This issue has possibly (probably) been adressed before, but as i’m not that proficient in english i didn’t manage to find it by searching.
Should i worry about the progress of my program if i switch the weekend rides with one of the weekday rides?
My schedule is more likely to allow me to do the 1,5hr workouts on the weekday (wednesday or thursday) and one of the 1hr rides on the weekend. I’m doing SS base low volume.
I guess the 1,5hr workouts is on the weekends because most people have more time on their hands then, but at the same time these workouts also seem to wrap up what has been done earlier in the week.
I have to switch them about due to work, I’m also doing SS base low volume and have to do all my training weekdays (no training at weekend). This means I end up doing 2 sessions on consecutive days. So I did a 1hr session last night and 1.5hr tonight
Order in the week is largely open for change. Just try to keep some space between the “hardest” workouts, so you aren’t too fatigued going into a following one. Other than that, feel free to shift them to suit your schedule.
I tend to move things around based on my schedule, races, etc. Like Chad says, just be mindful of stacking hard workouts back to back, unless that’s what you’re trying to do. I will sometimes stack HIIT workouts back to back to better simulate the back to back nature of weekend cross races, but I generally don’t do this with the weekend workouts because of the duration of those.
Good thread. I was searching for this exact same question before I started a thread.
@mcneese.chad so if I reversed the order of the SSB LV workouts and did the 90 minute more difficult workout on Tuesday and then the moderate workouts on Thursday and Friday and mountain biked on the weekends I’d be good? I could take Monday as a rest day or cross training day.
I do something similar. I aim to do the tougher session Monday then I do Wednesday and Thursday. With this I run Tuesday and again on Thursday (off the bike)
How is a workout defined as being “hard”?
Is it the TSS, the IF, or some other measure.
Apart from the easy aerobic recovery rides if they are in the plan I am not sure which rides may be considered harder than the others.
Thank you for the help with this as I am also re arranging my weeks due to time availability, however, also want to leave them as close to stock as intended as I assume the order was prescribed that way some good reasons (other just than people may have more time for longer rides available on the weekends).
Thanks very much,
you will eventually get a sense for which workouts you need to be fresh for in order to get good quality and which ones you don’t. For me personally, any workout with a lot of time above threshold is ‘hard’ and i can do much better if i’m fresh. a long workout that’s pretty easy but long might have high TSS (which remember is just maths) but is generally completable no matter how tired i am. So yeah, maybe use IF as a rough guide until you figure it out.
Those who know me know that i am a huge proponent of individualization. TR is not your coach, they can never really know you or how you will respond t oworkouts, how much recovery you need, etc. So i’m all about, modify things as is required in order for you to get the benefit that you’re trying to get.
Big caveat though is that you gotta look at everything in context and sometimes the order IS there for a reason. For example, if you have hard day, hard day, long day, hard day, it’s pretty much expected that quality will be low on the final hard day. However, the plan could have programmed that way in order to get you used to trying to perform under fatigue–to sort of simulate what it’ll feel like in the last hour of a six hour MTB race, etc. To compensate for lower volume overall by giving you an “alternative way” of learning how to perform under fatigue.
So keep that kidna thing in mind as you move things around.
The default Tuesday and Thursday rides in most plans are the hard ones of the week. But the Saturday one can qualify too in many cases.
The IF and Duration, as well as TSS are clues to the “hard factor” you may also learn that work in one or more zones (Threshold, VO2 max, Anaerobic) may be the ones that are demanding.
Keeping a day between those can help you be ready to nail the. But it can also be interesting to stack these if you have events with back to back hard days. So it’s all a bit dependent on your needs and what is more difficult for you.
I just started Sustained Power Build and the plan has me doing a 90 minute 0,98IF on Thursday and a 0,87IF on Saturday. So if I understand it correctly I can just switch these no problem? I work in construction, so I’d rather have the hardest day on the weekend so I’ll have a bit more of a chance to rest up a bit afterwards.
Thanks for the rapid reply! I’ll switch them, I don’t mind doing the work but I’ll move the most intense effort to the weekend so I don’t have to work on Friday with trashed legs
Reviving this thread as I’m dealing with a similar issue at the moment. I want to do my SSBLV workout in the week, have Saturday off and incorporate a Group Ride on Sunday. I was thinking of re-ordering the workouts to accommodate this:
Mon - Rest
Tues - VO2 Max
Weds- Rest
Thur - Over/Unders
Fri - Sweet Spot
Sat - Rest
Sun - Group Ride
@Crownan That’s a really good structure. I’m the same - O/Us are by far the hardest workout of the week. I will give that order a go next week and see how it feels. Looking forward to group rides coming back as the weather improves here in the UK - hopefully all the TR training over winter will show!
