Hi,
Finally after much deliberation I have set up an “Increase FTP” plan for the next 3 months with 3 structured TR workouts per week. As I ride a lot outdoors I thought 3 per week (in comparison to the 5 recommended by TR) was more than enough. Just a couple of questions:
- If I do an outdoor ride on the day a TR workout is scheduled do I just leave the indoor workout there as scheduled?
- If I do an outdoor ride on the day I am supposed to do an indoor ride, should I change the indoor ride to an outdoor ride (which then pushes the workout to my Garmin head unit) and then do that structured ride or as close to it?
- Should I move structured planned workouts around to accomodate when I can do them indoors?
- Finally, will these adjustments change any of the structured workouts planned eg. increase, decrease intensity etc?
Many thanks for your help and guidance. Any other do’s and dont’s regarding planned workouts please let me know.
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Hey Adam!
Great questions. That’s a solid approach- I think you’ll still see solid progress by consistently prioritising three workouts a week 
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1. If I do an outdoor ride on a day when a TrainerRoad workout is scheduled, should I just leave the indoor workout there?
You’ve got a couple of good options here:
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Delete the scheduled workout if you’re simply skipping it and want a cleaner Calendar—totally up to you. From a training perspective, deleting it won’t impact how your plan adapts.
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Swap the workout for a Group or Solo Ride to better reflect what you actually did. That way, your ride will be accounted for in your training load. Learn how to do that here: Group and Solo Rides in Plan Builder.
- If I do an outdoor ride on a day I’m supposed to do an indoor ride, should I push the TrainerRoad workout to my head unit and follow it outside?
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Yesss! Taking your TrainerRoad workout outside is a great way to stick to the training plan while enjoying the fresh air. You can send your workout to Garmin or Wahoo and follow it just like you would indoors. Check out this article: Outside Workouts.
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But if you’d prefer not to follow a structured workout that day, you can swap that day’s workout for a Group or Solo Ride:
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If it’s a “Hard Intervals” day, it’ll change to a “Hard Ride.” Just make sure to go hard that day—even if it’s unstructured—and you’ll be staying aligned with your plan.
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On “Endurance” or “Easy” days, try to ride with a similar intensity and duration to what the plan prescribed.
- Should I move workouts around to fit when I can do them indoors?
- It’s a great idea to rearrange your workouts based on when you can realistically complete them. We suggest prioritising your scheduled interval workouts, as these will drive the most fitness gains—especially for athletes like you, who TrainerRoad predicts could handle higher volume.
- You don’t need to do these indoors though. If you can complete the workout as prescribed outside, go for it!
- As fitness increases, we need to be more intentional to keep making progress—and those key workouts make a big difference.
- Will these adjustments change the structure or intensity of future workouts?
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Yes. TrainerRoad adapts your training plan based on what you actually do:
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If you skip or miss a workout, your plan will adjust accordingly to keep your training on track.
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Group and Solo Rides are factored into your plan’s adaptations. While they might not match the precise intent of the original workout, your plan will adjust to ensure you’re doing the next best thing for continued progress.
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Outdoor structured workouts are an excellent way to stick to your plan while mixing things up. When your Outside workout is associated with the trainerroad scheduled workout, your training plan will adapt accordingly.
For more info, check out this article: Adaptive Training Overview.
TrainerRoad is always analysing your performance and updating your plan to give you the right workout at the right time.
I hope this helps! Let me know if you have questions about any of this 
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Thank you so much for taking the time in providing me with such a comprehensive reply. It answers all my questions 
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Hi @SarahLaverty ,
It’s been a week since I started my FTP Builder plan and have done 3 TR structured suggested workouts and two unstructured (Group Ride + a Crit Race). However looking at my Progression Levels it would appear when I hover over them none of the outdoor rides are taken in to account in moving any of the Progression Levels. I thought TR now factored in all outdoor rides too. Am I missing something here? BTW, I completed a survey on both the outdoor rides which were Hard and Maximum Effort due to Intensity respectively.
Only when you associate the outdoor rides with a TR workout for Progression levels. When outdoor rides are associated with a workout TR automatically assumes you’ve “passed”. Looks like it might also work with Solo outdoor rides as well. All rides are taken into account for AI FTP though.
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Many thanks for your reply. So how do I “associate a TR workout” with an outdoor ride? If I know in advance I am doing a group ride or a Crit race what would I select within TR so it picks it up for progression purposes? Good to know the outdoor ride is considered for AI FTP calculations.
IDK. TR has recently changed (like last week) in how it’s accounting for my outdoor rides. About 3 weeks ago we got good WX so I quit doing workouts and just rode outside (unstructured rides with significantly higher IF and TSS than plan workouts). As before when I did outside rides, nothing happened wrt plan adaptations. Then one day about a week ago, I got a ton of recommended adaptations. All future workouts’ PLs went way up. It’s like all of a sudden, it started properly accounting for my outdoor rides.
@SarahLaverty Can you assist in my inquiry please as still struggling to know exactly how to properly pick up outdoor rides, unstructured rides, Crit races etc in to my training plan & be factored in to my progression tables.
@Saddlesaur Thanks for raising this—we haven’t made any recent changes to how outside rides are handled, but I’ll take a closer look at your account and follow up with more details 
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[quote=“Buckethead, post:5, topic:102156”]
Only when you associate the outdoor rides with a TR workout for Progression levels. When outdoor rides are associated with a workout TR automatically assumes you’ve “passed”
Exactly! 
Right now, unstructured outside rides—including group rides, solo rides, and races—don’t impact your Progression Levels. Only rides that are associated with a structured TrainerRoad workout will affect PLs, and they’re currently marked as a pass.
That said, try not to get too fixated on your Progression Levels. While they’re helpful, they’re just one of many tools we use to guide your training. TrainerRoad considers multiple layers of data behind the scenes to ensure your workouts are appropriately challenging and aligned with your goals.
If you’ve got a group ride or race coming up, you can schedule it on your calendar in a couple of ways:
- Group rides or solo rides: Use the “+” button on your calendar to add it as a Group Ride. This tells TrainerRoad not to schedule a key workout that day and helps keep your plan balanced.
- Low-key races like crits: Add them as a C event. C events won’t trigger a taper, but your training plan will still adapt around them to account for the added load.
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Thank you Sarah, I was getting ready to email support with the same question. 
