This. “Lean into it and then ride at where you think your FTP is for as long as you can” is so much more in the spirit of finding out where your threshold actually is than “do a blow-out 5 minutes … and then try to ride as hard as you can for 20 minutes … and then take a pretty arbitrary %age of that”.
I was in a similar position and decided to give up on TR. Mainly because the ‘adaptive’ training isn’t really that adaptive, by that I mean if you have a big weekend, maybe a weekend of back to back races or a really long tough ride on a Sunday, the plan doesn’t budge, you’ve still likely got a VO2 max workout on a Tuesday. As the OP posted, by the time you’ve altered the week and the workouts to really adapt to what you’ve done you are effectively self coaching, so that’s what I now do.
I really think they’ve dug themselves into a hole with the PL system, I’d much rather have a system that analysis your workouts/rides and if it detects more strain than usual or planned gives you either more rest or changes the upcoming workouts. I tried Join for a while and it was pretty good at this but I missed having a proper calender and workout editor (something else which is shamefully woeful on TR) . I’ve found doing the basics well and working on things like TTE rather than pushing intensity ever upwards has resulted in feeling much fresher and being able to complete many more workouts than when I last went through a TR plan.
One final thought, I also agree with using a test such as the KM Test as a better way to determine FTP, I found TR’s automatic FTP detection was quite a bit higher than it really was when I actually tested it, which coupled with the amount of tough workouts in a TR plan rang quite a few alarm bells for me which is why I gave up on it.
After switching (and being a long time TR user) this also freaked me out a bit. But I must admid, I’m now actually quite enjoying it. I like the “go with the flow” vibe even tho that goes against my normal ways.
Same here. Over time I realized that wanting a system that adapts daily to my life and also wanting a long term plan are contradictory. I can look at the weekly hours and level planned for the entire plan, and that’s enough. How I fill those hours and reach that level are fluid.
Very much agree with that. The 20 min or 2 x 8 or ramp test are equally as flawed.
For me, the key thing is to use the same method consistently as that at least takes one variable out.
In my JOIN calendar I only have thee workouts, the rest of the days are rest days:
- 5 x 1 strength, 2:55
- easy endurance, 5:00
- reversed steigerungs, 4:00
So in total only 12 hours over eight days. Will the difficulty of the rides be adjusted when I show I am able to complete them? And what will it take to increase the volume target to something higher than 90 mins/day?
I can actually comment from this perspective. I stopped using TR a bit over a year ago. It got me to a certain point and then I’d kind of just plateaued.
Went and worked with an in-person coach for the past year. General differences I noticed would be more tempo (like 0.75-0.8) work, z2 work was usually in mid z2 rather than top of it, essentially no sweet spot or threshold work at all, only 1-2 high-intensity sessions a week, the high intensity stuff was much more intense (ex: 4x8min VO2max), wayyyy less frequent FTP testing and changes (ie: focus on riding, not on preparing for a test). I’d been doing 10h a week or so previously with TR and this increased to about 12h a week on average with coach.
This had a huge impact and I completely destroyed my previous plateau, peaking just under 4.5w/kg.
Stopped working with them because my big event was over, and don’t have anything special on the horizon (pontificating over TABR but the kids need to be a few years older). As a result, going back to TR just to stay in shape. However, I am not really following recommended rides anymore. The recommended rides are just a starting point and then I tweak things based on what I’ve learned.
Ride longer and it will adapt that day longer. At least that’s how it worked for me. It might not show the best examples when you run it concurrently with TR.
Like I said before it’s a different philosophy and I didn’t have any events so I dove all in. They have less focus on FTP building and tests every 4 weeks. More focus on endurance and when it’s intervals, it’s a range and not a set in stone target, like TR outside rides.
If you don’t have any events try it out, you might like it. If not, either way you definitely won’t lose fitness.
For me also, but irony is that currently I am also planning one week ahead. Given my training plan for next 3 months is 2x threshold (steady or o/u with bursts) and rest is z2 and vo2 max block around january - I don’t have to see 4-8 weeks ahead… the whole decision is if I want boring 3x20 or some spicy variation once a month. Sometimes if I want to go crazy I put something like 1x90@90% to break monotonny 
Oh hell no!!
I set my level to intermediate (ie 6-9h of training/wk) and I can see in my schedule which started with an easy 2 hours for the first week that the hours gradually increase to 10h by week 10
For me TR was always self coaching given I would always take the option of riding outside if available. When adaptive training was introduced I always accepted the adaptions to reduce my PLs as I knew the road spins would not have much impact on any zones other than endurance / tempo and would rarely do those on the turbo.
