Patiently, we wait. 
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When TR users say that the previous TR Plans ‘Sucked’, I have to admit that more often than not, I’m left scratching my head.
In the cold light of day, TR have said that their data shows a very small percentage of TR users actually completed the TR Plans, as prescribed. Workouts were subbed for races, different workouts, group rides, etc… So I struggle to agree when TR users say the plans suck. A significant proportion of us aren’t really following a plan.
I get it. Life gets in the way or throws you an opportunity you weren’t expecting. I’m going to opt for a group ride with my ride buddies over a TR workout in my garage. I don’t own bikes to ride them on a trainer.
In the Dylan Thread, users gave the example of swapping TR prescribed endurance workouts for a ZWIFT race. How did you really see that playing out and for how long?
If your coach prescribes you a session, I’m willing to bet that they expect you to try and execute that session. If you opt for a group ride or race instead, your coach is going to have questions, of that I’m sure.
Yes, some of the TR Plan progressions were tough and some of the Plans didn’t work well for us ‘senior’ riders and racers but, saying that something doesn’t work when it was not followed as prescribed is moving the goal posts in my mind.
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I don’t think the plans suck. I saw some gains with TR base, blew up on build. Saw more gains using a different approach.
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My comment wasn’t aimed at you 
I’m painting with a very broad brush. As the saying goes, ‘different strokes for different folks.’
I do appreciate that blocks such as Sustained Power Build knocked a lot of TR Users on their back. TR Plans were certainly not above question and there were holes.
For me, a healthy approach is to question my own actions first. Did I aid or hinder my own progress by doing something else?
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I’m in same boat. I have always had noticeable fitness gains in base plans. Be it FTP increases or TTE or both. It was getting into build and specialty that I would blow up without dropping targets or swapping workouts. The best approach was to go LV and drop targets, supplementing with z2.
And I have been super compliant over the last year with a schedule that allowed me to stick to the plans and a few cycles.
The single hardest thing to do is figure out how to overload and recover when adding in threshold and intensity.
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I think this was the most common outcome for a ton of people
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I actually asked this question once and got a ton of “you are the outlier, the vast majority of users complete the full cycle as planned” feedback.
I was honestly shocked because I know a lot of people using TR and they mostly stick to the SS Base plans because Build always blows them up and you eventually train your brain to stick to the plan you can finish rather than the one that makes you feel horrible about your training. This actually led to me trying Xert and later to building my own plans based on feedback in the POL threads. I’m super excited about the new workout levels and eventually a high performing AT.
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I have completed the old sustained build plan in the past but it felt really, really tough. I’ve just come off the back of the first half of the old LV plan, which almost broke me but I did it with only one brief back pedal (FTP from 289 to 296). I’m quite proud of myself of doing that however I have no idea whether I should really be finishing a workout feeling quite so drained. As I mentioned on another thread, I have changed the second half to the new plan and I’m interested to see whether I see any improvement after another 4 weeks.
ETA: probably the feeling I was having was less drained but just that for some of the workouts, it took every bit of fight and grit I had to make it to the end.
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I’ve never completed a plan without failing / dropping intensity on at least one workout, usually significantly more than that.
That includes times when all I did was indoor riding, so sticking to the plan as exactly as it’s possible to do.
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I’m now forced to update this short summary of the thread.
I’m unhappy I’m not in the AT beta, which would change my training plan constantly. I’m unhappy my training plans have been changed. And these plans sucked.
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Sounds pretty good to me.
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It’s crazy to me some people are complaining about the plans “they suck” or “they don’t have enough intensity “.
For a while some people were saying “too much intensity “ and “ these plans are impossible to complete”.
No one here has even done a full base build and specialty to compare the new plans with the old plans.
I might come of harsh but do some of you complain at a restaurant about the food before it’s even cooked and brought to your table? I just see it everyone’s complaining about something that they never even finished or completed and trying to compare it to something they complained about never being able to finish or complete LOL
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I have to agree with you. There seems to be lots of moaners on the forum. Jeez if you ain’t happy go elsewhere.
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This is exactly the same concern as i have had. For the community of long term experienced indoor trainer users (albeit as a % of total users probably quite small), the high volume plans worked very well and whilst hard, were achievable and produced great results. For racers at a Cat 1/2 level, they were great. Having trained indoors for years (mainly on trainer road) i have a pretty good handle on how much volume/TSS i need to race comfortably and be competitive. I have also played around with dropping my volume/increasing recovery etc in the past, my experience was there is simply a certain level of work that you have to do each week to race at a Cat 1/2 level. For high end races, you need to be capable of a certain level of TSS and you need to train this.
I get the science and understand the logic for making the plans more achievable which will increase compliance levels and make the majority of folks faster. The level concept is great, as is the concept of making your harder days hard and easy days easy, it just seems the high vol plans just dont have quite enough volume.
@Jonathan @Nate_Pearson - please advise if there is a work around to help for the TR users not on AT that were running high volume plans with decent compliance - do you advise us to add in additional volume of zone 2 on the easy days, increase the volume/intervals on the Tues/Thurs/Sat rides? I assume these prinicples still hold?
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Just want to give you kudos for trying to address your concern in a positive manner rather than the basic, “give me back my old plan”.
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Some of the workout details read “four 8-minute intervals…” and others read “3x3.5-minute…”
It would be much easier to search the huge workout library for interval durations if this was standardized across all workouts.
For example when I am looking for 4 minute VO2 intervals. I will typically filter VO2 Max and then search “x4” to get a clean narrowed down list of workouts that have (something) x4-minute efforts or intervals
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Yup, inconsistent use of numbers/values and related formatting makes searching a challenge, unfortunately. I struggle with it and end up having to do multiple searches because of this issue.
Would be really great if TR standardized and got consistent with a single method, to make this much easier and reliable.
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What I want is to be able to easily ‘drill down’ to find the workout that I want. A workout has some number of dimensions (length, working intensity, recovery duration, working set structure, etc.). Let me pick a dimension then show me examples from each bin for that dimension. For example I say I want a particular length; show me some number (maybe 5? whatever fits on a row cleanly) ‘recommended workouts’ 60 min, 75min, 90min, 105min, 120min. Then I say give 120 is my choice. So now I say I want to pick an intensity, show me 120 workouts grouped by intensity. Etc etc etc, until I find the workout that I want.
Part of the problem right now is some of the tags that they have applied are hard to understand what they mean or what the workout is going to look like. Unless you ‘know’ the database you’re probably not going to find the workout that you are wanting. Or you are going to ‘give up’ and try to build it yourself, and given the state that the workout creator is in that’s another avenue to giving up.
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Yup, the new sub-groups will be good, but with no additional info on what each one really means, you have to apply and remove filters and see what the heck comes up, to understand what they are.
A separate guide, or better yet, integrated graphic example and short definition would go a long way to helping apply the new filter options.
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One thing to consider with your comments is that for most, the plans did not get “easier.” Some workouts are harder and some are easier than they were before. HV may be an exception because SS workouts tend to be lower since the plan change, but Threshhold is higher in almost all cases. VO2 Max is higher in most cases, but some notable exceptions where the prior workout progression was clearly not right, such as Spencer +3 on the SSB2 plans. I don’t think their plans were neutered and therefore they don’t work without AT. I think they were adjusted. For some AT may move them up, some it may move them down. It also depends on what FTP you are training at and where you sit at that FTP.
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