Losing faith with new TR plans

There are cases of people getting added because they know people? Really?

Where did you hear that?

I’ve tossed in a lot of additional unstructured rides to bring my TSS up to what I am more accustomed too. I’ve even considered going from LV to MV. Maybe add a little of what you feel is missing and augment?

I too am a little confused by the plan offerings now. I tend to listen to quite a bit of the podcasts and keep and eye on the forum, but I don’t have time to listen to every podcast in detail or read every thread on the new training plans.

I had the option for Polarized and then when the new app was installed on my ipad, those options disappeared.

I am training for a 40K TT in September, so I created a plan in plan builder (is this even the right thing to do anymore?), and I am personally surprised by the lack of sustained intervals that it has prescribed for me. When preparing for a 40K I would have expected at some point in the plan to have longer sustained threshold intervals (30 minutes, or even more) at some point in the plan, but even in the build and specialty phases there seems to be just 10 - 15 minute intervals and then some ramp intervals up to threshold during the specialty phase. Really confused as to whether its the right way to go, as I want to arrive at the TT knowing that I can at least handle threshold for a duration approaching the event length, if not actually performing 40 - 60 minutes intervals on a regular basis.

My workouts all have the adaptive ratings, but those dont seem to vary much in the plan that has been produced. We have been told for a long time that Plan Builder was the way to go, but I am not sure that applies at the moment with all the changes.

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  • Polarized plans are in the “Experimental” phase, and must be applied to the Calendar via the web. You will then be able to access the applied plan in any TR app you choose after that step.

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There have been a few mentions of people on the podcast who have been added. But the kid from couch to crit on norcal was specifically hooked up by Jonathan. They discussed it in the YouTube series. Great to see what a new rider and subscriber can do with adaptive training. Shows that it really works with the progress he got. Great advertising for adaptive training. For the rest of us just hope you can be one of the 10 new people added a week. If their are exceptions to the random rule then it’s not a random rule. Last podcast Jonathan said he had no control to who gets added and yet he’s added people. If it ain’t true then don’t say it. I realize by saying this is be one of the last added. But that’s life lol.

Again my life issues are much bigger than anything TR is doing. Just got into a depression and anxiety care course. Riding was my one release and safe space. Seems life has taken away any drive for that. I was doing OK on the polarized program and then the update and that got removed from my calendar. That was the end of it for me.

I just need time to recharge and get my head right. Would be nice though if trainer road always did what they said they were going to do. Kept the field balanced and gave everyone a fair shake in getting in. But that’s not real life and that’s ok. It will happen when it happens. For me I am slowly realizing I just need to stay away from tr for a while and relearn to just enjoy going for a ride.

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Hey bud - Anxiety/Depression here too and I’ve been at points where riding helped, and where it hurt. I will say overall trying to make cycling another ‘job’ for me was just too much. I was trying to work, husband, dad, cyclist, race promoter all at the same time and stuff had to give.

Don’t beat yourself for letting one thing give, and if you want to let that be cycling overall or data analytical cyclist that’s cool too.

FWIW I use TR just for guidance and don’t care what happens with FTP or race results anymore.

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Do you think it was because your FTP is set too high? Do you tend to do well (relatively) on your Ramp Tests?

Honestly, the points you’re making are the problem, not the solution you think it is.

Yes, you can substitute workouts. But like the OP said, if you’re a beginner that can daunting, especially with the massive workout library TR has. But secondly, and more important in my opinion, is that you shouldn’t have to. If I’m paying $190/yr for a training program, and pick a training plan, that should be it. I shouldn’t have to change or modify the workouts multiple times a week, or even multiple times within a block. And you’re suggestion to use Train Now is only partially useful. They’ve said on the podcast and in the forum that Train Now doesn’t look at or take your plan into account. It uses recent training history to suggest a workout. But if you’re on a training plan, Train Now doesn’t use that info and by doing so, can give you unproductive workouts for your plan.

Again, you’re downplaying this and make it sound like you’re a moron if you take more than 2 minutes, but from experience, and I’ve been using TR for years, it can take way longer than 2 minutes to find a productive workout for the day. And for a beginner, who may not know where to start, it can be overwhelming.

I want to do VO2 max today.

Well, do you want Attacks or Float Sets or Ramps or Steps? For a newbie, this is more confusing than helpful. You’re saying it’s so easy and that’s just naive.

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I take a pragmatic approach to problems or hurdles that I come across, which is to find practicable solutions, the simpler the better, and I feel I’ve addressed most of what you raise there in earlier posts so will not repeat it all again.

For some reason you seem dead set on misinterpreting what I’ve posted, which makes constructive discussion very difficult.

As previously stated, my view (based on my own experience) is that if people wish to replace workouts with alternatives then it’s now very much easier and faster to do so using the new Level classification system and the support for these in the search tool…

Do this by focusing on (i) Zone (ii) Progression Level (iii) Duration. If seeking a harder w/o than scheduled then I’d simply choose the same Zone, the same Duration but select a higher Progression Level. 3 clicks (5 seconds?) gives you an ordered list which you can visually scan for something looking like your scheduled w/o but with a higher Level. You often won’t need to get into the Interval type selection which you’ve referred to, though learning how TR labels w/os in this regard will likely prove useful knowledge in the future to enable you to refine your list further - but that’s just an icing on the cake and not essential as you can pick w/os out visually. You can also stick some relevant keywords into the text box which when combined with the LHS checkboxes already discussed is a super powerful combination, narrowing the search results right down so that you can choose visually.

The search tool could be refined further, as discussed in other threads, eg. to give finer grained control on the Level selection via sliders and to standardize descriptive text to make text searching more powerful, and I’m sure plenty more improvements will be made in time.

