You’re insinuating that humans don’t have the capacity to determine different levels or types of fatigue. Perhaps you do not, but I believe most people who have dedicated a large portion of their life to maximizing their training and diet might be able to understand the difference between the normal amount of fatigue after a particularly hard session, and mounting fatigue from weeks, and months of daily exercise.
You can’t feel yourself becoming ill? You can’t feel the difference between a poor nights sleep and the tiredness from a long day on the bike? I’m under the impression from previous comments from you that you’re not very interested in seeing things as they may apply to others. You made a pretty large statement on the other thread indicating that people whom you’ve never met know your body better than you. This seem to be an extension of that same theme. If recovery is the most important part of the training process, you’d do well to reconsider your perspective.
Sorry, I don’t subscribe to the “damn the torpedoes” approach to training. I mean, to offer at least one “cliche’” for you.
Well, maybe the issue is that I AM just an outlier in this. I have no idea. But yes…I couldnt venture a reasonable guess as to why I feel the way I do on any given days. Like most people…I have good days and bad; I just deal with it the best I can. On bad days…is it due to training the day before? The last week, a VO2 max workout the thursday before last? Maybe. Or maybe it’s because of 7 hrs sleep instead of 7.5. Or the chicken was 14 hrs too old I ate for lunch. Or I had tea instead of coffee that day. Or work is stressing me out. I genuinely can’t connect those dots. Personally…my inclination would be to be that like most things…people are making more definitive conclusions about these things than are warranted…but I’m newer to this and dont really know.
First, thanks for responding in a constructive way, I appreciate that. You might be an outlier but more likely to @JoeX point, I do think it takes time and experience to develop the “listening” skills needed to know when to lower intensity versus, switching to a z2 workout, versus taking another day completely off.
I have found personal “litmus” tests that I use when I’m not sure whether to rest, take it easy, or to push through as planned. One thing I do when I’m not feeling myself, or as good as I think I should, is plugging in Pettit. I know it’s boring but I also know that I should feel better after a simple z1/2 session. If I feel better after Pettit, I’ll proceed as planned the next day, if I feel worse it’s time to rest.
The hardest part of this is there’s no hard number to guide us, and I think you’ve at least hinted at this - I don’t want to imply that it’s easy or that I get it right all the time. I’ve over rested and over reached on many occasions, and both can be frustrating as it stalls any gains.
I’m dealing with it as I type. I’m clearly sick, but not full blown sick, so should I do another Pettit, or just rest? The a type in me wants to get some exercise today, I could use the mental boost, but the pragmatic part knows that another day off the bike will serve me better in the long run, and Amber’s podcast advice is echoing in my mind: “I’m eager to get back on the bike today” to which her husband responds, “good, you should take another day off then’” to her dismay (at the time).
Counter to this would be also knowing that we must often take risks in training and that there are times when we should push through as planned, otherwise how would we ever improve? I really think this is absolutely the hardest part about training, knowing when to rest, or whether to push on.
And, I think I AM making progress in this. At least from a long term, what works/doesnt perspective. I think I have identified an undeniable trend…in that I simply cannot get through a build phase as prescribed…I continually get run down 3 or 4 weeks in to the point of failing workouts, and worse, losing motivation to struggle through. I’ve got to switch things up rather than beat my head against that particular wall.
I think my gripe in this particular thread was simply that the whole ‘listen to your body’ thing is only useful advice for people that have already figured that problem out, and don’t need the advice in the first place. For everyone else…it’s akin to being in Japan, and offering directions in Swedish.
If Nate comes out and says these people trained on TR but made their own polarized plans then its not really a fair comparison and we’ll be none the wiser.
My bet is they will through around a bunch of studies saying SS out performs POL, so we’ll have a a bunch of studies saying POL is better and another bunch saying SS is better, again none the wiser.
End of it will be (i don’t think TR will say this), if youre getting gains doing either then cool, carry on if youre bored or stagnant then try the other or accept the level you are at.
I sympathize with this on a very personal level. I’ve never made it through a build phase “successfully” and you’ve described my experience almost exactly. What was my first reaction? That I wasn’t good enough and that I should continue to beat my head against that very particular wall. Wrong answer.
Sure, a quick sound bite that probably gets overused with the best of intentions is “listen to your body” - what you’re challenging is asking, “what does that mean?!” Which I think is fair, especially anyone new to structured training. That doesn’t mean the subject isn’t hugely important, it just means we have to try to distill it down into actionable items. Hopefully some of my examples on how to “test” fatigue is useful. Obviously I’ve only learned them from others. And a thank you to all the advice I’ve learned and relearned on the podcast.
It can be worthwhile keeping a diary of things like sleep, food intake, life stress, etc. Over time you’ll see patterns.
It’s not easy and the signs can be subtle: I do a physical job with a lot of lifting and can judge from how my quads feel walking up and down stairs as to whether it’s even worth getting changed or not. I’ll often move workouts around to handle this. For example on Monday I did a hard day and had a VO2max workout scheduled on Tuesday. Come Tuesday morning I was struggling with walking up the stairs. I actually started the workout but didn’t even get through the first interval so did one of the Baxter variants instead. Even that was hard work. Contrast that with yesterday, I did a somewhat easier day and this morning my legs were fine, a little tension in the quads but nothing untoward, so I did a 90min threshold workout. I didn’t quite finish it but it was a lot better than a previous attempt at it.
So, it takes time but it’s one of those soft skills that lets you optimise your training.
I think one of the things in retrospect here, that has opened my eyes some, is the preponderance of people here that do not follow the trainerroad plans. I think I’m capable of deciding on an individual day whether a workout is manageable, or a good idea or not. What i’ve been more concerned about is identifying whether continuing (or starting) a particular PLAN is a good idea or not. And honestly…scrapping the whole idea of attempting a TR build plan simplifies the level of decision making for me.
