TrainerRoad comes from on this thread. Guess fitness is a cult after all.
I felt that switching the Sunday sweet spot ride with a longer Z2 ride worked well for me in base phase. I’m just starting build, and in consultation with the TR team, I’m switching the weekend sweet spot workout and one of the high intensity workouts with Z2 rides. That will leave me with the 2 high intensity sessions plus one long Z2 ride and one shorter Z2 ride that I might elevate to tempo depending on how I’m feeling. Since I’ve just started the build phase a few days ago, it’s too premature to comment on how it’s working. Cheers.
I have to pick you up here… the youngest* group are doctors under 40…as in 5 years of medical school, a few years of rotational jobs and then 6-10 years of speciality training… =/= gifted twenty something year old athelete with a couple of year of coaching clients.
Do you have any idea on what things to look at from an individual’s perspective? For example, design a protocol.
Do you have suggestions on such free software? Have you compared it with TR?
My two cents.
What is the value of Trainerroad?
workout interface
calendar
workout creator
podcast + blog
forum
community
It’s fun to study, test, evaluate what I’ve learned
Similar to using Emacs instead of using IDE.
Do you have any suggestion on a condition where 10 hours/week works just a little bit hard, but increasing the endurance training time, e.g. additional 5 hours, will it result in a better performance?
Nowadays, data is more valuable than ever and there are many data restrictions for privacy concerns. I personally like to see sharing such a massive data set but I do not see it will happen soon.
What is the difference between Zwift customized plan and TR plan? I hear a lots of people say how easy to make and modify the plan on TR.
Not to nitpick but to me, the workout interface sucks, and many who run zwift or RGT etc parallel also agree, looking at blue bars gets tiring and probably contributes to a lack of desire for people to do long easy rides. The podcast and blog are free, as is the forum, and community kind of falls into the forum area too. The workout creator is another program that has to be downloaded, hardly great integration.
I don’t want to sound like it’s all doom and gloom, but their value to me are the plans and that’s what I am curious about with their coming podcast, how will they present their approach to training compared to others.
I couldnt possibly agree more with this. And it is a catch 22 for trainerroad. I like trainerroad…but this is a bit of a failing on their part.
If the plans are meant to be endlessly customized to the point of being unrecognizable…trainerroad really doesnt offer all that much that cant be completely replaced by a head unit.
Even if you completely discount everything that DJ states in his video because of his age, experience, your TR allegiance or whatever, obviously there are problems with the TR platform as evidenced by this thread. I feel that Nate and company should prioritize the customer issues raised here and not so much reply to DJ’s video point by point. TR will emerge as a much better company as a result of this shot across the bow!
But it is likely different for a lot of us. Plans for me are not what I want…I want a basic structure and then customizable workouts. So right now I have it…What I dont have is guidance but in reality I know…it is just more volume.
The thing is though that DJ brought up lots of things that have been said on the forum for a while he even said people came to him with these same concerns about the platform and I believe it because we hear it here all the time. I didn’t find his video distasteful, rather a bit humorous, but maybe that’s the catalyst we needed to have the crew have an honest discussion about these problems. Seems like now the best explanation we have between members to failing workout is “the ramp test isn’t right for you, you’re overreacting” but I don’t think it’s that simple.
Yes everyone is different but if TR is going to use the notion of “well we prescribe these plans because as a group our users benefit more from this type of plan than longer slower rides” it doesn’t make sense that the HV plans are set up in such a way that they are only beneficial to or doable by the minority, literally everyone I know personally who’s done one lasted 2 weeks, Chad lasted 3.
But that‘s because IMHO HV are only suitable to a very small, dedicated minority. I went from MV to MV+ (which in terms of TSS is between MV and HV, and amounts to 8:30–9:00). I cranked up the difficulty on the workouts and added Z2 workouts. Weekday workouts are now 1:15–1:30 hours long instead of 1 and weekend workouts are 2:00–2:30 affairs.
I can tell a huge difference: I need about 30–45 minutes more sleep to feel rested and feel the need to take naps if I haven‘t. I can also tell I should do some strength training. Last season I tried to add a Friday Z2 group workout to my training plan, that was no bueno even though the difference in TSS was rather small (30–40 TSS). It seems, I need Friday off, mentally.
Going to a HV training plan requires more than adding a few hours in the training plan. You need to adapt a whole bunch of things to make that possible. That requires some degree of knowledge, discipline and persistence.
So rather than insisting that HV is right for you and that TR should create a HV plan that people who might not be suited for a HV can nevertheless do a HV plan seems ill-advised. I think it‘s much better if these people stick to mid-volume and add volume as necessary. The official advice to my knowledge is to do what I did: add Z2 rides to add time on the bike, then crank up the difficulty of the hard workouts.
So far that strategy has worked out great for me: within the first six weeks (SSB1 MV+), I already surpassed last year‘s FTP PR (295 W off-the-couch —> 323 W). If I weren‘t a few kg heavier from Christmas, I‘d sit at 4.5 W/kg again.
I‘m completely fine with the interface, and I like the philosophy of bring-your-own-entertainment. I usually listen to podcasts on Z2 rides. Other people like to watch TV. If you want to run Zwift or so in parallel, great, if that works for you. But I don‘t see that as a weakness of TR‘s workout interface, it is a strength.
IMHO the weaknesses of TR‘s workout are anything but the workout interface — that screen works very well for me. The lack of an analysis screen (talking about iOS beta) and the bad implementation of the calendar are issues for me. You really need to go to the website a lot — and I really dislike that.
I guess I lost this popularity contest. Bet you have more Strava followers too
Fitness is a cult for some people.