Something I would love to see expanded upon in the PodCasts

I agree with your suggestion. This is the first time I’ve done an actual training plan on TR. Prior, I always did my own plan with TR intervals during the week and longer endurance rides with the team on weekends. So I’m experimenting with SSB MV.
I do think that for older TR users, the base format may need to be adjusted - getting away from 7 day weeks, and 3 weeks on/1 week off template.
I will likely end up customizimg my own plan with more outdoor rides mixed in when this lockdown is over. One of my old favorites was Red - that was my go to workout 5 weeks out from my first race of the season.
As I get older though, I just like to ride… A lot! So I do prioritize frequency over speed. When I need to be faster, I just cut back on volume a little.
Plus I need all the hours on the bike I can get since during lockdown we cannot ride outside here. And my wife likes to feed me well. :grin::grin:

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That’s my recollection too (although at my age my recollection is not always to be trusted). As I recall, Nate said Amber was pursuing it. A blog from Nov 2016 also said that Coach Chad was working on a plan for “Masters”.

So far that hasn’t showed up that I know of. In fairness, it may be that it is way easier to find solid research on elite athletes in their prime than on geezers on bicycles. :wink: Having said that, I may have to eat crow when I finish Joe Friel’s book Fast After Fifty It’s got a lot of footnotes, I see.

TR decided to handle this issue with a different method.
That is why we never got any Masters related plans.

There I go again! I seem to have forgotten the different method already. Could you refresh my memory?

We don’t have it. My guess is that it relates to hints (Amber’s project) among other ones we’ve seen on the forum from TR reps for the last 2 years.

NateTrainerRoad Team

Feb 7

That’s the big caveat to all of this. We’ve got a strong idea that both paths are good, but we don’t know for sure what’s best for each rider.

I’ve got some ideas on how to build this now and I think that we can constantly improve based on the choices/data that come from masters athletes that use this feature.

I also think this could be helpful for anyone that doesn’t recover the best. I remember I used to do a hard, aerobic, recovery three day block and that helped me be fresh enough for the hard days.

I also like the idea of breaking free of the 7 day cycle for people that aren’t slaves to the 5 day work week.

To set expectations for everyone you’ll see the thing amber is working on launch first before we dive into this. That feature will help you too, and you’ll know what it is because we think it’s a big deal :slight_smile:.

And keep the ideas coming! We’ll comb back through this thread multiple times while we improve support for masters athletes.

@Nate_Pearson said they would be diving into this after Amber’s thing is launched.

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Was “Amber’s thing” the rollout of group workouts?

Agree that they are, relatively speaking, elite cyclists. But I was pleased to hear on the 5/7/20 podcast that during workouts both Amber and Chad initially feel like they can’t get through the first interval but once they do, the second and third don’t feel quite as awful. That’s been my experience as well. I thought it was just me!

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  • No, it is something different.

I made a simple 10 Day Plan template which I may try to incorporate into my TR plan if i feel ambitious. TR Custom Plan - 10 Day Plan.pdf (40.3 KB)

Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

Would be great if the TR Calendar allowed for this type of plan to be sequenced into the M-F grid with the same TR workouts placed into the 10 day plan.

I totally agree this would be a great topic. I’m 58 and am finding trying to string 5 workouts a week together (mid volume plans) is taxing and thats without any strength training. Seems that the old rig ain’t what she was and needs rest!

This probably belongs in the over 50 4w/kg thread but here you go…

What I’m seeing in older ( >55) athletes is it takes longer to build up the FTP (MLSS, TTE) numbers. Couple good friends, one 65 and one 73 were looking for one last blast of glory at masters nationals. After discussing their goals, I suggested if they really wanted it, to plan 2-3 years of build to a peak. Recommended a specific coach for them to work with.

Coach immediately deconstructed their training plans, which were basically built on the standard 8 week blocks we know and love, and which all basically end in a sub-potential plateau at some point. After two years of work, both of these guys are seeing FTP estimates 20+ watts over where they were previously stuck year after year. The 65 year old is 65 kg and last FTP test on indoor trainer was well over 4 w/kg He wasn’t even peaked yet so estimating close to 4.4 - 4.5 when goal race came around.

20+ watts at this age, for already dedicated, motivated and reasonably well trained athletes who are getting older each day, is massive.

Unfortunately it will be for naught as Covid took the race season away. But the point is it can be done if you have the right plan.

In my estimation, Kolie Moore is one of few coaches talking about how to do this right. Drive that aerobic engine up over time with purposeful training, then polish it and then race it. The key for older athletes is it takes a lot of time to build that engine because you don’t recover like your prior 25 year old self. Not only do you need the right plan, but you need to stay dedicated to that plan and trust that the results will come.

The TR plans are very solid. Run the hell out of them until they don’t work anymore and you get stuck. If one puts in a few moments of effort to modify the plans, you can go a long way. Follow the week notes for tips, convert that fourth SST day to a long Z2 burner. Work:Rest ratios of 3:1 and 2:1 ITs all in there it just requires some effort and thinking.

Once stuck on this type of programming, and particularly for older athletes, you need a different approach. This gets touched upon all the time in podcasts and the problem is it is individualized and hard to provide in approximately 8 week preprogrammed blocks and reality is most amateur athletes don’t have the drive or attention span to really get there.