But then that leaves a big, gaping whole in what I should be doing for training lol.
That’s true but it’s also true that you don’t know if those individuals have done zero, one or more full progressions through the plans. So they may have done a full Base - Build - Speciality sequence, started another and realised that they’d plateaued so decided to do something different.
I.e. without having done a (Build) plan, how do you know it’s not for you?
This… exactly what I was saying to my wife. Confirmation Bias.
How exactly does TR have the data to say that people who don’t follow their plans don’t improve as much as their plans?
How many users of TR are creating their own plans with less intensity and more time below lactate balance point? Meaning in Zone 2 of a 5 zone model.
How would they filter those riders out?
Are there really that many users of TR that don’t follow their plans to be able to create a good comparison?
Given these questions and depending on their answers I don’t understand how TR can say they have the data to prove SS 4-6 days a week works better than a balanced plan with more zone 2 riding.
Why does TR “poo poo” the actual scientific studies, or completely ignore them if they are so science based?
I really like all of them and feel like any one of them could be a best friend. I just really have a problem with doing all these deep dives and being so scientific but then completely ignoring science that doesn’t agree with their stance. If that is how you’re going to do it, more power to you but don’t act like you’re going where the science leads.
Also this last podcast with Keegan and the discussion about his training. Why didn’t anyone ask Keegan how many times per week his rides include intervals of tempo and above? Nate’s question was only related to if Keegan does a POL plan. I want to know how often he is going out for 3-5 hour rides in zone 2? How many times per week? Does every ride include SST, LT, and Vo2 intervals?
Really hope Dylan is on the podcast as they never, that I have seen, have anyone on that doesn’t completely agree with their thinking. Other podcasts like That triathlon show, Fast Labs (fast talk), etc. have people on from all training philosophies and have a robust discussion and it doesn’t seem to threaten them. I get the sense that TR feels threatened by these other coaches, or they just think that this is their podcast, why give time to someone who disagrees. Again, more power to you, but just be more upfront about it.
Have you considered laying out a build phase and modifying it to include only 2 focused HIIT days? I’m even leaning towards 1 HIIT day, that would leave enough TSS on the table for me to enjoy my bike, maintain endurance capacity, and focus on skills.
Clearly I need to change something once I pass the base phase. I don’t think more intensity is the answer for me. I think higher quality work and more z2 and more fun rides will keep me more consistent.
Yup, I’ve already been thinking about doing something very similar. Basically 2 60 minute high intensity rides, 3-4 endurance rides of maybe 90 minutes, that would go up to ~2-2.5 hrs when the weather gets nicer. Maybe sub one of the endurance rides for a recovery ride depending on how I feel.
Build is hard, it’s meant to be, so there could be a number of reasons why you are struggling. Without knowing your cycling/training history and how you are failing it’s not easy to diagnose.
I’ve said this in the other thread, they’re balancing protecting their data, and proving the plans work beyond, “trust us” - a tough sell when the plans don’t work for a lot of folks on the forum. TR knows more than we do, and I have to remember that the forum probably only constitutes a small percentage of their users, but there does become a visual problem for them at some point.
Just to add to what you’ve already communicated. For any meaningful discussion on a topic between 2 differing parties, both parties have to enter the discussion from somewhat of an open minded view willing to listen to the other party’s position. I’ve been a fan of Dylan’s Youtube channel and have been consistently watching his video’s for quite some time. I just don’t see him as being open minded enough for any discussion with him to be of any value at his point in time. He holds fast to a relatively small number of studies supporting his view while dismissing or ignoring any evidence that is contrary to his viewpoint.
Same, in my 3 years doing these plans I have never made it through a full build phase without some kind of tweaking or turning down intensity or cutting a workout early at least once. Today I have Richardson +3 and I still feel Dade +1 from Thursday and my head tells me that I should do something else, but it wasn’t until this week that I told myself this is ok. I always had the mindset of “TR are professionals and they know what’s best for me so I’m going to suffer through because if I don’t I won’t benefit from the plan like I should”
I’m very excited for this podcast and glad DJ made this video because it finally opened my eyes to the fact that less can be more. This has been talked about here but not having the desire to read papers and the arguments between members full of jargon, but having someone break it down into layman terms opened me up to tweaking the rest of my build phase. It kind of makes sense, do I want to ride kind of hard all the time and have to deal with physical and mental failure, or so do I want to maintain volume but do it in such a way where I can really smash the hard rides hard and get the most benefit from them?
I’m starting to think that I should keep my Thursday (move to Wednesday) and Saturday rides from build and take the rest of the days and turn them into true z2 endurance rides around 60-70% with something like 60-90min on weekdays and a 2-3 hour on the other weekend
Maybe my gin & tonic recovery drinks and Herbalife don’t help, but I still felt WAY better racking up over 500TSS in traditional base than I do at 400 during build and I wasn’t drinking or smoking any less
Totally agree. That’s why I tried multiple times. Worked on diet, sleep, cut alcohol. Ate a ton of carbs in leadup up to hard workouts, took in 100 carbs an hour during these workouts. Made sure to not doing anything that might make the difficult workouts more difficult.
It’s just too much. I’m throwing in the towel. Completely unrealistic to achieve completion of them. For me anyway. I suppose I could quit my job and talk my wife and six yr old into becoming my swannies so I can achieve my goal of getting a podium in a local cross race…but at some point you’ve got to pull the plug and say this is just ridiculous. I’m there.
if youre bored or stagnant then try the other or accept the level you are at.