Plan Improvements: Short, General, and Sustained Build!

THis is an awesome post. Thanks for the peek behind the curtain @Nate_Pearson.

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Yes, good idea. I believed we talked about this. @Pete can we put this on the list to do? We’ll have to do this per trainer. On my hammer 0 resistance is PLENTY!

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Whenever I need to extend on a rest interval I’ll do a spin down calibration. That’s good for an extra 20 s of rest.

Yes, that is just what I needed. Not quite sure what to put as a TSS for an hour in the gym, but I am sure I can guess!

I’ll get to it, don’t worry. I’m addressing things plan by plan so I don’t miss any of the too-tough ones, but if one falls through the cracks don’t hesitate to let me know. Thanks!

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Hi Chad, thanks for responding. In that case, add to your in-tray some more, I mentioned somewhere on another topic that I reckon McAdie +1 (last Saturday of SSB MV1) needs a look at. I made a 0.5 version (90/90 over unders rather than 60/120) and still struggled.

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That one actually has a relatively low failure rate, @martinheadon, so we’ll probably leave it alone. Your modification sounds like a good one though because if you’re going to tweak anything about Over-Unders it should definitely be the under-segments. The difference between 95 and 90% is almost inconsequential in terms of physiological response, but it can be a huge deal when it comes to hanging in there and breaking down completely. Well done!

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Sorry, I meant 90 seconds under 90 seconds over (still at 95/105%), not 90% FTP. So just making the unders longer and the overs shorter, at the same intensity.

Last time I checked it looked like there were quite a few failures but maybe that was because recent rides were over Christmas and people weren’t in the frame of mind for it!

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Oops, the apology is mine. I read that too quickly. This too is still a matter of progression and if that modification is something that keeps your workout productive while incrementally more demanding than the last round of over-unders, it’s still a really good mod. Still well done!

Haha, that could very well be.

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Yep, it’s on the list! I agree, we do have to do per trainer.

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Just FYI, I had to manually change my General Build Mid Vol plan. I’m not sure if it was supposed to auto update but the two changes to that plan did not change.

Workout substitution will not change automatically. You have to swap those manually.

But the ones where Coach Chad changed the actual definition of the workout zones in existing workouts do update automatically (since they pull from the current one stored on the TR master list).

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Thanks for the info!

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@chad

I just did Junction -1 today as part of general build mid volume.

On the plus side it’s much much more doable now, the on/off 150% intervals are much more achievable with the breaks.

I wonder though do these breaks impact the intended effect? My HR never really made it to 90% of max, it floated around 85-89%. Isnt the goal time spent at VO2 max?

As a suggestion, instead of 45 second breaks in the sets, make it 30 seconds?

Of course this is just my special snowflake feedback :grinning:

Great question/suggestion, @pjohalloran. There’s actually a split objective with the “microbursts”, which is basically any 15-second on/off repeats at 150% FTP or higher. First, the aim is to improve the ability to quickly recruit a lot of muscle fiber, and specifically, more strength-oriented fibers, and this is best achieved by doing repeats more akin to plyometrics where the force demand goes from zero to all-out in an instant.

Second, the aim is to derive a VO2 benefit, but it actually pales just a bit in emphasis and is almost a secondary benefit to the neuromuscular benefit of these super-short, highly-dense repeats.

More to your question though, if you can make the longer groupings work for you and your concern is more about time at/near VO2max, then I’d absolutely have you doing bigger clusters if I were coaching or advising you. Or perhaps I’d do exactly what you’ve suggested and shave those 45s recoveries down a bit, something you can very easily do via the workout creator.

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@Nate_Pearson @Pete
Just so you know, Thimble+5 was never changed to Thimble+4 in the General Build plan. :slightly_smiling_face:

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The only improvement I would make is on a recovery week (for all plans), make the Last ride of the week a leg opener type workout (say Truuli -1).
Tss is similar to something like Pettit but find it makes a real difference to how I do on ramp test that always comes after a recovery week (either in week 5 of plan or week 1 of next stage).

Since I’ve started doing this then made big difference I feel.

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