Are we still counting down? We’ll be into 2022 soon 
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Yeah…we have been waiting a long time for this.
Maybe the end goal is to have enough current users reach an age that qualifies them as masters before implementing this new feature 
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I imagine that when this feature actually does ‘land’ it will be really good.
I’m super interested to see how they approach helping us ‘older’ individuals (I regard anyone over 40 in that category as a very broad generalisation) with the plan choices to help us get faster and what the modifications will be to:
- periodisation of intensity
- spread of rest days / rest weeks
- intensity progression ‘in-block’
- event planning ‘build up’
- approach to polarisation ‘in-block’ when tackling high VO2 / threshold training
- amount of additional L2 work prescribed within the MV & HV plans
- factors applied to of all the above dependent on age bracket / experience / current fitness level (E.g. 50 year old newbie versus 65 year old lifelong cyclist with 3.5w/kg current fitness)
This could be absolutely awesome 
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The only problem is that when it actually appears I’ll have retired (56 years old at the moment)
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I reckon I’ll be 60 ie it gets delivered in May 2021.
An ideal list for every user. Challenging for sure as we all want something slightly different. The commonality is to ride faster/longer.
For myself the challenge isnt low volume to mid volume. It is more based on hours and intensity. 5/6 hours up to 10 hours and up. Inside vs outside. I dont want a 4 hour ride inside…not yet anyways.
I want some variety to Sweet spot base as I have done it a number of times. I liked the sweet spot progression thread and this year I changed one workout a week to get in more of a progression to longer intervals. Something different to stay engaged.
Some workouts I like the mix of power variations even if very minor. Baxter is just one while an easy ride has enough change to it that it just feels better.
I debate what is feasible in the current iteration of the present plan. I do think a ride creator that asked for some input variables that spit out a ride per your criteria could achieve some of this. We really dont need more workouts…just the ability to get on the bike and to take a few minutes to set up your ride for those of us looking to tweak.
Would a new plan spell out hours, preliminary workouts based on days for training with similar ride substitutions to add some variety? Lots of possibilities.
Ah the dream list but I am sure each of us has a different variation of what they want.
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My wife’s birthday is on the near horizon and she’s requested a Garmin Forerunner which she says has access to training plans. I checked and it does, it also has access to “Garmin Coach” which are adaptive training plans so if you/she isn’t on the planned rate of improvement it will modify the upcoming workouts.
So if you’ve dialled back the intensity on the Sweet Spot workouts then next week you get the -1 version, if you’ve upped the intensity (and completed the other workouts that week OK) then you get the +1 version. A couple of weeks of early bails and PB suggests a recovery week. Etc.
I think something like that that looks at how you’ve performed on workouts and adjusts what you are presented with in the coming weeks would be pretty much a killer app.
Other than that @dsirrom’s list pretty much nails it.
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It is for this reason that I think adding further iterations of training plans is not only a fools errand, but also likely not what is being pursued (at TrainerRoad or anywhere else).
Adding in specific plans to hit increasingly smaller market segments feels relatively simple, but also doesn’t scratch the itch of the real feature gap that so many people have described in this thread and elsewhere on this forum.
SSBLV 3:1 work:rest week ratio, SSBLV 2 hard days, SSBLV 45+, SSBLV 55+, etc., etc., with increasing permutations of ‘hard days’/week, work:rest week ratio changes, and age ranges. As an extension of the existing plans this would not only overwhelm most users, but also not likely solve the problem so many people have with following the existing plans.
As I see it, the feature request, or current gap, is around the plans not adjusting based on the athlete’s feedback and requests. Setting users up with baseline plans to get to a date based goal was sort of the first step for plan builder - letting them customize those plans and applying those lessons to all future workouts may well be the second step.
Anything less than an adaptive plan that responds to (newly?) reported RPE, workout compliance, workout failure rate, and an increasing list of external data, will still leave some % of ‘masters’ or any other ‘non-standard’ group out in the cold, demanding a plan that fits their specific needs
From my perspective, this is why this thread feels so contentious. We have users saying, just give me a masters specific plan that takes into account aging athletes different recovery profiles. This feels very simple - just modify an existing plan by dropping some intensity or changing some ratios. Maybe a couple days of work to bang out a bunch of ‘simple’ plans.
They expect this to be relatively simple and are frustrated this hasn’t been delivered.
On the other side we have an, as of yet, undefined feature set being implemented by TrainerRoad (and presumably every other player in this market) to create a solution that works for all athletes and basically does away with the idea of picking a plan and then following it to its conclusion, and instead building an adaptive plan that changes day to day, and perhaps mid-workout, based on performance and improvement.
Clearly this is significantly harder to do, and thus the delays.
The real question is - how much time would it take to throw some (relatively) simple extra ‘masters’ plans at these frustrated users, to bridge the gap to the more complete solution? That needs to be weighed against how close TrainerRoad is to implementing the larger solution? In other words - are they letting perfect be the enemy of good?
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To a large degree the current plans “work” as does Plan Builder. I agree with the idea that multiple variant plans would only be confusing, though a set of four days/week plans would, I imagine, satisfy many.
Sure there are those who state something along the lines of: “I’ve just started with TR and have done the first two weeks of SSB1 and everything is so easy!” so basically haven’t given the plans time to work. At the other end are those who’ve gone through the three stages (maybe more than once) and are feeling that the plans are too intense, whatever.
At the moment Plan Builder is decent, the resulting plan is somewhat fixed in stone and struggles with something like a postponed event or handling a week’s illness, etc. Of course simply dropping in a recovery week pushes the plan out past any scheduled events so not an easy thing to compensate for, so just adding that really needs PB to be more flexible during the duration of the plan.
You used to be able to “dry run” a second plan alongside any existing plan but that ability seems to have gone for the moment. Thus many people are somewhat nervous about deleting a plan just to look at something new that might not work or maybe even move them back to Base. (Hint: I set the new plan a year ahead then I can have a look and compare).
Conceptually the easiest extension to PB would be another question about work:recovery week ration. Even then I imagine there’d be a lot of work behind the scenes to achieve the required progression.
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Big day! Adaptive Training was launched, which will help address a number of the aforementioned concerns expressed in this thread. Cheers!
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Awesome work @IvyAudrain
And special thanks for so gracefully enduring this thread when the masters kids got hangry.
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AT sounds interesting…So the main question for me…is how does age and suggested recovery fit into the plan. I know you can adjust what rides I do based on past history…but knowing when to take it easier I find is more important then what ride to do.
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I am interested in AT however, I am not sure if it will address my interest.
With the current spike in polarized training, looking forward to podcast tomorrow, I am now questioning if my concern with work:rest weeks is actually not that but more I am getting ground down with too much intensity and if I was doing something more polarized, I may be able to hit the harder workouts, later in the week, and not feel like a need a rest week every 2 weeks.
So I am not sure if AT will give you more rest in a week if you are not hitting your late week, tough workouts, or will it just give you more of those and less of the early week workouts that you are able to hit if you are more fresh?
I understand that TR will also be releasing some polarized plans to get feedback on users who do them, but I forget when they said they would do that.
I also wonder what the minimum training hours per week that are required to do a polarized plan (as when only riding indoors I only ride about 6 hours a week but when I start riding outside that goes to about 9-10, just hoping there is something for me to try as I am curious now if I am just going too hard too often for me and I need more z2, polarized, 80/20, …)?
Great question! As more athletes start using Adaptive Training we will get more data that will help us adapt load:deload ratios specifically to your needs, but as of now in the Closed Beta phase, load:deload ratios are not being adjusted by Adaptive Training.
That said, Adaptive Training is already helping athletes in this scenario in a big way by adjusting the type of workouts you’re struggling with based on your individual abilities. This means that the sort of work that typically ramps up too much fatigue will be appropriately tempered while still keeping you on track. Specifically, Adaptive Training won’t adjust by still forcing the same hard workouts on you and just giving you more rest before you try that workout again. It keeps track of the fitness outcomes that are important to your goals and brings you to them at your own rate rather than asking you to reach a fixed target.
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On this: AT does ask you for feedback after every ride:
- If the ride was successful, then you are asked to rate how hard it was on a scale from 1 - easy to 5 - all out
- If you didn’t successfully complete the workout (“failed”), then you are asked why. For example: time (e.g., something came up and you ran out of time), injury, fatigue, etc.
AT will use this to figure out how to adjust your plan. So theoretically at some point it should be able to go beyond the current fixed work to recovery ratios and learn what you need. Plus learn what you are able to do by the type of workout phase (e.g., if you are in a VO2 max phase vs. a Sweet Spot phase) you are in
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There are a couple questions here that apply to masters plan integration within Adaptive Trainign specifically, but for the most part, lets keep AT questions to the Adaptive Trainign thread (as you’ll likely also find the majority of the answers in there already as well!).
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Back to the old masters thread. I am in AT but the more I read and the more I experience…as I age…AT isnt going to be the answer as currently designed. Yes its beta but it doesnt address masters issues. If it does I dont see it.
I still struggle with intensity in that I do too much. Recovery becomes critical. The challenge I find is you dont often realize you are being worn down until something happens and you get a forced break and after that rest you feel stronger.
There is no TR plan for me at the moment…and likely wont be. Everything needs to be adapted. It is either low volume with an added day or mid volume with one less day. I think the real challenge is the overall intensity. The current plans are working on PL but in my reading…it feels like BBarrera’s comment earlier in this thread is more applicable.
I am actively changing what I do as working in more endurance and less high intensity. I still will say we need hard efforts. The question is how frequently and how many?
I have gotten faster this year outside…which I credit to just pushing the sweet spot progression. Muscular endurance is substantially higher. I can go ride now for three hours and still feel fresh. I am happy with what I am doing…but it has been done by changing what I am using from TR.
Can we get a real Masters plan?
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I’d say its going to be individual. My FasCat coach has helped me answer that question, and Frank Overton discusses the fast after 50 topic on a recent podcast: Riding Faster After 50 – FasCat Coaching Definitely worth a listen.
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See my experiences with the polarised plans - posted on that thread.
Normally I do LV plans, I’ve a physical job so anything more would just be too much, but with the Polarised Plans I was fine doing Mid-Volume. Really it’s just one VO2max workout and one Threshold workout a week with the others being Endurance. I found I could hit the targets much easier because there were fewer of them - if that makes sense.
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