Help: New to structured training and seeing no improvement

I’m actually quite sure that 4-5 times a week is the minimum to drive improvements in my own cycling. Strength training on the other hand responds to 2-3 sessions a week.

Tbf, I also find 4-5 rides works better for me. I’m just not sure on the general principle that 3 sessions is not enough, especially for a beginner.

That’s just missing the point about plateauing which was/is the point.

I think the main thing that Joe Friel drives home in the Cyclist Training Bible, and that most training is based around, are the three sides of the pyramid - Frequency, Intensity, and Duration. I think your initial hunch that three days may be enough frequency for a newer rider is correct, if you also have enough intensity and duration but with a low volume base plan I would suspect that all three of those metrics are on the lower side which is why there aren’t huge gains in adaptation. The other guess I’d make on why they are not seeing gains to FTP is because they are using the ramp test which is anaerobically biased where as the training plan they have completed to this point is aerobically biased. They may find longer aerobic efforts may be easier for them but they may not have made gains in anaerobic capacity and probably won’t until they increase the intensity portion of training, regardless of increasing the frequency or duration.

Im another one to query the other factors; are you fuelling your rides, eating enough protein, but not overeating, sleeping well, recovering, other activities are not interfering with your training…the whole nine yards.

When youre training and testing, your hot, sweating and have at least one strong fan cooling you?

Final factor is something Im trying which is seeing how I do on the other FTP tests, 2x8min and 1x20min.

The low volume SSB plan actually has a lot of intensity, and the base 2 plan has VO2max workouts. One of the most common criticisms of the plan is that it has too much intensity, and basically no sweetspot workouts (they are low threshold). And of course the intensity is progressive over the duration of the plan, as is time-in-zone. So I don’t think this idea about not enough intensity to build for the ramp test after ssb2 is true. Total volume may be on the short side.

There is also a thread on here somewhere where someone compiled FTP increases from different plans. The LV plan doesn’t perform much worse than the MV plan, so I don’t think @KorbenDallas’s point about plateauing happens either. I don’t know if you really plateau within 12 weeks, coming from no training at all?

Edit: this one: TR makes you this much faster – 185 data points and a model

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Thinking about it, maybe these are good questions for the podcast. Both the “I’m new to this, I seem to do everything right, and I’ve made no progress” and the idea about plateauing quickly on the LV plan. I’d like to know if TR have any data about this, and also how the plan fulfills the “frequency/intensity/duration” progression. I’m sure they’ve done plenty of explaining like that in the past, but not recently.

As a sidenote, why doesn’t the forum have a @podcast bot, that collects these ideas?

Are you really saying that going from unstructured to structured training you’d see a plateau in weeks?

Over a season or two maybe as a newcomer, but as you say, the workload scales with your fitness and the plans are progressive. The relative stress remains the same but the absolute workload continues to rise if your FTP goes up.

Of course you will bump up against a ceiling on lower volume but 3-4 intense rides a week should see improvement.

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Up until today (starting MV Base 1) I have only ever done the LV plans. Yes, I’ve sprinkled in some endurance workouts and added minutes to the end of sessions but nothing out of the ordinary.

In almost three years of TR usage I don’t honestly think I’ve come close to a plateau. The LV plans are no joke! Every session is intensity and from what I’m seeing/reading currently, three intense sessions is where it’s at before most athletes/riders begin to see diminishing returns.

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Last year i got close to a 4w/kg without following any plan, just riding semi-structured 2-3 times a week with some concept of how to avoid junk miles. I don’t believe you can’t have progress by “only” being on the bike twice or three times per week, but having the time to do some long rides everey week helps i guess.

For some values of a matter of weeks, I guess? I did nothing but Low Volume for my first five months on TR and saw nothing but gains. I swapped to Mid because I was excited about riding and wanted to do it more, but I wasn’t anywhere close to a plateau.

It appears in the op’s case yes. 12 weeks. Why take this in the weeds?

Yes from a certain level of fitness you will see improvement. Same with Mid and high volume plans. Just not indefinitely.

Not following the first sentence.

But, yeah in the op’s case, I don’t know, but, I think she would do better with more frequency. And always a touch more stress if she can recover. It would be interesting to see if she would respond to one less day of intensity and adding an additional day of volume. So, instead of 3 days of intensity try 2 days of intensity with 2 days easy. That extra day would be a longer steady ride.

@PusherMan I agree I and I never said these LV plans were a joke. Honestly, for the untrained or new to it all perhaps 3 intense sessions/week is too much. We’re getting pretty far off and general here. Again, I think the op would benefit from more frequency. You and others who have seen nothing but gains for years following SSB LV good for you honestly. I wish it was that easy for me. I don’t know how you are doing it but, I’m truly happy for you.

There’s a lot of good information and discussion in here. So I just wanted to pop in and say that if you’re totally new to structured training and completed your first two blocks with 100% compliance - that’s the big accomplishment.

Seriously, kudos. The habits you build training that way will take you farther than the training itself.

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Sorry! You had said that anybody will inevitably plateau on 4 days of rest per week in a matter of weeks, which is spot on if “a matter of weeks” means “as many weeks as it takes to plateau on 4 days of rest per week”. Maybe that’s 4 weeks, or maybe that’s 100, but we’ll all get there eventually.

I think this is a reaction to your initial statement, which was also pretty general. The conventional understanding of “a matter of weeks” is “a few weeks”, maybe a dozen at most. People who have gone longer than that on Low Volume without plateauing would naturally disagree that everyone necessarily needs more volume to avoid a plateau after the first few weeks, since they did not.

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@graceracer555

I started structured training in November 2019 after “just riding a bike” in prior years. I accepted TR program to strip me down and build me back up. After all of these weeks of training, what I found is that while my FTP has not grown significantly, my endurance level has improved and I can better hold power at and above FTP. I can ride at higher power levels for longer duration and at a higher cadence than in the past. I can ride longer without needing to take breaks. One thing I really notice is my warm up time is not as long as in the past. I have always needed some miles to warm up to get my legs right and to get my heart rate settled for the ride, but that has improved a bit. So, while my power has not skyrocketed, my endurance and aerobic levels have improved.

Hell, one rider can have huge power numbers, but for a short duration, while the next rider has a lower power number, but can ride that lower power all day and run circles around that other high powered short duration rider who fizzled.

I’d say don’t always focus on huge power gains. That’s like planting grass seeds and continually looking to see if they’ve germinated when the bag label said it will take 6-8 weeks to germinate. The more you look for it and don’t see, the more frustrated you’ll be. When you let it go and do it’s thing before you know it you have a yard full of grass.

I’m looking at this training program as a marathon and not a sprint; slow gains.

Just One Man’s Opinion…

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I know you didn’t buddy :wink: I’m just expressing my opinion :+1:

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Ah, yeah that’s my misconception then, I’ve only done the high volume plan and it doesn’t seem like it has a ton of intensity so I was assuming the low volume plans had even less.

It’s the other way round - the LV plan has the most intensity. There’s only three sessions per week, but all of them are high IF (apart from the recovery week obviously). SSBLV2 finishes with Spencer +2 (0.92 IF), Lamarck (0.92 IF), and Leconte (0.90 IF).

Think it’s only the HV plan that actually only has sweetspot workouts.

40 seconds on a 4mn climb is a big difference. What was your power like in both efforts? Weather conditions? Were you in a group for either?

Difficult to say, might be worth posting some training stats over the last 12 months to see how intense it has been. Any impact from medical condition you’ve noticed?