I have an interesting issue this week with regard to some training plan adaptions being suggested.
My initial plan for this week (a recovery week before starting the specialty phase):
Mon: Rest Day
Tue: James
Wed: Phoenix -3
Thu: Andrews
Fri: Rest Day
Sat: Square
Sun: Solo Ride
Revised plan, if adaptations are accepted:
Mon: Rest Day
Tue: James
Wed: James
Thu: McDonald
Fri: Rest Day
Sat: James
Sun: Solo Ride
Maybe it’s just me, but having the same workout 3 times in one week seems a bit odd. Has anyone else had a similar situation?
At this point, my plan is to do James today (before accepting the proposed adaptations), and then see if anything different is proposed. And if James is still suggested two additional times this week I’ll probably look for some alternates. I just find it strange to have more than half of the week’s workouts be the same.
I’ve seen this issue in the past, specifically with the workout James, a few times.
The issue here is that because you’re talking about endurance workouts, once the power targets get to the top end of your zone 2, the only way to make the workout harder and still remain in the endurance training zone is to increase the duration.
Since we’re looking for endurance workouts that are specifically 90 minutes long, James is the best option in terms of your Progression Levels and abilities.
You could either use Workout Alternates to find a workout that’s longer than 90 minutes (Gibraltar -3 would be a good option), or pick a different workout that might have slightly less stimulus, but ultimately, James is actually the best option for you right now.
We’re looking to build out our workout library further to avoid redundancy in these types of scenarios, so hopefully this isn’t an issue for too long!
Thanks for the response. I replaced tomorrow’s James workout with Gibraltar -3, and immediately received another ‘adaptation pending’ to replace that with ‘Low Saddle’, which is rated even more difficult (well, higher TSS, anyway). I declined that adaptation (but can always go back and change it, if you think that makes sense). My guess is that if my plan allowed for more than 1.5 hours on Wednesdays perhaps my adaptation might have been Low Saddle initially, instead of James, but not sure on that.
In general I’m ok with the increased load (I don’t have any real time constraints), but also want to be sure I get enough recovery this week, since my Specialty phase starts next week.
And, related to the ‘no time constraints’ comment, would it be reasonable to just edit my training program to say that I have, for example, 5 hours available every day of the week, and then trust the app to give me workouts of appropriate times, and progression levels, each day, knowing that it’s not going to actually give me 35 hours of training every week? I’m just wondering if that would allow the app to ‘mix up’ the weeks a bit more (i.e. Monday isn’t always a rest day, and Tuesday isn’t always a 2-hour ‘hard intervals’ workout, etc.)
Bumping your max duration caps up as high as they go isn’t the right move here. Adaptive Training will do what it can to respect those settings as long as your PLs allow it. This means that if you have your caps set to 5 hours, AT will work on getting your PLs up to a point where it can consistently prescribe 5-hour workouts since that’s what it assumes you want.
This issue you’re running into is most likely just an edge case for endurance workouts of your selected duration at your current Progression Level. The best way forward is to either complete the prescribed workout, or to use alternates to find something similar.
Additionally, you can sometimes find workouts with sprints, such as Andrews +1 or Bays +1, that have a slightly higher level if you’d like to use those from time to time.
I had James served up a couple of times. I didn’t mind because I was doing TB1 & there were heaps of other Z2 workouts on my calendar. I do wonder, could @eddie get some comment from the coaches- sure, one option is to seek an alternate at a longer duration, but if 1½h is a hard limit, what about choosing a low-tempo workout such as Phoenix -2, but riding it 10rpm faster than normal?
I’d say that Phoenix -2 could be a good alternate to James, but just be mindful of your effort and fatigue. That top end of Z2 and low end of Z3 is where the magic often happens, and the best place to be depends a bit on your fitness on the day of the workout.
It’s better to go a little bit easier on endurance days than a bit harder, especially when you have other harder workouts on your schedule, so I wouldn’t make a habit of replacing Endurance work with Tempo, but it can be okay in the right circumstances. Generally speaking, though, follow the plan!
James, while a bit monotonous for some, is arguably the most productive 90-minute Endurance workout that you could possibly create, so while that means that it can be easy to “plateau” at James if you’re limited to 90-minute workouts, you can know that you’re making the most of your time by knocking out that workout with good quality.
If you want to progress past James, it’s probably better to add time to your workout rather than intensity, but that will only be productive if you can sustainably manage the extra effort.
There’s nothing wrong with feeling strong through the James workout. The right stimulus is there! If you need more stimulation, try doing something mental while riding.
Now that I’ve pondered on this for a few months, and also seem to presently be in a Slatna/James/Jumba Kang repeating cycle, I wanted to propose a possible change to the TR adaptation logic:
it’s already known that, when doing a training plan, riders can specify the amount of time they have available to train each day. And it seems that, as long as the rider is able to handle that volume, TR will schedule workouts that fill the available time.
But what if, if someone gets to a point in their training where the ‘best’ workout for the rider that fits the time slot is also the ‘best’ workout of that length? As discussed above, it seems, that the rider then gets served the same workout repeatedly.
As an alternative (and an alternative to manually selecting a different workout), what if the TR AI could take into consideration what other workouts the rider has done recently and, if the logic would presently choose that same workout again, instead pick an alternate workout of the same ‘stimulus level’ (similar TSS and structure, I suppose), but that is 15 or 30 minutes shorter? This would allow for more variety of workouts, while still working toward the same goal, and it would also give the rider a. It more time in their day.
Alternatively, maybe TR could offer an option: You can either do workout X, which you’ve done 5 times in the past 2 months, or you can do workout Y, which you have done once’. (This option might require the ability for users to accept individual adaptations, which has been requested elsewhere.)
Good suggestion! I’ll pass this along to the team to hear.
I think the only issue with this logic, from my view, is that in the scenarios where an athlete might run into repeating workouts (like James, for example), there isn’t another workout that is shorter in duration, which can bring the same amount of training stress without changing training zones.
James is a good example, where it holds just about as much sustained work at the top end of zone 2 for 90 minutes as possible. If you were to shorten the duration of the workout, you’d have to jump up to zone 3 to get the same amount of training stress. This doesn’t follow the prescription of an Endurance workout, and then things get tricky.
