Increasing FTP Road Plan - AI

Training
1

Its been a few years since I last really did structured training, but with a trip to the Italian alps coming up at the end of July I thought I’d see how the world had progressed and signed up to TR AI adaptive with my old account that was last active in 2014!

I’m a little confused that my peak TSS/week on my “demanding” FTP building schedule is around 380. This tends to come from 2 hard indoor interval sessions of 1hr and 1hr30 and 2/3 outdoor rides of varying length and intensity. I’ve been using intervals.icu to track my training load (not tss) for years, and experience has shown that doing this level of training barely puts me into the ‘productive’ zone, using the rolling estimated ftp from intervals.icu. My average week on the TR plan is:

Monday : Vo2 intervals 1hr

Tuesday : Recovery - (light jog/indoor climbing)

Wednesday : 1-3hr z2 outdoor ride

Thursday : Recovery - (light jog/indoor climbing)

Friday : Sweet Spot/Threshold intervals 1hr30

Saturday : Group Ride - 2-3 hours z2

Sunday : rest

TR would like my outdoor rides to be very easy/low tss rides, but frankly riding outdoors is kindof the point, so the group/solo riding in addition to the 2 indoor structured sessions will put my TSS/week up to 500-650+. Am I ruining the plan by putting in the extra load?

I feel like I’m defaulting to habits I’ve had for a long time regarding my training where more is more, but it really feels like theres not enough load in my plan to really drive improvement

2

Welcome to the forum!! :partying_face:

Two hard workouts a week, plus a group ride and a longer Z2 ride is plenty of stimulus.

I wouldn’t focus too much on TSS. How much is enough, how much is too much?

Just focus on getting in consistent training that feels good and that you enjoy. I think what you’re describing is a good place to be as long as you’re recovering enough between rides, taking rest weeks, and enjoying the process.

TSS can be a good metric to watch if you want to keep a handle on your stress or progressively increase your load over the span of weeks and months, but trust yourself, how you’re feeling on the bike, and the improvements you’re seeing along the way.

Let me know if this helps and if you have other questions about any of this. :+1: