Have you ever gotten to a point where over a period of time, you have used TR, a coach or any other training platform, and have decided to break out on your own and create your own training sessions, mesocycles and annual training plan? TR is a fantastic platform and the value for money that it provides is sensational. I also think the crew do a fantastic job at educating it’s users etc. That said, I am curious to know if there has ever come a point where regardless of the value, you have built up a substantial body of knowledge and have developed the skills and knowledge that outweigh the cost/benefit ratio of using coaching, online coaching or online training programs.
Perhaps you have gotten to a point where you know your own body well enough, you have learnt a fair bit along the road, you have competed in various events and through trial and error know what works best for you, or like myself, you are lucky enough to gain exposure and knowledge in exercise science research.
I used TR to start off with and it was fantastic to get my body used to structured training and how things worked. It was actually a great learning tool to see how various systems are targeted with different builds, bases etc. After that, I tried structured training with a local coach for a while whilst I continued working and studying in exercise science. I enjoyed that and it was great to have a coach with local knowledge of the roads and climbs around here.
Then, after a while, and a few years lost in text books and journal articles (and some lucky experiences of being in the lab for exercise science and physiology experiments), I got myself to a point where I now know enough to create my own macrocycles, mesocycles and microcycles. My little niche corner of the exercise science world is exactly that, a very small niche and in no way do I know every little thing about physiology and the human condition, however, I am confident with what I know and how to program etc.
I’ve now created my own library of sessions on Training Peaks under different folders - threshold, VO2, fasted Z2, block periodization, anaerobic, velo simulation, active recovery, strength endurance, sweet spot etc. Each folder has custom built sessions that target different energy systems depending upon which stage of the macrocycle I am in. I’ve been running my own program now for all of this year and my FTP has gone from 260w (3.46w/kg) at the started of the year, to 289w (3.91 w/kg) at the end of April, to 309w (4.31 w/kg) which I just tested at the end of May. I’m getting far better results running my own program than with any other method that I have tried.
Once again, I do not purport to know everything - far from it as exercise science, human physiology and programing is a multi-faceted beast - but I think knowing my own body coupled with smart programing has really assisted me with my own cycling performance.
Curious to know if anyone else has gotten to a point with their own training where they are like - I’ve got this.