Oh please please be automated time limits!
A good plan for your overall life that you can stick with is the “best” plan for you!
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I’ll go a step further and say there is no “best” plan…too many variables to ever know if one is better than another. Like @mtbjones said, find a plan that works for you and you can stick to and you’ll be in good shape.
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Its been about 7 months since I first posted this and figured I’d give an update after some discussions with TR and reflection on my part. Looking back at the results I’ve gotten so far, what type of athlete I am wanting to be (which admittedly has changed since I first signed up), and just how the TR plans fit into my life, it doesn’t make sense for me to follow these plans.
A good training plan should fit into my life, not the other way around.
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Hey @kevshoes, I am sorry to hear that it doesn’t make sense for you to follow the TR plans. 
By looking at your training history, it doesn’t look like you’ve been on a TR plan for about 7+ months, and you just started one about a month ago. Is there something about the current plan that’s not working for you?
I’d love to hear your feedback on the results you’ve gotten so far, the type of athlete you want to be, and see if we can collaborate on a training plan that will work for you moving forward 
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Is it possible to get a refund on this year’s subscription or am I locked in until the end of the year?
If you been a member for 7 months then that 30 day money back guarantee has expired. Maybe you can give or sell the remaining months to a friend that cycles.
Bummer.
Hey @kevshoes,
Please don’t hesitate to reach out if there’s anything we can do to help.
We’d love a chance to get things straightened out for you one way or another. 
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Hey @eddiegrinwald, I do appreciate you reaching out and your DM with the discount code. I’ve put a lot of time and effort into your plans and I was hopeful that with the “improvements” and tweaks on my part, maybe it would have worked. I’m doubtful that another round of conversations with you, Jonathan, or anyone else from TR will provide an option other than “do low volume.” While I’m at a different point in my life now and scaling back on volume is happening, something is just not working for me. After nearly a decade, I’m ready to enjoy training again.
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Hi John, I like the way you framed things at the end of your post. I like the way you are flipping the conversation. I appreciate that. We can all improve!
but with that said, I am going to echo what other said, I would like to specifically ask the TR leadership team to not do that, specifically during the Podcast. Not long ago during the podcast recently, the topic was fatigue management. the example that is always use during the podcast is that Athletes follow a plan but then it is said also during podcast that the athlete ends up doing a lot more work that leads to burn out. although that is the case for some, but to your point that is not a case for every athlete
I posted a similar situation in the following post
I also opened a ticket recently for similar issues because I again I seem to be struggling with fatigue. today being Apil-2024. I provided the support team similar feedback.
I email Nate on this topic and never got a response. I get it, Nate is a busy guy and don’t have time to respond every email he gets
I realized this post is a bit old, but I bring this up because this keep happening. again specifically during the podcast.
I think we all want this to be a win-win. A lot of us just need the tools and education to make more informed decisions and I think that is why we a lot of us love the product. You folks seem to be innovating and wanting to help athletes to became faster and we all appreciate that.
lastly, I think the greed, red feature is going to make a profound impact toward helping athletes managing fatigue better. so thank you TR
thank you!
Can I ask… do you take a season break?
As a XC and track coach (running) I can tell you that time off after a full season is essential to longevity. I know it is old school but a traditional base period following time off gives the body a mental and physical break you need after months of hard training…to then build again. Crushing intervals week after week (even with recovery weeks), year after year, is not sustainable. This applies to cycling (and all sports) as well. In a recent podcast Alex Wild said he takes a whole month off the bike. In a podcast with Keegan’s coach they talked about a mid-season break. The down time and rebuild is what helps us ultimately to keep going up (or in some case hold on longer).
I know this varies with age and experience. I also subscribe to adding in some low key intensity during base (hills, tempo, some 30-30s) but in my experience the time where we are “hitting on all cylinders” is about a 6-8 week window before we start breaking down. The hard part about training, is that we are all the same… but different. What works for some (most) doesn’t always work for others. Even as a personal coach sometimes it just doesn’t work. That of course comes with criticisms. Sometimes valid, sometimes not. Humans are complicated.
Back to my main question, I am interested if you take a season break. Let me know. I love thinking about this stuff from the coaching side.
Best of luck, hope you get it figured out!
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Care to post a link to your training calendar?
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Why would they stop addressing that? It is by far the most common issue relating to burnout, not hitting goals etc. There are new threads and posts on the forum every single day with the same old stuff – “TR doesnt work!”>view calendar with all kinds of unstructured volume, skipped workouts, no recovery etc.
They also seem to be more than willing to address issues like yours that aren’t related to the typical situations.
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If there are threads everyday about athletes burning out, couldn’t that be a sign if a systematic issue with the program itself? When not riding the bike, is the expectation that TR athletes are to sit on a couch all day? Are mountain bikers/CXers/crit racers expected to solely do all their training on a trainer, following an exact target power and not worry about practice handling needed for their event? I said earlier, a good training plan fits into your life not the other way around.
Over the years, I have tried a bunch of adjustments to try and make the TR plans work. Following them to the letter to trying to give myself more wiggle room to recover to hoping their changes actually deliver. Same results 7 years running. When I talked to them this past summer, they pulled what I’ve seen them do to other people with similar complaints and said, “its on you, do low volume.” I just got to the point where I had to question the fundamental idea behind these plans and just realized for me, they absolutely do not work.
