I’ve been riding on trainer road pretty consistently over the winter and got my ftp on the app up from about 170 to 206. I’ve been riding three days a week for a total of 3:15 minutes. I watched the latest trainer road podcast and they were saying most training time should be spent in the endurance zone but trainer road has me at three hard interval sessions per week. I do have time for more rides during the week but when I use the check volume feature it still recommends 3 high intensity sessions. Is there a reason it wouldn’t recommend more volume with some more time in endurance zones? Do I need to just add that in for trainer road to adjust or will it make that adjustment for me at some point?
You can adjust that when building your program. I have mine set for (2) 1.5 hr interval sessions, (1) 2 hr endurance ride, and (1) endurance ride up to 5 hrs. That’s what it spits out every week.
Yours may be set up a certain way based on information fed into the system.
You can always start adding in endurance ride of your preferred length, manually. Obviously have to be mindful of the volume you’re adding, their intensity, and where they sit in your weekly program.
Yeah when I go to check volume it recommends only three days. When I add one in now it doesn’t yell at me now though so maybe that’s fine haha. I’ll just do that, thanks!
I have gone from 3 hour/week to 12-15 hours/week slowly over the last several years by simply add an additional 15 min to my warm up and cool down at first. Then, on our next training block, build that time into your plan. Rinse and repeat.
If you don’t have a lot of cycling history loaded into TR, it’s very slow to ramp up volume, probably in an effort to make sure it doesn’t push you too hard, too fast.
With the addition of the dynamic endurance rides, you can play around this a little bit. In plan builder, switch to a master’s program, which should give you two hard interval sessions a week, and make the third one a dynamic endurance day, and increase the max length to whatever you would actually feel comfortable doing (2 hr, 3 hr, 5hr).
As I said before, the check volume feature seems to move very slowly, unless you really force its hand. At least that’s what I’ve seen in discussions online about it. If you create a plan with 4 workouts a week, you’ll notice a lot more red and yellow days in your projected calendar. But if you nail those workouts, it will take notice, and adjust accordingly.
Unless you are doing more than 6 hours a week, you probably don’t need to worry about Z2/endurance riding that much. The “most time should be spent in endurance” is mainly for the peak amateurs and pros who ride basically every day. If you are only riding 3 days a week, you can afford to go essentially all out, every time (within reason). You have lots of natural recovery off the bike.
Until you start peaking with the 3 hard rides a week, I probably wouldn’t change anything. When you start peaking, that’s probably when the check volume feature will finally “work”, as the TR AI will also agree to that you need more time in saddle to get any more gains.
I think sometimes on the podcast they say things without explaining the caveats or who it applies to.
If you’re doing 10-15 hours or more, yes, bulk of your time should be Endurance. But if you’re only spending 3 hours, then that advice doesn’t work. Basically the reason TR is giving you intensity first is if you’re not spending a lot of time, it better be intense if you want to improve.
But, you could probably maintain about 3 hours of intensity, and layer on a whole bunch of Z2 on top of it over time. Amount of intensity might not change very much, but the percentage would.
Yeah I understand why if I’m only doing three hours a week it makes sense for it all to be intensity. More just wondering why it doesn’t suggest more endurance because I think I can handle it. Going to just start trying to add some!
You’ve gotten some good answers already on this one - but I like just extending my intensity workouts by 15-30 minutes at Z2 at the end. You’re already kitted up and on the bike. The only time I’m ever doing 60 min is a recovery ride, and I don’t think I really ever do less.
I just use the Cool Down functionality in TR, let it auto extend, and throw my bike in resistance mode at Z2 power and spin.
Then of course - start adding some longer Z2 on the weekends, but you have to work up to it and make sure it doesn’t impact your interval workouts.
Thanks! I think I just gotta stop over thinking it and start adding some when I have time.
That’s some good progress, keep it up 
The plan builder should let you add more endurance - You can change the volume.
You might need to pick a higher volume plan (e.g. mid) and then tone down the total volume to something practical.
Pick the volume with the right number of days. Then alter the volume to match what is practicable.
Because you’re already getting enough stimulation for steady, sustainable improvements in fitness. You’re already getting faster 
I can’t agree with this recommendation of not adding endurance time. On 3 hours a week, you are going to top out VERY quickly if you are consistent. As others have said, start adding in time when you can. Slowly but consistently.