$0.02

Mark

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Bonjour,62 yo from France. I suspect thé metabolism changes that we undergo impacts the efficiency of the chemical tomechanical energy) since the Cal count is equal to the kJ . This 25% should not be a constant but rather a function of age

There are lots of good thoughts here and lots of people confirming the training problems of aging, namely that as we age we:

  • need more recovery
  • don’t handle high intensity work (VO2 and up) as well
    If you add to this short list:
  • we lose overall muscle strength,
    then you have the main theme of Friel’s book “Fast After Fifty” and you can save the money of buying it :slight_smile:
    So, the obvious way improve is to:
    – take more recovery
    – do VO2 work (train your weakness)
    – do strength (weight) training
    Our problem is we don’t know how much more recovery to take and how many VO2 intervals we should be doing, we don’t know when we need to rest and when we need to HTFU. Can we punch out a few more intervals as the workout requires or do we need to make a concession for our age? While it would be great to have a “geezers training plan” we all age differently. The physiology of a 75 year old is much different than that of a 60 year old, and the physiology of one 60 year old is also much different than that of another 60 year old.
    I don’t think there is a one size fits all training plan for us geezers. We have to be our own coaches. We have to be aware of when we are over-reaching in our training and take a few days, or a week, off. Of course, the problem is that the way to be our own coaches is through trial and error. We don’t know the difference between needing rest and needing to HTFU until we have over-reached.

Cheers,
Bruce (age 62)

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Couldnt agree with you more on the comments. Also appreciated the post by
DarthShivious above.

Last week I did two rides outside on the weekend on top of a couple of my scheduled TR workouts. The outside rides were not easy rides and my TSS went up substanitally for the week compared to earlier weeks. 50% more. I noticed this week the tiredness in my legs on my workouts this week. I was supposed to have next week be week three of a build program but I am pushing up a recovery week.

I am essentially 60(10 more days). I like intensity, love doing vo2 and short hard intervals but know I cant quite handle the mid volume plans as devised. I can do a low volume plan and add in extra rides typically outside in the 1.5-2 hour range. I have looked at tweaking things to a 9 day plan but I feel like I am not sure really what makes sense. I have tweaked my calendar to add in a block of a few weeks of a 9day plan to see how it goes.

The more I read the more I think I should add long zone 2 rides on top of 2 days of TR workouts. The challenge is how to pick the 2 days of TR workouts. This is really the type of guidance I am looking for. What considerations to take to modify current plans for my own situation. As well the time horizon in my view should be for next years riding as this year seems to be up in the air other than doing solo rides. So how best to use this situation

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I am 64 and have been riding road bikes for almost 50 years. Yep, the body is not what it used to be. Through trial and error I have found the that using the low volume plans work best for me. I add in rides on the weekends or low intensity workouts to get the TSS up to where I want it. I have added 10 minutes to my warmups and cool downs. I have also found that extra protein after the workout is as important if not more important now as it was when I was younger.

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I’d suggest your z2 rides would be Tuesday and Sunday, with hiit indoor rides on Thursday and Saturday. That way you be fresher for the hiit and can adjust the Sunday ride upon how tired you are after Saturday. If you can fit in a recovery ride on Wednesday, better still.

Highly recommend the longer Z2 work, but a bit of caution. I have been doing a lot of Z2 rides, which I am defining as riding right at my LT1 as defined by a good lactate step test. 45 min at that power is a pretty good trainer workout. As you stretch to 60, 75, 90 minutes these Z2 efforts are not trivial to recover from. Take some time to work up to it and don’t be surprised if you end up pretty knackered doing “long Z2” as it is not easy.

I’ve done a few months now of VO2-Tuesdays and 3-4 other rides per week either longer time at Z2 along with some FTP days. Result was a nice rightward short of LT curve, lower heart rate at Z2 and feeling much better on the bike during longer rides.

Moving into next phase of training am thinking of dropping VO2 and instead doing two MLSS (FTP) days per week along with longer weekend rides. Am a big fan of keeping some VO2 work, but I can get that in on the Mountain bike and on the road bike during longer weekend rides and use Tues and Thurs to push out TTE at MLSS.

Doodling on the following schedule for a 6-8 week block:

Monday - Easy
Tuesday - FTP
Wednesday - LT1
Thurs - Easy
Fri - FTP
Sat - Easy
Sunday long road or mtn ride

Am stuck with 7-day week programming since not yet retired. A 8 or 9-day week would allow better recovery planning.

-Mark

Mark, regarding recovery I discussed this with Chad McNeese when he was posting about experiences doing a polarized block. I’ve come to the conclusion some people are built to do long z2 without requiring a lot of recovery. Perhaps its those that are naturally slow-twitch dominant, I dunno for sure. Took a bunch of time off last year and with just traditional base 1 + an extra two weeks I was ready for 2+ hour tempo and much longer zone2 rides without a lot of impact. Regarding your definition, using functional tests it seems my z2 work is above LT1. -Brian

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I’ve been meaning to make this exact comment for quite awhile! I’m 53, and have been noticing some slight decreases in performance each season. While I don’t feel as over-the-hill as young guys believe 50+ masters to be, I definitely can’t keep up with the back to back intervals of even some of the mid-volume weeks.
It would be great to hear Chad give one of his deep dive talks on endurance training for older athletes!