I participate in mtb events only and would like to know how to substitute a prescribed indoor workout for an outside ride on rough terrain. It is critical for racing, since offroad rides take huge toll on other muscle groups, unlike road/trainer workouts + i need to train my handling skills.
Any suggestion on how to do it properly? Should i keep an eye on IF and tss or maybe there are more things to consider?
I found an old topic about similar questions, but how about AI things since then? Does trainerroad adapt better nowadays?
If you’re looking to swap out workouts here and there, you could just pick the workout that best represents the effort that you’re going to do on your MTB (easy, moderate, hard), right-click on it, and switch it to Solo Ride.
You can also make these changes to your plan as a whole if you edit your plan and change any of the workouts to a solo ride.
You aren’t going to get much recovery on a MTB ride… There’s always going to be a punch here and there where you need to spike up into anaerobic territory, be it briefly. So true recovery is difficult. Due to this I would do MTB workout days in place of an interval day. Workouts that are easy to remember (like 7 x 3 min) and just do them on the trail. E safe and be sure to choose a portion of the trail with good sight lines in case someone is coming down. And don’t worry about a smooth blue line, you are doing race specific work.
I love ripping segments out on the trail. It’s hard to really train at race speed on a MTB but it can get close.
What I’ve done is gone out to ride (mtb/gravel) when and how I wanted and skipped workouts that conflicted with that. AI was OK with that and appropriately adapted the plan the next day based on what was actually done. I figure AI takes in all prior activities, then adapts the plan going forward based on that and what has been input for the future, the things put in when constructing or editing the plan. That said, any deviation from the “ideal plan” it had created usually reduces the FTP prediction. In my case, it seemed to settle down after a while of me doing more unstructured outdoor rides than scheduled workouts.
would it be more relevant if i try sticking to the respective heart zones and not power zones? heart rate doesn’t change so abruptly during many climbs/descends
The screenshot below is my '‘close–to-race pace outside workout’. should i try something similar to the prescribed workout (monitor +5) ? i mean going up and down offroad with maximum sustainable effort for ~1h10m ?
Training by HR is really only accurate with steady efforts, and often, you only want to go that route for efforts at LT2 or below.
When it comes to structured work, either you’re going to follow along with the prescription, or you’re not. It’s okay to ride outside instead of doing your workout. There’s no need to try to fit a square peg into a round hole.
