Nope that’s my intensity for the next 3d block
Which program are you following stamina or ftp builder? These programs gradually build up, lsrf dives right in
This is the sort of session you genuinely see being done primarily outdoors by pro riders. I know juniors on pro programmes that are doing shit loads of overgeared work and repeated short sharp efforts like this.
It seems a bit out-of-touch which what we typically consider effective in the modern indoor training space, but I wouldn’t write it off.
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You’re not going to be happy with Join. I’d suggest trying something else. I mean that seriously. Your training philosophy clearly doesn’t align with theirs and I don’t see any way this ends well. I’d move on. I spent way too much time using tools that I had no confidence in waiting for them to change to my way of thinking. They never do. You either have to change your mindset or find a tool that more closely aligns with yours.
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Believe it or not but I was a firm believer of sweetspot+hiit/sit style training but after 2 seasons of very hard work (and start to dread certain days because of the workout) but very little real world improvement I had to reassess. And I will have to reassess again in a few months now because my time is more limited
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I used to dread the high intensity days when I was on a traditional plan and they came up 3 times a week. Since switching to masters, I actually look forward to them twice a week.
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Yup.
And athletes like myself that hire a coach, for example:
it worked for me. My biggest issue due to age is recovery, so you may want to add intervals for example 2 sets of 5x1-min and 2 sets of 20-min tempo (see the 3rd workout in pic above).
and on the topic of cadence work… Unload1 description:
and my notes:
two days before was 4x1.5-min with “flush out” of 3x5-min around 90% at 100-110rpm. I’m a grinder. Always be pedaling 
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Of course he is or did you expect these riders to improve their FTP year by year while training as they train (=full time)?
Their improvement is in more precise peaking and maybe digesting more carbs per hour.
I’d dare to claim that all FTP improvement season:season is either more training or measurement error.
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Sorry for your frustration, but in join’s favor they don’t seem to claim anything regarding AI
Their founder guy rather stated he started crafting the workout prescription in excel to later put it into the join app.
Endurance training is so utterly simple that I doubt “AI” could add much there anyways.
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That was exactly what I meant. There’s no endless evolution, stagnation in FTP numbers isn’t a bad sign. There are lots of different areas to improve as you suggested.
I also would be completely fine stagnating at 400w 
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hahaha true!
By the way, the guy is a beast. He seems very knowledgeable.
Why would JOIN stick a ‘build up phase’ in the middle of a program?
Their website says this is a base or pre program block?
Obviously as I discovered their program overview button (some things are oddly hidden), I am also now aware the program goes:
7 weeks hard training
1 week recovery
1 week ‘build up’ (volume?)
6 weeks training
1 week taper
Race
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The build-up is always the first week after recovery. It’s not the same as Base-Build-Specialty. Instead, it’s kind of a transition week. Build up - Training - Recovery (Repeat). At least, that’s my understanding.
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Who am I to complain. A rest week every 7 is one more than I got in 24 weeks or XERT!
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@Neuromancer Anymore hot takes after 2 more weeks of using it? Appreciated your insights earlier.
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So in preparation for a road races in September I am back using a slightly modified mid volume climbing race road TR plan. 3 weeks into build and adding some easy Z2 on top of the scheduled workouts.
CTL is crashing and Garmin edge telling me I need some low aerobic workouts as load focus is anaerobic 
.
I have a pretty fixed schedule and less hours available (12-14 down to 7-8) so this suits me for now.
One of the races is a 2 day stage race. 9 min flat TT and the queen stage is 2 10-12 min climbs. For something like this I think TR trumps Join. Join perhaps is more Gran Fondo focused?
Will see how it goes.
Hey; sure - except they aren’t particularly hot anymore as, let’s be honest, once you’ve done a week of JOIN you’ve done 6 weeks of join.
They still haven’t fixed the JOIN app’s inability to offer non-erg training because, well, everyone else uses a Garmin so it’s low on the priority list (from JOIN)
I’ve been prescribed my first proper workout (3 sets of ronnestads). The target power is pretty low though (415ish, whereas in XERT I was working at 480-500w @ 360 threshold). Obviously, see above, training out of erg isn’t compatible on their app (which is stupid)
I’m still getting used to 3on1off and scheduling in the extra work I need to do (lifting, heat acclimation, fasted training). It seems pretty arbitrary what I get in each block though, except normally at least one bit of torque and one bit of vo2 training.
The “Training availability” button is frustrating when you have more time. I’d like to have a “amount I want to train” button (e.g I can do 10 hours this week, JOIN how should I prioritise it?). If I put my avail up to 4 hours every day it just whacks me with 20h of volume across every single day - rather than saying “do 90mins of intervals these two days then a 4hour ride the third day”. There should be an option to set “weekly availability” in hours, and then have the app intelligently select days to work. Except that would require actual ML, rather than an IF/THEN operator with a selection of similar FTP and VO2 workouts and a hard-on for low cadence work.
What is the difference between clicking “add to training plan” or not when you do something unscheduled?
I still think this app is enjoyable because it offers mostly easy training. I am not convinced I’m going to be faster. 90% of the workouts are just a couple of hours of spinning at low endurance with some random segment intervals thrown in. In fact, I’m not convinced that a random punter going out and riding and just occasionally going full ham up a 2-4min segment wouldn’t have the identical training intensity distribution as someone on a rigid JOIN plan.
My EF is still going up though. Check out this beautiful Intervals.icu chart.
That’s the kind of line we like to see. Honestly mostly XERT’s doing though, forcing me to ride Z2 @ 280w.
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Is there a specific reason you switched from XERT to JOIN? Or just to try another platform? I have XERT subscrided but never used the XATA or now the XFAI training schedules (yet).