I’ve been using TrainerRoad since 2016, and before that, my training sessions were mostly outdoors, clocking in around 15-18 hours a week. Since switching to TrainerRoad, I’ve been able to cut my training time down to 5-8 hours a week while still feeling great.
However, since the introduction of fatigue management, I’ve noticed something curious. On days when I feel good and ready to train, the system often marks my day as yellow or even red. Despite this, I go ahead and do the workout I planned, and I don’t experience any issues.
I even feel like I could handle a higher weekly TSS than what TrainerRoad recommends, but the system seems to suggest otherwise.
Does anyone else feel the same way? Have you adjusted your training based on fatigue management, or do you push through when you’re feeling good?
Using the TSS / fitness algorithm as part of your process, the same as you use overnight RHR and HRV, can certainly be helpful, but using either one of those as the only data point to guide your training without listening to your body and understanding historically how your body responds to training load would not be smart.
If you get sick and don’t train for 3-4 days and the algorithm gives you a green day but you still feel bad, are you going to try to knock out a 200 TSS ride because the software says so? If you are nailing sleep and nutrition, have no work stress (say you’re on vacation) and absorbing training better than normal, are you going not train because the software gives you a “red” day?
I personally like to utilize weeks where I have great legs and can absorb training to push the fatigue, but will also take some time to recover if my body isn’t responding for whatever reason, work, family, being at the end of big training block, etc.
I checked out your TR account and things generally look good! I actually don’t think you have an abnormal/unexpected number of red/yellow days on there.
Red/yellow days will appear on your TR Calendar as a warning that you may be accumulating too much training stress too quickly. They’ll often pop up after a string of several workouts in a row without a rest/recovery day, and they’ll usually clear pretty quickly after a rest/recovery day as well.
It is certainly possible that you may still feel “okay” to push through – but remember that the red/yellow days are acting as a warning for you. If you ignore them, you may find that you build up some excess fatigue.
Of course, pushing up your volume/TSS is something that is ultimately up to you, though! If you do want to increase your volume, make sure to do so slowly and gradually over time rather than all at once. This article has some tips that might help you out:
Is it fair (or not) to say that if a user isn’t getting yellow days (at least) on their calendar from time to time, then they might not be pushing themselves hard enough?
Not necessarily! If you’re never seeing yellow days on your TR Calendar, it could be an indication that you’re managing your fatigue well and recovering from your training quickly. If you’re never seeing a yellow day on your Calendar and you feel you have more time and energy to dedicate to your training, that could be a good sign that you might be in a solid position to increase your training volume (if you’d like!), though.