Life has meant my training volume is likely to decrease by more than half over the next 2-3 months. This happened last year and I completely stopped riding for that period. Needless to say I lost everything I had gained the previous 6 months.
I don’t want that to happen this time. My question is simple, with the LV plan as prescribed, would that be sufficient to keep my current level or am I likely to see a significant drop in level?
In order to keep my level is there possibly a better option, e.g Racing on Zwift 2x per week etc.
I’m M47 and will be able to consistently compete 3 rides a week, possibly 4.
In your situation, I would use the custom plan builder and force it to 3 times a week. Since it knows, you’ve been riding more than that it will give you appropriate workout. If you follow the workouts to the T, you might actually improve.
I am gaining fitness on LV plan, but I have 5+ years of high volume training history and regaining fitness after time off is a lot easier. I structure my week to make the most of the high intensity sessions (I like to do endurance after a hard workout for example, so I’ll do my hardest interval session on a Friday evening before a 3h-4h outdoor ride on a Saturday). If I get extra time I wasn’t expecting I’ll go for a run or add in some extra endurance. It’s definitely possible to at least maintain on LV, and possibly get faster, but it depends on a lot of things.
It definitely depends for sure. The one thing I’d also keep in mind is that it’s likely if your available recreation time is being cut in more than half then your stress is also raising. So don’t just crush every moment on the bike if that pushes you beyond your overall life/training stress limit.
You don’t mention a time component to your 3 rides but I’d probably have 1-2 be high intensity (30/30s, VO2, Threshold to TTE, Zwift race, etc) and the rest be endurance, recovery, or fun. The lower the overall volume or outside stress then the more intensity you could do.
I followed over January/February very low volume anaerobic/VO2max progression, workouts like Boxer, Laguna, etc. Dropped from typical 15h+/week to 3-4h/week. Now started General Base again, doesn’t feel like have lost anything, already pushing PL9+ Sweetspot workouts.
But to be honest, while AI FTP remained same and RPE/power also feels same, overall I feel bad. Appears I am more addicted to high volume exercise than I realized earlier.
We definitely think you can maintain your fitness on an LV plan – some athletes even improve some aspects of their fitness – especially if they focus on plans/workouts that target their “limiters.”
This article has some good info on this kind of subject that might interest you:
While the article focuses on the end of a training cycle, it still touches on the points you’re bringing up here and may give you some good ideas on how to approach your reduced-volume training.
Sticking with a structured plan will probably help you with your fitness goals the most, but racing on Zwift or doing group rides if that’s an option can be great motivators. If you think you’d have fun on those, then we’d say go for it!
Finally, even if you’re “only” riding 3-4x/week, remember to respect the need for recovery throughout your plan. It can be tempting to “push through” if you’re doing less volume than you have before, but the intensity from interval sessions can still catch up with you over time.
Hope that helps point you in the right direction – feel free to let us know if you have any additional questions!