I quite like the flexibility of trainerday but didn’t like the plans as there was almost no intensity and just couldn’t get my head around investing time into a plan with no intensity.
I am loving JOIN at the moment as it has even better flexibility than TD and a nice mix of endurance and intensity for the type of riding I do which is 50/50 indoors / outdoors during the winter.
For me the TR price point is too expensive given I prefer riding outside and it does not provide any guidance for these rides.
TrainerRoad helped me realize that if I have a specific event I want to target I prefer to work with a coach. If I’m just trying to have some structure for staying in shape, I can use TrainerRoad.
I’ve been beginning to ask myself the same question. I’ve enjoyed using TR for several years now for a variety of reasons but I feel like my progress has stagnated (if there’s really been any progress at all). I’m also finding that the heavy reliance on indoor training makes my outdoor events less predictable from a RPE and performance standpoint. My FTP has increased but it’s long hit a ceiling that isn’t especially maximal. The price is cheaper than a real coach but I’m also not getting much stronger on the bike. Something needs to change.
Hey everyone,
Thanks for all of the feedback in this thread.
There are a lot of thoughts floating around here, and there are a few topics in particular we’d like to touch on.
It sounds like one recurring concern is how TR isn’t capturing training outside of the plan. This has been and still is a priority for us to improve on. Our ultimate goal is to be able to feed any activity into Adaptive Training to improve on-the-fly adaptations of your plan.
We hear your concerns regarding that point – and although it’s taking us longer than initially planned, we’d like to reiterate that we have a dedicated team completely focused on this project, and it remains our top overall priority as a company.
Additionally, we have other teams working on constant improvements for other features, too. AI FTP Detection and consistent updates to Adaptive Training are a couple of examples that come to mind from this year alone. Here are some data points we have on that:
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Athletes using AT see a 45% reduction in failed workouts
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AI FTP Detection eliminates the need for all-out efforts to keep your training zones properly calibrated and is:
– 38% less likely to overestimate your FTP vs. the 20-Minute Test
– 75% less likely to underestimate your FTP vs. the 20-Minute Test
– 40% less likely to underestimate your FTP vs. the Ramp Test
We’ve also seen some comments implying that without certain suggested improvements, TrainerRoad might not be right for them. Our goal here at TR is to be able to build out a plan to make you faster while taking care of the details so that you don’t have to. We’ve built our plans around what we know works for athletes ranging from < 2 w/kg all the way to 5 or even 6 w/kg. We know that there are going to be athletes who want a plan that’s beyond the scope of what we offer, and in those circumstances, we’d recommend that you reach out to us to discuss your goals so that we can see if there’s anything we can do to help make TR better reflect your needs.
It’s worth mentioning that there’s always going to be some degree of self-coaching that’s required to follow a training plan, and that’s especially true if you deviate from the plan, but we aim to decrease that need for self-coaching as time goes on with the improvements we’ve made this year, as well as the rollout of new features down the line.
Please feel free to let us know if you have any other questions or concerns – you can DM me or reach out to support@trainerroad.com.
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How are you determining “maximal”?
For those that feel they have become stagnant, I would suggest trying different plans…if you typically do SS Base, try a traditional base or polarized base, etc.
Sometimes you just need to shake up your training regimen, both physically and mentally.
The key thing not addressed by the TR support response above, is the plans inability to adapt to the actual load you are experiencing and changing the next workout pro-actively. Eg I do a much higher TSS rides on Saturday and Sunday than planned but will still be scheduled the usual tough work out on Tuesday. To be of real value TR needs to spot this and say “here’s a dialled down workout based on what you’ve just done”. At the moment it only adapts by you missing, failing or struggling with workouts.
This is all fine, but I’m now wondering if after 5 years on the app whether this is the best value choice anymore, now grandfathered price has risen.
That flexibility is there! You can drag, drop, cancel, or modify workouts at will. You can manually adjust or use plan builder.
Even if you had a team of coaches planning your every workout, you’d still have to assume SOME responsibility for adjusting a plan to your schedule, injuries, and even the “I feel great/horrible” days.
If TR isn’t for you, then by all means find something that suits you better. Personally, I haven’t found anything else that can consistently deliver workouts hard enough to challenge me without overcoming me or burning me out. I’m consistently standing on podiums and am faster than I was before, so I have real world results.
C’est la velo.
It seems like you already understand this particular issue, though. And unless you are paying for daily monitoring (which is very expensive), even a personal coach is not going to see that you did a “higher than planned” weekend and adjust your plan.
Only if you opted to change it. Subscribers who were paying the original, lower rate always had the option to keep that pricing.
I’ll just note that was a snippet of what I posted and not representative of my point.