I’m currently following the SSB Low Volume training plan. I chose the low volume plan mainly because it is the first time I’m following a structured plan, the first time I’m training indoors and I was unsure how much time I could really dedicate to training. So far, I’m happy.
Once or twice a week on the recovery days I do find the time to jump on the trainer and do more than the prescribed workouts.
It would be great if there would be a “give me something to do now” button in the calendar that looks at your current plan and selects an appropriate workout.
The easiest implementation is probably to pull the respective endurance ride from the mid vol plan for SSB low vol but I assume the situation can be very different for someone trying to do the same on a mid vol plan or in the build and specialty phases.
To achieve the same, but the other way round, I signed up to the SSB Mid Vol and intend to skip a workout on alternate weeks when i’m travelling. Not ideal, but easier than (as a newbie) finding the right workout from the library of a gazillion workouts.
I just go to the Workouts page and use the filters on the left to select a ride I like the look of to fill the gap, I then add it to the calendar and do the ride…
Filter by Zones, Duration and Intensity …
@EtienneXplore, on the filtering: that’s what I was hoping that the system would do by itself so I don’t have to worry about picking the wrong workout. It seems quite tricky to not overload yourself by doing hard workouts back to back and then also get the right training impulse.
If you’re currently on low vol and want some more training stimulus go look through the Trad Base Low Vol program and grab any of the workouts from there. IMO you can never have enough Mount Field or Seneca Rocks and they’re not all that taxing.
This is sort of what I do. I’ve found that I sit somewhere right in between the Low and Mid Volume Half Distance triathlon plans. The low volume leaves me wanting for more sometimes and the mid volume gets to be too much sometimes. So I just put the Mid Volume plans on the Calendar and cut or reduce workouts occasionally when it gets to be too much.
It’s like @Crownan and @ErickVH mentioned - I know that I want to get faster but I don’t know HOW to do that. That’s why I’m here - Coach Chad will get me there. I don’t have him for real but he does the virtual whiplashing on me.
Now, once or twice a week I’d like to call him and say “do more whiplashing on me!” My expectation is he chooses the right whip and right amount of lashing. And before anyone gets a wrong idea, I’m still talking about workouts here.
I’ve looked at the SSB Mid Vol layout and obviously some thinking went into the design of that plan:
High TSS ride with over/unders
Low TSS endurance ride
High TSS ride with over/unders
rest
High TSS ride with over/unders
High TSS ride with over/unders
rest
So there is always that work/recover/work/recover pattern. In SSB Low Vol, I cannot just plug in a high intensity workout on any day because it would quickly lead to three consecutive high intensity days and I assume this will result in a negative return. But again, I’m not the coach here, that’s why I was looking for such a feature.
My expectation would be that it looks at your current plan layout, your past TSS and your upcoming TSS and then just selects something that’s appropriate. A gold-plated version would offer you some choices and then potentially even re-arrange your upcoming calendar to compensate. But just having something productive for today would be really cool.
The easiest way to “add more” is simply either choose the plus (+) variations of any workout when you have more time or want more intensity (sometimes it’s both).
If you want to “add” and entire workout, look at the next higher level training plan to the one you are on, and pick something from the same week in the plan.
There are a few too many variables to expect software to “pick” what you need.
You can certainly do three sweet spot days in a row. These aren’t “high intensity,” rather they’re just moderately difficult. If you’re part way through your plan, and you’re feeling fresh and wanting for more, you can absolutely add an extra day of sweet spot riding in pretty much anywhere.
If you’re concerned about over doing it, you can do a shorter sweet spot ride, or something at the lower end of the sweet spot range. Or something that is both.
Alternatively, you can always add more aerobic riding. You can do hour long aerobic recovery rides. Or longer aerobic endurance rides. I’d think something around 60-70% of FTP would fit nice here. The exact percentages you’re hitting isn’t super critical. You’re just adding extra volume at a pace that isn’t supposed to be very hard.
You can also add some extra aerobic riding after the end of any given ride, if you’ve finished the ride, and you’re wanting more. Or if you have time left in the day, you can add a second ride later in the day that’s at an easy aerobic pace.
I wouldn’t do anything at threshold or above. The lower volume SSB plans already have plenty of intensity in them.
This is all base work, basically any workout that’s sweet spot or below would be fine. Be sensible with the duration of your rides. I wouldn’t add a 3 hour sweet spot ride, but I’d have no problems doing 60-90 minutes if you were feeling fresh and motivated. You could certainly do a 3 hour easy aerobic ride if you wanted to though, although you certainly wouldn’t need to go that long if you’re not interested in it.
Some type of AI tool that could do “I’ve looked at what you have been doing and your performances and also at the goals you have entered and I suggest doing one of these 4 workouts today” would be super cool. That is probably the next big step in online training tools.
“Very simple” is part of the problem, based on comments I have read about Xert. It falls well short of working as intended unless you follow the prescribed use closely. This stuff all has to be “rules” based in order to make any predictions. That imposes a real limitation as to the use and effectiveness of any “automatic” training tool.
