I don’t think so. VO2max declines with age, if it’s something like 30 in your fifties and you don’t try to improve it you can barely walk up stairs in your 70’s
Yeah I’m not trying to be a good cyclist just very healthy for as long as possible and to be fit and able in old age. I’m using cycling to do my conditioning work as it’s much easier on the body than running.
I’ve done various sports over the years: weightlifting, powerlifting, running, MMA and triathlon. I’ve found they mostly just take up a load of headspace that could be spent on family and other values that I hold higher.
I do enjoy training daily but more so for longevity and overall health. If I prefer one thing it would be strength training.
1 Like
I would still say, your initial plan isn’t a good way to go about it.
Could you expand on this?
You had mentioned in your first post about power over HR but as explained I’m not interested in cycling performance just overall health. HR zone 2 training for 45-60 minutes will improve cardiovascular performance as the HR will drop over time, at this point I’ll increase intensity or duration to maintain Zone 2 but I will have achieved progressive overload.
You also mentioned lack of deload, this is a given. I hadn’t gone into the detail of long term planning, I’m really just getting a feel for how I can make TR work to suit my goals.
From experience training conditioning in the past I would have thought 2 zone 2 sessions and 1 zone 5 session with progressive overload would have definitely improved my fitness over time.
I’m fully open to other perspectives so more than happy to be persuaded if it helps me achieve my long term goal.
Hey @Setanta69,
Welcome to the forum! 
Your goals here are super common and they are respectable.
Peter Attia’s description of a basic routine for health and longevity is solid, and anyone with some motivation could follow that specific plan and probably have good results in terms of general fitness and cardiovascular health.
What he’s done here is basically distill the absolute bare essential training stimulus that covers as many energy systems as possible with the most simple type of plan. It’s much easier to discuss this way rather than saying "Do this on Monday, this on Tuesday, this on Wednesday, this on Thursday, etc.).
It’s definitely possible to follow a plan that’s really close to the exact routine that he’s describing, and I’d be happy to help set that up for you, but I do think that you’d actually be better off for a number of reasons following one of our “General Fitness” plans. You’re going to get a bigger variety of workouts that will challenge you both physically and mentally in more ways.
It’s kind of like going to the gym. What PA is doing is saying that for most people, if your goal is overall health and longevity, you could probably do squats and deadlifts every week and substantially improve your health and expected longevity (I’m making this up as an example) and that’s totally true and easy advice for anyone to follow. The truth is though, you might be even better off if you throw in some pull-ups, push-ups, planks, etc. but that is much more difficult to prescribe to the general public as a “best practice” for all.
Ultimately, he is prescribing some easy work and some hard work which should cover most of what you need. We believe at TrainerRoad that some medium-intensity work is actually going to be much more efficient when you’re training less than 15 hours a week, and even then that type of stimulus definitely has its place.
Let me know if this makes sense and if you have other questions, and again, I’d be happy to help get a plan in place that works for you – just say the word! 
6 Likes
Well said!
Most of the replies here are going to be from cyclists who are trying to give cycling advice to someone who’s not in search of cycling fitness/improvements. Let’s face it, Michael Rasmussen was one hell of a good cyclist, but Attia is not describing that kind of “fitness” and OP is not in search of it.
(Edited to remove my incorrect statement. I confused different zone models)
There are three separate topics, one is what it means to design a training plan aimed at improving overall health, the second is HR vs. power, and the third is how to achieve progressive overload with endurance rides.
Designing a training plan for general health
To me this means that in addition to cycling, you do a fair bit of e. g. weight training or other sports, which induce fatigue on systems that are relevant to cycling. You said, you enjoy strength training, and doing a hard leg day will mean you have to take it easy on the bike the next day or rest.
If I understand you correctly, you want to train your cardiovascular system and your muscular endurance with cycling. That means that you should optimize your training on the bike for the time you have allotted and given the other things you do. IMHO your proposed training plan is an extremely inefficient plan that will cause you to plateau very early and not let you reach high levels or aerobic fitness.
VO2max is just a proxy of your overall fitness. @AJS914 put this very nicely in his posts. But it isn’t that VO2max (alone) is something that will make you healthier. I think, just like grip strength, it is just an indicator of overall cardiovascular health. So what you should train is cardiovascular health, not VO2max.
