I think we should just view it as another arrow in the quiver, the addition of another tool, is just that, the addition of another tool, I don’t (didnt) use the progression levels, I have my a library of workouts, where I tweak them week by week, takes 5 seconds with a good workout editor
Good thing about this approach is that if I fail a workout, or find it hard, I can just evaluate and do the same workout next week, sometimes progression is just doing the same thing better, my actual scores don’t decrease
PL’s within TR is just a tool for doing the same thing
I see “auto adjust the workouts” as pretty much the same thing, amongst my long terms I am on prozac, and have this habit of wanting to please people (not that you would have guessed from this forum) so when somebody (something) says, this is the workout that you should do, I feel that that is the workout that I should be doing, and will try to please the system, the fact that if I don’t do that workout, PL’s decrease e…t.c, just isn’t good for me
Like you say, it’s all personal, but I can’t see that having more tools at our disposal, be it PL’s or Adjusting plans, can’t be a bad thing, heck, even the TSS bar is just a tool for managing you load
What? You are not blindly following a plan that we know will give you a VO2 workout. You are instead thinking? Not sure that is allowed in the complaints forum.
I mean. One would assume the entire point of paying a company to provide a training plan to follow, is so one would not HAVE to pour through decades of research on exercise physiology in order to get proficient enough with the science in order to create and adjust a plan on the fly…or am I missing something?
Yeah, but it still has a flavor of people driving into a river because they trust their GPS over their own eyes. And I think it is built on assumptions, which were not satisfied by the OP. (They doubled the durations of most workouts, and we don’t know whether that was mellow endurance stuff or proper mountain biking with lots of above-threshold efforts. And they added 2 running workouts per week.)
I don’t think that’s true, quite the contrary.
To me TR is like Excel, and doing a training plan by hand is like having to use one of those calculators that print on paper — you can do your book keeping either way, but I know which way I prefer even though I can add in my head just fine.
When you have more experience, you can make choices more deliberately, you know when you may want to override TR’s recommendations and when not to. Could you make other tools work? Yes, probably. Would they be better than TR? Depends, I’d say. Would a human coach be better? Assuming you have found a good coach who you gel with, yes.
User needs to use common sense. Program only gives next workout. It only knows what they did last time. User has to assess if they are ready for the workout. If you’re tired do you still do the workout? No reaserch needed here.
I think anyone has to know that trying to copy and paste advice from successful athletes or pros has to be really careful. If you want to increase volume, you have to have more and more areas of your life dialed and the margin of errors shrinks significantly. That includes sleep, rest, nutrition, gym work, etc.
Moreover, I think the main point still stands: you can be very successful basing your training plan off of a LV plan. The important point is that these athletes know how much volume and intensity they can take, and what is necessary to sustain their training load.
I over-performed on a TR 20min test years ago. The next two months nearly dug me a grave! But I followed the plan because that’s what you do when you entrust your performance to an external party.
It’s marketed as having fixed that problem now
That is the whole idea of PLs. A plan two years ago would have progression built into workouts assuming you are growing fitness and after 3 weeks targeting sweet spot you are ready for a harder SS workout.
Now, if you rate workouts appropriately when digging a hole, those workouts won’t be getting harder or will even decrease in intensity. It just relies on you rating the workouts, which definitely could be improved/re-emphasized, and accepting adaptations that might indicate a step backward.
I had the same problem, I used trainerroad many times but gave up again, since last week I started indoor riding again, set up a low volume plan, 3.5h indoor riding per week, about 200+tss a week, in the past I basically rode outdoors 2h a day and strength training three times a week, about 600+tss a week. now the tsss are drastically reduced, except I can only schedule one outdoor 2h ride in addition to the three indoor rides, and I can guarantee strength training on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I personally feel that the intensity is lower at this stage, maybe only 400+tss, but I don’t dare to increase the intensity of indoor riding at will for fear of overtraining, although I think the difficulty is really low at this stage.
Trying to be nice here but people have to think for themselves. If I cross a street do I look both ways? If I am tired do I do a hard workout? I think the two are equivalent for most people. Yes those that dont use it will suffer but the majority will use common sense.
Here is the fundamental question: what is “too tired?”
Further…how do you measure it? How would you know? How would you know you’re just not trying hard enough?
I think there is a very heavy bias here from people who already have the answers to these questions. The questions may be basic, but the answers are not.
Based on my understanding it is very difficult to burn out based only on physical exhaustion. With this I mean that all other important factors like sleep, nutrion and stress (work, family etc) is in check.
I am also waiting more from outdoor Adapting training. But still I do not think that TR (or any other software/ coach) can fully understand the big picture of the other factors at the any given time. It would be very difficult to always measure full blood picture, stress hormones, ATP in muscles etc. Sometimes I can be tired without reason known to me. Sometimes i feel great even if have not slept well or skipped lunch.
So my takeaway would be that sure the algorithm of TR has not yet peaked and it can be improved but I dont think i would let any algorithm to fully take over. Atleast I think it would be good to reserve right to use manual “handbreak” when needed over the TR workout planned.
As an example about non-workout related stress I do use garmin body battery feature to show how much energy is left (0-100%). It seems to measure stress levels and based on that charge or decharge the battery. I often have 70+% left in tank after work when starting training. The person i know uses similar device and has max~20% left in “tank”. Even this is artificial measurement I use it as example how much there is “energy” for daily workouts. TR doesn’t e.g. known any of daily stress before workout is started.
I’m trying to resist agreeing with you, because doing so means accepting that all or most people - including me - are Selectively Dumb, but I fear you’re right.
Either we (sometimes) just don’t recognise the signs of overreaching, or we do but we wear that tiredness as a fatigue security blanket.
“Boy, I’m pretty tired. My training must be working great!” Anyone else had that voice in their head? If you don’t have the other voice whispering “Back it off and recover, dumbass” then there’s only one way that’s going.
All that being said. Easy week. Every few weeks. That should be obvious. Right? Right?
