Masters Plans and More Launched Today! ๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰

Today, weโ€™re launching Masters training plans, lowering the intensity of our existing plans, and adding the ability to change the workout duration of any workout in a plan!

Masters Plans
Masters Plans have been a long-requested feature, and Iโ€™m very excited for it to launch!

The plans feature just two intense days per week, with the rest of the plan being endurance riding.

By default, the intense days are Tuesday and Saturday, but you can switch that around in Plan Builder if youโ€™d like.

Whoโ€™s it for?
We recommend the Masters plans for older athletes or anyone else who might have poor recovery.

This could be new parents, shift workers, athletes with high-stress jobs, or athletes with sleep issues.

Getting Started
Masterโ€™s training plans are available in the training plan section on both trainerroad.com and in our apps. They are also available in plan builder.

Masters plans are not available for triathlon at this time.

For those already on a plan, youโ€™ll get a popup notice at the beginning of your next training phase asking if youโ€™d like to switch to Masterโ€™s plans.

If you canโ€™t wait that long, you can switch your current phase on your calendar to a masters version. Just click the phase name in the upper right corner, then select the appropriate masters plan block in the dropdown.

Note: Be careful when you do this; due to our Base Plans changing from 6 to 4 weeks in length, you could potentially cut off a recovery week.

Sweet Spot General Base Update

Weโ€™ve made two specific updates to these base plans.

First, weโ€™ve renamed โ€œSweet Spot Baseโ€ to "General Base . "Sweet Spot base wasnโ€™t descriptive of what was encompassed in the plan, and led to confusion.

Second, weโ€™ve changed the work-to-recovery ratio from 5:1 to 3:1. This means youโ€™ll get a recovery week every fourth week in your general base plan.

Sunday Endurance
Sunday rides in both Masters Plans and our normal plans have switched from sweet spot rides to endurance rides.

This gives athletes less intensity and the opportunity to extend the duration of their Sunday aerobic ride if theyโ€™d like.

Custom Workout Duration
A couple weeks ago, we launched a new feature that Iโ€™d like to share.

You can now specify the duration of each workout in a plan.

That means you could have a โ€œhigh volumeโ€ plan with 60-minute workouts.

Or a โ€œlow volumeโ€ plan with 2-hour rides every day.

This update gives athletes the flexibility to more easily fit training into their schedule.

Thatโ€™s it! Head on over to TrainerRoad.com to check out the new updates, or sign up today to start getting faster!

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Whoop! Thanks Nate.

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Awesome updates!

Are similar changes planned for the triathlon plans?

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Yes, but itโ€™s a bit more complex.

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Great stuff. Love the name change to general base and the work to recovery ratio update. Welcome changes just in time for indoor winter base season.

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Snoopy dance for sure with the host of changes. Some long-time requests coming to light and looks like great stuff across the board :smiley: :+1:

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Good work. Master plans look very sensible, not only for masters but for general population.

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Great stuff Nate!

With regards to the setting of workout duration, should it have an option for 120+ so that AT doesnโ€™t cap workouts to 120min?

I donโ€™t know if itโ€™s already been changed, or if itโ€™s specific to my plan, but AT is currently adapting my workouts shorter and Iโ€™d have thought theyโ€™d stay longer based on PLโ€™s

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Ditto, I was hoping for a longer duration limit as well.

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We just talked about upping this to 5 hours for endurance rides.

For the other rides we donโ€™t have workouts that long. If you want to go really long on one of those days, I would use the extend cooldown feature and just turn up the level.

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Yes, specifically Endurance rides Iโ€™m talking about.

Iโ€™ve done some of the SS workouts in the 2.45-3hr range in the past though and found them to be great. I can absolutely understand the lack of use there and that people can search out those workouts if theyโ€™re leaning that way.

ETA: Iโ€™d say if it were as simple as 120+, that would be enough, as youโ€™re basically saying I want to do a Long Ride that matches my PL.

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I think someone buried the lead! Is @Nate_Pearson training for Big Sugar?

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Thank you Nate and to everyone in the team. Excited to check out the new plans (especially with the longer Z2 workouts). As a Masters athlete, youโ€™ve implemented several of the improvements Iโ€™ve been hoping for and this should greatly reduce the need to frequently tweak the plan manually. Big cheers :beers:

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I think there might be a little logic tweak needed in Plan Builder. I told it that Iโ€™ve been doing 6-9 hours the last 6 weeks, and hereโ€™s the recommendation I got.

It says at the top that Low Vol is recommended, then on the chart in the middle, it says Mid Vol is recommended, but if you look at the weekly hours, it says High Vol is 6-10 hours a week. Not sure which one is correct, but they should align with one another.

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Ha, we got duped with the Leadville tease too.

Fool me twice and all that :sweat_smile:

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This is great stuff. I swear the 5th week of Sweet Spot base II nearly breaks me every time!

These plans are also great for those of us that want to blend in outside riding. Iโ€™ve always felt guilty replacing my 3rd intense ride with an unstructured outside ride. This makes it easy to nail my interval days during the week on the trainer and then easily choose inside or outside rides on the weekend.

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We have someone looking into this now.

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I think this shift to endurance rides on the weekend is awesome. Iโ€™ve been doing LV and squeezing in as much endurance as possible around that depending on family life and upping the individual workout durations. This is exactly what I was hoping for. Big props to the TR team.

One issue I just noticed is building my plan for the upcoming season, plan builder did 8 weeks of Base phase leading into my second A race of the year and no build or specialty. Iโ€™ve been using TR for 4 years and definitely considering myself advanced/expert and plan builder still didnโ€™t change the plan when I toggled between my experience level.

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This is awesome! Thanks @Nate_Pearson and TR team!