HR vs. power
Cycling is fairly unique in that you can measure your power output in a way that allows you to compare between athletes and across equipment manufacturers (unlike running power). Unlike heart rate, power is not influenced by other factors, the power you put out is the power you put out. A lot of cycling-specific adaptions depend on how much power you put out relative to your FTP. You certainly can use heart rate to pace endurance rides (I do this regularly as only one of my two bikes has a power meter), you base your training off of power.
Heart rate is influenced by a lot of factors. E. g. do a hard interval workout and immediately do an endurance workout afterwards. Your heart rate will be elevated, and if you went by heart rate, it would seem you are doing tempo or sweet spot whereas you are really doing Z2 power.
Achieving progressive overload with short 45-minute endurance workouts
Your plan has no progression — and so far also no rest week and periodization as far as I can tell. If your cardiovascular system is not very fit, this might be a way to achieve some initial level of fitness. From what you wrote, this is not you. a 45–60-minute endurance rides is not very taxing on your body, which means that it won’t stimulate any adaptations. You will simply maintain a very low level of fitness, until you burn out (as there is no periodization and rest periods in your plan).
Progressive overload has a very specific meaning, and at least the plan you sketch cannot implement this training principle. Progressive overload means that you systematically increase the intensity of your training until you exceed (slightly) what your body is capable of.
This is followed by a rest period (e. g. a rest week where you cut back on training time and only do easy Z1–Z2 work), which is when super compensation happens. This is when your body actually gets stronger. That’s why I am saying that any training plan without a rest week will not make you stronger. It is a recipe to burn out.
Moreover, you have limited training time, and IMHO you would not spend it very wisely:
- For endurance workouts, the way you achieve progressive overload is duration (as you cannot crank up the intensity).
- A single very hard VO2max session with no progression will not get anywhere. You need to do different workouts to address different systems that would enhance your fitness. For example, over/unders improve your body’s ability to shuttle lactate.
- Sweet spot is a good way to teach your body to work hard for prolonged periods of time. Many of the adaptations are similar to threshold work, but you incur less fatigue — or, equivalently, you can spend more time at sweet spot than threshold if you want to keep the fatigue the same.
That’s why I recommend you simply follow a basic low-volume training plan compiled by people who have spent many years thinking about nothing else. Plan Builder together with Adaptive Training will create and adapt a plan for you that is based on training fundamentals for endurance training such as periodization, progressive overload, individualization and specialization.
1 Like
I believe zone 2 for him is still ~LT1 which is borderline Z2/3 for most. 
3 Likes
Thanks for the detailed feedback.
I’m convinced to go with something off of plan builder, no harm in giving it a try and then I can really make my own informed decision after that.
@eddie if it’s not a hassle and your happy to propose a plan then sure that would be great, thank you.
2 Likes
I think I read somewhere that HR Zone 2 is equivalent to cyclists Zone 3?
1 Like
I use a 5-zone HR system and a 6 or 7-zone power system.
I’m going to open a support ticket for you so that we can work on a training plan together.
Keep an eye on your email! 
7 Likes
One last bit: since your goal is to be healthier and stronger, prioritize consistency. That is, a plan where you do a little less, but are more consistent is IMHO better fit for your goals (and for most). Most plans include a period of the year where you deliberately detrain and reset mentally. Also, plans with more variety are in my experience easier to follow than one where you repeat the same thing over and over again. (Imagine having to eat your favorite meal every day for years …)
Some people use that period to do other sports (e. g. skiing or hiking) whereas I typically use it to get sick 
1 Like
Honestly, all you have to do is fun workouts. Ride your bike in most any fashion 3-4 days per week and you’ll get plenty fit aerobically. You could just use the TR TrainNow feature and pick a workout any time you want a workout. Or you could follow a plan.
Yes, we talk about periodization and base, build and peak phases and magic intervals. Peter Attia hones in on a couple of zones because he’s trying to biohack his way to longevity.
But in the end, just doing a workout consistently is the more important driver of long term fitness and health. If you are the A type that tends to push things too far then consider a day off when your legs are fried. Walking around with sore and tired legs all the time is not fitness.
But that’s it. Get on the bike and pedal. Do something fun. Repeat. Take a rest when your legs are tired. It’s as simple as that.
5 Likes
Well said …
1 Like