I have been cycling for couple of years, and I am considering improving my fitness by using Trainer Road.
In the past I have been riding outdoors for fun or using Zwift. Recently I used a workout plan of 1.5 months from Garmin, and now I decided to give a try to TrainerRoad.
HW: Interactive turbo trainer (Elite Direto), Garmin Edge 1030.
178 cm tall, 74 kg (dropping), FTP went 250 W → 288 W in the last 1.5 months, endurance athlete
I have two questions, and I hope you can help out.
GARMIN TRAINING - 1.5 months
in the weekdays I used to do ~45 minutes aerobic (55% FTP) in the morning, Garmin workouts of ~1 hour in the evening and two longer workouts in the weekend. TRAINER ROAD WORKOUT
Based on the total time >10hours/week, I went for the high volume on the TrainerRoad plan.
I did just 3 workouts with TrainerRoad, and my legs are fine. However, sitting indoor more than 1 hour every day is boring, and sooner or later I’ll stop enjoying it. A) How would you suggest I shall change the plan, whilst keeping the morning ride?
My ideas are:
A.1) Interrupt the current plan and change to mid-volume for the evening.
A.2) Manually change each TrainerRoad workout to something shorter and then increase intensity
A.3) Other solutions?
B) Is it important to make the morning aerobic be counted in the TrainerRoad?
I have few other questions, but these two are the most important ones for me.
Thanks so much for your time and support, and keep spinning
I can’t see the point of a spin@55%FTP every day UNLESS it’s being used for active recovery from intervals or as part of a recovery week - the TSS is negligible. You need to extend the length of your sessions, so you could add the 45mins morning training time to make them 90mins and do a combination of SS/Over unders etc in the MV plan - if you can’t do more than 60 mins on the turbo then eventually you will stop making gains regardless of how much you increase the intensity.
There are lots of combinations but basically to summarise you either need to do the LV/MV workouts of 90mins 3-5 x week or you can take a more polarised approach and use 60mins for really hard intervals of various types 1-2 x week on the turbo and add longer 2-4 hour zone 2 rides outside. Just doing 60mins on the turbo no matter what the intensity will mean that you lack the aerobic base for sustained improvements in the long term.
@jdman thanks for your quick reply.
the point of spin@55% FTP is to bring weight down, managed to go from 83 kg to 74 kg with diet and consistent riding. Furthermore, 55% FTP was good to build my aerobic base.
90 minutes in one session is feasible (better than 120 minutes).
What is SS/Over?
I understand your two suggestions, thanks. Practically it is stop the HV program and get a new one.
Referring to your last sentence, I wouldn’t do 60mins no matter what, since I had a plan with Garmin.
I read that TR is one of the go-to SW for serious training, so I want to give it a try. I think a good plan would have training to improve the aerobic base, and the 45 mins in the morning would contribute to it. FYI I checked the morning activities, and they give TSS of ~40.
Sorry SS - sweet spot - intervals of 7-30mins@88-94% FTP, they are good for building endurance if you are short of time. Over/unders are intervals usually from 6-15mins long that alternate between above/below threshold (usually 95/105%FTP) to push up your threshold - they hurt - like McAdie (you can search the workout list) etc. If you get 40TSS from a 45min session then it is above 55%FTP…60min sessions like Petit on TR are 39TSS and they are 60-70%FTP.
Agreed. By using the HV plan, you’re getting high volume of SS when what you’re looking for is high volume of hours. Go to low volume and then add in those easy rides.