To reiterate something I’ve stated before: I feel the combination of (non-beta) stuff just released this past month has already hugely improved the product, making any manual plan tailoring much easier and faster than it was previously. It seems to me like a veil has been largely lifted, with eventual sight of (as opposed just a sense of) my own Progression Levels being the final reveal to come once AT reaches Production (or perhaps earlier if TR chooses to expose that info earlier).

This is a big bifurcation I see with the TR user base. One group views TR ‘as the coach’ and the other views TR as a ‘self-coaching tool’. I don’t know how much of this comes down to training experience, but from threads like this is doesn’t seem as though TR has solved this overall (expectations?) issue for both or either groups.

My personal view is that TR isn’t in my head, it doesn’t really know what I want. It doesn’t know how tired I feel, it doesn’t know how I slept, it doesn’t know about all these things that happen outside of TR workouts or rides they ingest, it doesn’t know my training history, it doesn’t even know how I subjectively felt during TR workouts I did. With the current state of things is it reasonable to get a plan that doesn’t require any customization or adjustments to work for me or for you (assuming we are very different individuals)?

Does that mean others are wrong and I’m right? No, we’re just in different places in our cycling journey and have different requirements and expectations.

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Funny, because I’m getting the same feeling about you.

Twice you’ve stated that it’s so easy to find a substitute workout. And I’m saying that’s not always the case and you’re downplaying the time it takes for a lot pf people. Yes, the new workout levels helps, but it’s not as simple as you’re making it out to be, that’s my point. And you repeating this over and over doesn’t help anybody.

Agreed. I like to tinker sometimes, but I can see how a lot of people want to just pay n play, and I’m in that boat a lot of the time. When work gets busy, I don’t want to have to make my own plans or substitute workouts, I just want to hop on the bike and go.

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I don’t really have enough experience to tell. Maybe? I did just get a 4-5% bump in FTP on last week’s test, so it’s possible that I was having a good day during that test and today I had a less good day.

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" [ Announcing Adaptive Training - The Right Workout, Every Time— Adaptive Training: The Right Workout. Every Time. - TrainerRoad](Adaptive Training: The Right Workout. Every Time. - TrainerRoad

This alone pisses me off lol. Its at the top of the forum on every thread! The right workout every time. Hmm. I am not getting the right workout every time. In fact my plan got deleted from my calendar with the change in polarized plans. I have not used TR in a while and logged into my calendar today and the old plan was back and the plan I added to replace the old plan was there as well. F*#&. Well I deleted both plans and added a new plan. YAY. Now I am too pissed off to ride…

I’ve been thinking about this. And as Random is not RANDOM I think that the first people into AT should be the first people that Started using TR back in the DAY. That puts me at a 7 or 8 year disadvantage… But shouldn’t the people who have been loyal to TR the longest have that exact same loyalty paid back? I realize my opinion means nothing at the same time.

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I’m generally unhappy with the new plans too. I think they will be great as a baseline once AT is available to all, but until then, I think these plans are just too easy, at least for riders like myself. I know, I know, “minimum dose,” but you also often hear from the podcast that if things are going great, don’t change what you are doing. My ftp and general endurance is at an all-time high, and that was built on the old plans. So, what am I doing about it? I’m using the “type” of workouts suggested, but finding one that is in range of the workouts that I’ve been accomplishing. while this might sound “easy” it isn’t necessarily. I am trying to find a workout that matches the same “sub zone” (not sure what to call these). Unfortunately, when you look at a workout, you can’t see how it is categorized. Without messing around a bunch, I can’t figure out if Spencer + 2 is a Sustained power Vo2 workout, or a traditional vo2 workout (not to mention all the other possible categories). On top of that, today I found 3 workouts that looked like a good replacement workout at a more appropriate level, only to find that they aren’t currently working for outside workouts. Sigh… I still love Trainer Road, and I’m pumped about where they are heading. The execution has been a little rough IMHO.

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Perhaps TR could create a section called “deprecated plans” and include the older plans for those that want to follow them.

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I think you have a very unrealistic view of what $190 per year should get you. Go look at TrainingPeaks and see what those plans cost. A 12-week base plan by Joe Friel, which is just a canned plan where nothing changes, is $119. Those are locked in and regardless of how you are feeling nothing changes/no other options. No one is telling you to modify what is in there. You can continue to just do whatever is in your calendar every single day and not think about it.

You’re complaining about one of the best values within a training platform and seem to have an unrealistic view of what you should expect from what you pay. $190 is close to one month of a real coach laying out a plan for you.

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I was also of the opinion that the new TR plans were much easier than the the old plans. Then I got into the AT closed beta, accepted all the suggested workout changes and now my plan is so much harder. So much so that I am getting more anxiety over the new adapted plan compared to the old harder TR plans!

This is my adapted SSB1 MV plan:

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On the bright side, there’s little need to be anxious about it. As soon as you start marking workouts as very hard / all out, it’ll start tweaking things in the other direction.

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I know when I started it was my first time using a trainer. The challenges of constantly pedaling was a huge change from doing workouts outside. VO2 was brand new to me…it wasnt till I heard Chad talk about VO2 and how to adapt and progress with VO2 that those workouts then made sense. Some of us start with poor fitness…as well…some start being older…so for me at 55 with not great fitness there were lots of reasons to sub to a lesser workout at times. It wasnt hard to see what workouts just didnt make sense for me to try based on prior experience as you moved towards the end of the plan.

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AT is slowly changing this, but that’s effectively what all TR plans have been until now too, to be fair. SSB 1+2, the build block relevant to your events, and a specialty, scaled by FTP and sorted into baby, mama, and papa bear versions.

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