Better late than never, but their continued resistance to accept the benefits of these plans back in the day (when they were WIDELY accepted by top level athletes of various sports) lost them credibility for me. It felt like they focused so many years on doing things their way that they just didn’t want to admit there were other effective methods of training that might contradict them and make people jump ship so they just dug their heels in further at the time.
I cancelled early 2023 so I’m sure things have changed but people don’t forget. These days I use MyWhoosh (free) and write my workouts on intervals.icu (also free but I voluntarily pay the $48 a year because it’s so good I feel guilty NOT paying). All said I’d still recommend TR to a newbie so they can grab the low hanging fitness gains and get used to structure, there are certainly worse platforms around for the money
Yes and they were in some different section of the website almost as if they were lesser than or not recommended, in comparison to their other plans. I believe at the time there was no way for the plan builder to recommend them, regardless of what inputs you did, unless you added them manually. I did use them in the last year of my training and gained the same 3w as I did the prior year doing SS, just felt a lot less crappy all the time while off the bike.
There are tons of things to complain about with TR but to complain that they don’t have something that not only they do have but you used is just wild.
Yeah, I’m dying here. Every Thursday I wonder if the podcast will be about TheBigAnnouncement™ so, even when it’s good, it’s still a bit disappointing.
After posting above, I have now also cancelled my sub this month. I got fed up with waiting for the new features which are just not arriving, felt conflicted when trying to prepare for a big event (I never felt prepared using TR for a big event earlier in the year) and felt completely lost. I worked pretty hard all year in various ways and have put on some short duration power, but I never really felt like I could manage my own long distance training with TR.
I have now got a 1 to 1 coach again to help me tick off some big goals over the next few years. I feel very grateful and lucky to be able to do this right now. Already working with her to make plans (we start training officially at the weekend) has been a breathe of fresh air.
I was planning to keep my TR sub active alongside so I can return to it when I am back self coaching after my event……
….however, now I am back using Training Peaks premium with the new coach, it’s made me realize just how much that platform has improved. I don’t need to pay for both TR and TP.
I now know enough about training to be able to put together a progressive plan with nice simple intervals that are easy to remember and simple to execute outside - 5 x 5s etc, rather than all the unnecessarily complicated workouts that TR gives me. I don’t need the TR library any more.
If I stay with Training Peaks even if I do drop the 1 to 1 coaching in future, I know that everything will be on there for us to pick back up again. It just works well as a calendar and that is essentially all I have left with TR now away.
I’m not sure why this impression persists, but TR has had polarized base and build blocks for at least 4 years now. Officially as in you can either schedule polarized blocks piecemeal or replace e. g. sweet spot base blocks by polarized base blocks.
I’ve done 4 seasons so far which incorporated polarized blocks, combining them with sweet spot blocks.
Isn’t it the case that with the (new) Custom Plan Builder, we can’t swap out blocks in the manner we once could with the old Plan Builder (the interface to do that no longer exists within CPB), and so the only way you can get a Polarized block onto your Calendar now is to manually schedule it (ie. outside of Custom Plan Builder).
Maybe my experimenting is wrong but that’s what I found .
How are you achieving this now?
EDIT: Also, if someone is looking to schedule blocks manually by choosing the Base/Build Phase menu items from the LHS main menu, it’s noteworthy that someone won’t see Polarized (or Traditional) blocks appear if they have the “Masters Plans” radio button toggle on, since these plans have >2 intensity workouts per week. Worth remembering this if someone (like me!) automatically picks Masters but then wonders where the plans have gone…
I agree with this. I’m very similar to yourself, in that I’ve used TR in the past and more recently tried it for a month or two to see if I can get it to work for me, mainly so I don’t have to think about my training myself. I have though, come to the conclusion that I don’t have much faith in it for my goal next summer, a Super Randonneur attempt, the new Plan Builder seems fixated on intensity rather than pushing TIZ. I’d much rather do a sweetspot block extending TIZ out at 88-90% than just keep adding intensity by going from 92% to 94%.
I looked at my adaptations this week and just couldn’t contemplate carrying on with what it was prescribing. It’s been quite interesting reading through this thread, as many people echo my thoughts. When you look around at the alternatives like you have done, you realise that there are other products out there that offer a lot for less money. TP with TP virtual and the new strength training function is great value, especially if you can get it discounted through one of the many offers they give governing bodies such as British Cycling or British Triathlon. Good luck with your goals.
I keep posting the same thing - TR needs an option to instruct Custom Plan Builder to construct blocks focused largely (or wholly) on extending duration rather than intensity…
Last time I tried this (= last season), all I needed to do was click in the beginning of a 4-week block (base or build) and then select the Polarized option.
You can actually do that if you tell TR that you have more time. I’m doing a 2-hour sweet spot workout this Saturday (PL 9.8, 1:29 hours at Sweet Spot). It requires some manual tweaking in that you need to change the workout time.
Is that an issue, though? Traditional blocks have “no intensity” and Polarized blocks have two hard workouts (at least in all incarnations I have tried). But I understand that this might be a UI issue.
I (44 years old) have always selected the number of hard workouts instead of switching to a Master’s Plan.
TR claims to manage all your training……put in your goals, and let plan builder do the rest.
Yet, time and again, we hear people, and the TR team, saying ‘use workout alternatives’ or ‘adjust this here or that there’ or ‘add in more zone 2 if you are doing ultra events’
You need to be confident in your own decisions to be able to fully use the software and get the most out of it unless you spend all your time training indoors, you only ever do the events you preload into your calendar before building the plan, and you never do social rides/get sick/have lifestress that the software can’t/won’t take account of.
It’s a UI issue: with either no or only 2 Intensity per week, you’d rightly expect to see Trad Base & Polarized Base/Build phases be selectable if you’re browsing Training Phases manually with have the Masters toggle switched on, but you don’t…. - need to switch off the Masters toggle for some reason. Caught me out! Should probably flag it as a UI bug to TR Support…
I didn’t say they don’t have it, I said they made it impossible to add those plans via plan builder without having to trick the system or manually add the plans because the plan builder would never recommend them to you.
Also what someone mentioned above about constantly swapping workouts is true, felt like at the end I was building my own plans anyway. Doesn’t take a genius after some time to figure out how to do everything yourself.
Also am I understanding that they STILL haven’t incorporated progression levels into outdoor free rides? That feature was just around the corner years ago
Is it?
To me it is part of the feature set that I can adjust things (without breaking automations). You can also change that on a per block basis.
With sweet spot you can top out at a PL if you don’t want to increase workout duration. So I’d just increase workout duration for the entire block and select the max time you have for a workout.
Ramping duration as a way to achieve progressive overload is more of an issue with endurance workouts.
You don’t need to preload all your events or perfectly plan your rides months ahead. However, if plans change, the more time you have, the better you can adapt your training to those new circumstances. That’s not TR-specific either, if you added a new A-event two weeks from now or constantly replace a workout by a Zwift race or spicy outdoor ride, no coach would be able to help you either.
With TR you now have the ability to schedule regular group rides and do any workout outdoors. The latter has been a feature for ages.
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