since the introduction of red light green light, one of my intensity days on the high volume plan gets a yellow day 75% of the time. And I’m debating with myself right now, if I should lower the intensity a bit. I maybe missed one or two workouts, because of illness on high volume and only failed one workout so far, which was completely my fault. I’m nearly done with base phase 3 of general base.
I made really good gains so far. So, why am I debating going mid volume?
As mentioned, I quite often get a yellow day on one of my intensity days and last week I missed one workout, because of a sore throat and realized that one more day of recovery than normal, made me feel so much more recovered. Even though I’m never too fatigued to fail workouts, my body felt much fresher than normal.
Should I make the switch to mid volume? Or should I wait until I can’t finish workouts regularly on high volume?
My schedule looks like this:
Monday: Intensity
Tuesday: Endurance
Wednesday: No training
Thursday: Intensity
Friday: Endurance
Saturday:Intensity
Sunday: Long endurance
My yellow day is nearly always on Mondays after the long endurance ride.
A lot of this sounds really familiar to me. One thing I’ve noticed over time is that when I’m not recovering sufficiently I tend to pick up any random bug going around and get sick before my legs and body start feeling really fatigued.
Might be worth switching to a Masters plan to see how that affects things, too. Going down from three intensity days a week to two could make a big difference in recovery, especially if they’re spaced far enough apart for good recovery in between.
I can’t give an answer to what might be the most optimal choice, but I can share some knowledge that might help you make a more informed decision.
Depending on the ramp rate (how much you are increasing your training load every week), if it somewhat falls according to the following values (or even below it), you could try to keep doing what you are doing right now and see whether your body can adapt to the total weekly training load better over time (e.g. feeling better on the Mondays over time):
Source: Training and Racing with a Power Meter (Hunter Allen, Andrew R. Coggan), p. 228
Switching to a plan with a lower weekly training load would probably still give you fitness adaptations, but slower in the same timeframe.
Also make sure you get enough carbohydrates and calories. I sometimes like to eat a +100 caloric surplus on a very hard day (consisting mainly of carbs i.e. 25 g in this case). Perhaps this could help especially on your long endurance ride on Sunday.
Planning the long endurance ride a couple hours earlier on Sunday (if possible) could also mean a couple more hours of recovery until the next workout on Monday.
There are different things you could try (see other replies) but one very minor rescheduling change to try might be to swap Mon & Tue around, so that on Monday - your yellow day, after your big Sunday ride & Saturday’s Intensity - you recover somewhat by doing shorter Endurance on that day, leaving you fresher for Tuesday’s Intensity work, which is then followed by your rest day.
It’s possible that tweak may be enough to allow you to stick with your 3 Intensity / 3 Endurance approach, although personally I’m a fan of doing lesser Intensity per week than that.
Since you’re not going into the Red, switching some things around or going to a Master’s plan would be great alternatives before thinking about going Mid Volume!
A Master’s plan will give you 3 Endurance days and 2 Interval days, which can help stimulate more of that freshness you felt by skipping a workout and help you hit the interval days with much more quality. You could do something like this:
Monday: Endurance
Tuesday: Intensity
Wednesday: No training
Thursday: Intensity
Friday: Endurance
Saturday: Endurance
Sunday: Long endurance
As @AldridgePrior mentioned, you could swap Monday & Tuesday so you’re not going straight into intervals after your big ride on Sunday and potentially digging yourself into a hole at the beginning of the week, and dragging fatigue to all other workouts. This way you get a quick recovery day by riding endurance, and are fresher on Tuesday to hit some intervals!
Lastly, I want to make note of the specific comment you made: “Even though I’m never too fatigued to fail workouts, my body felt much fresher than normal.”
This would be a good thing to keep present after making changes to your training plan to see how you are feeling each day. It is better to hit every single workout with quality, rather than quantity. Rather than thinking about how much time do I have available to train, it is better to think about how much training can I efficiently recover from.
Sometimes we drag fatigue and don’t realize it, so keep this in mind as you complete your High Volume plan with whatever changes you decide to make, as going Mid Volume can always be an option to try! You can always change it back.
Assuming you are doing a typical 3 weeks build, 1 week recover, one strategy you could do is to mix up your weekly cycle. Maybe more people employ this type of strategy, but you don’t hear about it much. I think our brains like repeatable structures, but there is no reason that your 3 build weeks have to have the exact same structure. Anyway, an example is that adds 1 extra rest day to a 3 week block is:
Week 1 is as you are doing. (although I really like the suggestion of swapping your Monday and Tuesday)
Monday: Intensity
Tuesday: Endurance
Wednesday: No training
Thursday: Intensity
Friday: Endurance
Saturday:Intensity
Sunday: Long endurance
Week 2 you add in some extra rest. Helps you recover from week 1 and prepare for week 3.
Monday: No training/Zone 1 easy
Tuesday: Intensity
Wednesday: Endurance
Thursday: No training
Friday: Endurance
Saturday: Intensity
Sunday: Long endurance
+1 on experimenting with only 2 intensity days per week. I personally would not cut overall training volume unless you are time constrained. A reduction in intensity is often enough to address the fatigue concerns, even if it means more training hours to maintain (or even increase) overall training load. I’m also a fan of putting as much of your weekly volume into fewer riding days if you have the schedule that allows long rides. This is the classic debate of whether a couple 2 hour rides is better/worse than a single 4 hour ride. The studies I’ve seen are not conclusive on which approach is better, but my personal experience is that fewer/longer rides with more rest between them works better for me vs. shorter rides on more days. Also, don’t assume a day has to be limited to just intensity or just easy volume. You can absolutely have a day with a long ride that incorporates your interval work into it. Play around with it and see what works for you and your schedule. The most important thing is to maximize overall training stress in a sustainable and measured way. But you have to do it in a way that keeps you fresh for your intervals, so the day prior to intervals should almost always be rest or easy.
I guess I will start by moving my first intensity day to Tuesday to see how I respond to it and then try to work my way through everyone’s suggestions.
It’s great to get so much meaningful input! Thanks again
@Fishnhchamps what is your average hours/week, during loading weeks?
I’ve seen both approaches work for myself, when averaging 7-10 hours/week during loading weeks. I’ve even taken it to the extreme of 2-a-days at the lower end of hours/week, and what worked was really pushing hard on most rides (working both threshold and glycolytic). On the flip side, more hours and lots of endurance resulted in nearly the same fitness, a lot less stress, and I see healthier off-the-bike stats (RHR, sleep patterns, morning HRV).
It may also depend on what you are training for. My target events are all long (8+ hours), so there is some specificity training here as well (which probably goes beyond physiology into fueling, comfort, etc.). My general approach is 3 big days per week on the bike and 2 of those days will typically include an hour or so of structured intervals. The balance of the days are loaded with rest or 1 hour z2 rides that help with recovery between the big days.