If TR, has to come out with masters plans and RLGL to dial back intensity, isn’t that a sign that, hey these plans are too hard?
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Without hard numbers to point to directly, what I can say is that the apparent volume of topics & posts related to TR burnout are WAY down from my viewing. They were pervasive upon the opening in the late 2018-2020 seasons. But with AT, plan changes and other features I see far fewer of these posts than ever before.
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We still see some threads, and Nate referenced their own research in the forum for around 30-40 they specifically reviewed around the release of RLGL, but the numbers seem far lower than ever before.
- Certainly not and I can’t say I have ever seen them say that in any form or fashion.
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Again, no. The TR of old may have been that way, but they have opened the option to do outside workouts at the very least which was a large shift from their origins. But with the use of these outside workouts, they also recognize (and share with potential users) the pros/cons of them in relation to inside workouts.
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Choosing which ones to do inside vs outside is something to be done deliberately with a number of factors in mind. Many of those are covered in their support articles, blog posts and podcast discussions.
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Sure, and using the many volume and plan options they offer as a start, along with the manual adjustments they also cover are meant to create a sustainable and hopefully beneficial plan. Gone are the days of the inflexible “BINGO” card plans with little if any options.
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The TR of today is more flexible than ever, but it also relies on the athlete to take an active role in finessing the plan to suit them and their unique life & training environment.
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That seems an oversimplification that ignores the wide range of ages, training histories and fact that some athletes do excel with the higher volume & non-masters, polarize plans, etc. It’s easy to point to the negative topics since that is what happens to be reported more often in life, and clearly here on the forum.
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Considering the shear number of likely TR users in contrast to the forum (30k members) I’d say it’s very likely we see a skewed picture of successes vs failures here. We really have no idea since TR doesn’t share that data, but I think unlikely they are crushing people more often than helping them. I just can’t see a business continuing and growing as they have if the results tipped that way. Pure speculation of course, but I think there are more likely wins that we simply don’t see on a regular basis vs complaints on what I think are a lesser number overall.
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No, I don’t see it as a systemic issue. You can’t not follow the plan and then complain about the plan, which is what I see in the overwhelming majority of the threads/posts I’m talking about. I think I made that pretty clear but I will reiterate – over doing it with unstructured volume, not accepting adaptations, riding hard during recovery weeks, taking weeks completely off, attempting hard workouts after hard unstructured rides on zero rest… This isn’t exactly a secret issue on this forum. And yes they’ve added the guardrails of masters plans and RLGL and you STILL see people coming here posting things like “TR is killing my workouts!” or “should I really accept this workout adaptation from VO2 to an endurance ride after I did a 200 TSS threshold workout yesterday??” At some point, yes, the onus falls on the individual.
I primarily race enduro and a bit of XC marathon. Mostly from the month of May through November I am riding unstructured outside. My workouts consist of 1-2 VO2 sessions per week to stay sharp. I save the heavy training for Nov-April. This isn’t a private coaching service, as such I have to navigate what works for me on my own.
I’m sorry it doesn’t work for you. And just to be clear, none of the above is directed towards you personally, as your situation is obviously different than what I’m talking about, I’m just addressing your recent response to my post. But I’ve been reading the forum and listening to the podcast long enough that it is clear to me that the majority with issues are not in your situation.
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HI @Jolyzara
Yes, minimum take 2 weeks. some years a take 3 weeks. depends on how much racing I do on a giving year. When I was doing CX racing, I would take a break at the end of Road Race season, then I would take a break towards the beginning of the CX season
Since last year I have been doing only 2 intensity work outs a week and the rest of the week easy stuff,. basically endurance.
coincidentally around the time I changed my approach, reducing the number of high intensity workouts per week down to 2, TR release their Master Plans which also does that.
The reason why opened a ticket with TR support, i think it was in Feb-2024, was because TR was suggesting stretch workouts. I was using alternates to overwrite it choosing lower intensity workouts
in the recent weeks, the only tweak I have done is to reduce the duration of my endurance workouts down to 2 or 3 hours. mostly 2 hours
I agreed with an earlier post that the TR of today is more flexible and provides better tools to athletes to do better at fatigue management
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“This isn’t a private coaching service, as such I have to navigate what works for me on my own.”
My frustration stems from TR’s advice has always been “follow the plan” then later “accept the changes from AI and follow the plan.” I’ve done that. I could not find/remember an instance where they’ve really said, “you need to swap some of our workouts for an easier ride sometimes.” And I was a listener and follower of their feeds so I don’t think I was a completely oblivious TR user.
I would agree, the guardrails have gotten better and sure, in the confines of the information from TR, their stuff works and have lots of successful athletes. After talking with friends who are coaches and fast riders, venturing to other cycling forums, and even former TR employees though, they all to a person, say the same thing.
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That’s been my frustration also. My understanding is that things have changed a bit since I’ve stopped using it, but here are my feelings on it.
Trainerroad overpromises and under delivers. That’s not to say it is a bad platform…I think it’s pretty solid value. But the messaging from the company as to how it should be used is very poor. Worse, they get very defensive about it, to the point of singling out individual users and calling them out publicly for not using their platform properly.
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