Possibly planning two 8 week builds in a row before specialty good idea or bad idea?

Training
1

Okay I am training for cross season 2022. I am 55 years old and started base training in September 2021. I have been training on and off for the last 4 years on trainerroad.
So thus far I have done
TB MV1 once
TB MV2 twice - the first time around I was feeling strong and so I changed many of the rides to stretch and break through and was overtrained. I took a week off and have almost completed the second round of TB MV2. Feeling good and sticking with the prescribed workouts and adaptations.
Planning TB MV3 then SS MV1 and SS MV2.

So with that gradual increase in intensity is it possible and/or recommended to do two 8 week builds in a row? Does exercise science recommend 16 weeks of build? Am I essentially planning to put myself in a overtraining spiral with the 16 weeks of build?

2

Imo base training is the safest type of training if you want to avoid overtraining, that is if you stay away of sst. As long as you are improving doing “base” is no problem. If you monitor your resting heartrate you could get a good grip of your fatigue and sprinkle some intensity in but it is usually not recommend to do more than 2 or maybe 3 intensive sessions a week. I’m 57 and and crashed on sst, so I have some first hand experience.

3

Why try to outsmart the system? If you’re using TR at this point there’s no reason not to just use plan builder and adaptive training and trust where it takes you

1 Like
4

I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s just 8 weeks and likely still not much more than 300-400 TSS per week. I would doubt you can get overtrained from that.

5

I’m a bit confused, which build programs are you referring to with SS MV1 and SS MV2? Sounds to me like it’s more of a switch from Traditional Base (1,2,3) to Sweetspot Base (1,2).

And there is likely nothing wrong with that, a bit more intensity but shorter duration and if in SSB MV2 you get at least 2 threshold workouts a week.

6

SSB MV has enough build aspects to it that’s it’s probably better to do that rather than 16 weeks of a build plan.

7

NLC
I am planning short power build mid volume. After I finish traditional base mid volume 3 next week I was planning on doing sweet spot mid volume 1 and 2. Okay thanks, appreciate it.

8

jaylikesbikes
After my bout of overtraining I completely forgot about plan builder and adaptive training. Thanks