Does TrainerRoad have any AIFTP evidence that these workouts make a difference? In other words, is the AI happy, sad, or unchanged if you add/remove them from everyone’s plan? What’s the magnitude of that effect?
You can see that for yourself in the resulting predicted FTP
A regular well executed 30min endurance ride can be a precursor to a regular 45min ride. A regular 45min endurance ride can be a precursor to two 30min rides…or extending a weekend long ride.
How easy your easy days should be should vary between athletes, a walk in the park for one, two hours endurance for another.
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I can only do an N=1 study, trainerroad has much more data than I do and it would be much more convincing.
Agree with @JoeX. I think what matters is the experience of the individual executing them. It could be intended as a recovery ride, or it could be a placeholder for increasing volume later down the track. TR devs & coaches are well aware of the scheduling problems & other life dramas that can be associated with suddenly being required to get on the trainer an extra day midway through a plan, so having the athlete block out time on that “extra” day from the beginning could be beneficial, even if it’s only 30 minutes.
Ha, when I was doing Traditional Base 1 & 2 on four days a week plus runs & strength, Z2 was my bread & butter, I could add a 5th day with impunity & I questioned the value of a Z2 ride under 2h. Now that I’m in a build phase with three hard workouts a week I need to prioritise recovery so I keep that 5th day super chill.
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I am waiting to start a plan as I’m 7 weeks out from Sea Otter but was interested to see how things worked so started a test plan. I moved things around, deleted days, etc. At least on mine, endurance days seemed to have no effect on predicted FTP (it was most happy riding three days a week). Also interesting was that longer planned endurance rides actually lowered the predicted FTP. But heres the weird thing… when I didn’t have a ride on the calendar, but the did it… predicted AiFTP jumps up (slightly) most of the time.
What that tells me is there’s a lot more to the process than just if you do it or not… which is expected.
I’ll say, I don’t think they know. I believe this is one of those things that the model is telling them and they are learning from it.
Shall we say an “oh, this is interesting. Let’s see what happens”
personally it’s just too intense for an endurance day and even though it’s 30mins the cumulative fatigue stacks over time.
ive stopped the 2x 30min endurance work out and rolled it into 1x 60mins workout. The 60min workout I aim for tss <= 40.
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Many days later, but I’d say this depends on general training load, as a 15hr/week rider and a 7hr/week rider would have different responses.
When I removed two of them from my plan, my predicted AIFTP went up by about five watts. I suspect because the AI sees that as extra recovery, which begs the question as to why planbuilder puts them there, maybe it’s two different systems and the AI disagrees with plan builder.
Even hotter take: Anything above 5 minutes on the bike should have bibs or bib shorts
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I don’t for commutes. Been rocking jeans on the bike for years and no issues. But any indoor ride I’ll wear bibs.
I know personally I feel way better the next day. Especially if I have an interval day. Just spinning the legs out keeps the blood moving. If I take a full rest day off the bike I feel flat the next day.
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I believe TR has said said it’s a different system.
When I turned 2x30min workouts into 1x60min workout, PFTP didn’t change. The 60min workout was also at a lower endurance intensity vs the 2x30min workouts.
I usually skip it, preferring to take a rest day. It feels useless to run zone 1 or 2 for so short a time.
Shorter easy rides (or runs) have been a key element for adding volume, preventing decline, recovery, efficiency, for for most all Cycling (and running) training plans provided by human coaches… so yes, it is time tested and has been in most all training studies ever, because generally that is how training plans have been structured, not nesc 30min specifically… but some easy rides not with the goal of it being a very taxing and long endurance ride based on the history/fitness of the individual.
But along the lines of your concern - if you took a group of trained cyclists and removed their easy 30-60min easy/recovery days… would they eventually get slower then the control group the continued to have easy days mixed in? Or maybe a third group that just tagged the 30min time to the end of their workout instead to have matched volume/tss for the week. I can’t say I recall that specific study
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