As I started training for the upcoming season at the beginning of December, I believe I’m able to handle a higher volume. Although my overall bike volume is around 3–4 hours, with me solely focusing on the 3 structured workouts per week, the rest of my volume is spent cross-training, such as XC skiing, snowshoeing (when there is enough snow, obviously), running, hiking, and lifting weights.
All of these activities bring my overall volume to around 7 hours per week. Yesterday, I did a sweet spot workout for 1 hour and 15 minutes, and frankly, it felt a bit too easy for such an intensity. While the workout did require some focus, I felt like I could have done another set of intervals.
In fact, I keep selecting “Moderate” in the post-workout survey for pretty much all of my sweet spot workouts because they don’t feel very challenging. I did gain some weight this year as I started lifting more weights, and that might explain why I am able to handle more power on the bike in addition to cross-training.
I’d like your thoughts on these two points:
Today, I’ve been given a yellow day, but honestly, I don’t feel any fatigue. Could I be recovering faster than what the Adaptive Training system predicts?
I began my FTP at 269W this season, and now it’s at 274W. Sweet spot workouts are feeling a bit too easy and I am not feeling challenged at all. My sweet spot progression level is 4.2. Can I use the alternate workout feature to do a level 5.2 workout? The 5.2 workout falls within the productive range, and it looks very doable based on how I feel and my past performance in previous workouts.
For additional context: last season, I started at a 274W FTP and progressed to 300W. My TR account name is yajs FYI.
So, I’m not actually on TR. I lurk here for the interesting conversations! And I have no experience with Adaptive Training. That said, here’s some speculation:
Recovery rate is likely to be a physiological characteristic that varies, sometimes substantially, between individuals. That is, maybe the OP has freakishly fast recovery. The AT predictions of fatigue would be geared towards the population average or something like that.
It seems like people who are into structured training are more likely to overcook rather than undercook their training. So, even if the AT estimates are biased conservatively … this might not be a bad thing. I bet that it’s better to slightly undercook rather than slightly overcook your intensity. Kind of like tire pressure.
or choose slightly harder workout if current one seems too easy,
answer as you feel to surveys,
if you feel good on yellow days, carry on
Eventually AT catches up with your abilities and will adapt your plan for optimal progression. There is no point to force it too fast, consistency is way more important in long term.
Sounds like you’re healthy and carried a good amount of fitness from your training last year, plus all your pother activities, into starting training again in December. I finally hit a base level of fitness last year, that riding at any level feels pretty darn good, and recovery got a lot better…enjoy it.
You can adjust the aggressiveness of the RLGL, too, right? Have you made any adjustments to that? Just remember, if you crank up the RLGL aggressiveness, to keep that in mind when the workout difficulties start catching up to your carryover fitness. You’ll probably want to dial back the RLGL meter before adjusting any workouts.
My sweet spot progression level is 4.2. Can I use the alternate workout feature to do a level 5.2 workout?
If you can handle more volume and want to do more volume, there is no reason not to. Consider starting by adding in a tempo workout on a day that you don’t currently bike, or adding a workout like Scotty as a warm up / warm down to your structured workouts to get you started down the “more volume” route.
If you want a harder sweetspot workout (which may be longer overall, or have longer work intervals in it), go right ahead.
Take the yellow day for what it is: a warning that you might be accumulating more fatigue, more quickly that the TR systems think you should. That’s all it is. There is no need to be beholden to it.
It’s tough to say for sure if you recover faster than what AT can predict (and whether or not it will remain that way moving forward), but I will say that you can (cautiously) train through yellow/red days if you feel up to it.
If you have a yellow day today and still feel good enough to do your workout, then I’d say go for it – especially if you have a rest day the day after for some extra recovery.
The same idea works for your question about bumping your workout up to a higher level using Workout Alternates. I’d say you could cautiously go for it if your workouts have felt easier than you’d like.
All that said, do keep an eye on how you continue to feel, though! The yellow/red day warnings pop up when you’re accumulating more training stress than is productive, so if you start seeing a string of yellow/red days (rather than one-off instances) or if you start to feel a bit run down, don’t be afraid to knock things back down so you can recover appropriately.