I’ve seen a number of posts here and comments on the wider web to the effect of, “TR is great for beginners, but experienced racers self-coach or pay for a coach”. What’s driving that perception?
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I’ve been using TR and on the forum for 5 years reading nearly every post. Those feelings and comments are far and few between, not the general consensus.
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i guess i’m one of those who’ve moved on to self-coaching. I still use TR just about everyday of the week, but i’m using a combo of my some of my own workouts and TR workouts and my own “plans”
with something like SSB, for example, I don’t find I necessarily need 4 sweet spot workouts a week, I’ve limited my “work” days to 2 and do longer z2, so I’ve been at 14-16hrs a week for a bit of time now. and I’ve built my sweet spot TTE in such a way that I could do 1x90, for example, where TR plans generally cap off at a lot of 30min intervals.
I think more advanced folks get to a point where 4 hard workouts a week and limited z2 work as a lot of TR plans are become a bit limiting. And I think effective coaches/self-coaches get to a point when they can pivot to doing a vo2 block to bust through any plateaus.
Sometimes it isn’t as simple as just doing a TR plan and subbing z2 on a day or two, which can also be an effective strategy. At this point, my plan structure is so different from what TR would provide under adaptive training that I’m just building my own progressions and structuring my weeks according to my “vision”
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TR is a form of self-coach; I use TR + podcast + research from the web + forum to aid my training.
I would agree that a ‘serious’ amateur doesn’t blindly follow TR but combines TR with outside workouts and adapts TR prescribed workouts to suit what they are able to schedule in order to stay consistent.
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Some of the folk on the ‘Successful Athletes’ podcast definitely seem “serious” amateurs. I’ve no idea what is driving that perception, maybe money. Perhaps if you are coached you don’t 100% have to pay for a coach and TR, if the coach is doing the plan building/ plan adapting and could justify not paying for both. Similarly for the self-coached it probably justifies not paying a TR subscription too, if you are independently plan building and tweaking it. There is AI FTP D and other analysis to subscribe for though and you’d probably want some kind of calendar be it TP or TR etc.
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Depends how you define “serious”.
For example, I am not serious by my own definition i.e. ride for my own pleasure, not racing. But I do deviate from TR plans because I am not time-crunched, usual weekly availability is 12-17h. For that reason, I have bought some plans with this time allotment from TrainingPeaks and copied them to TR calendar with workouts from TR library, keeping weekly/monthly/seasonal structure. Also simulating AT by substituting next week workout after rating current finished workout.
As soon as TR implements Plan Builder customization allowing to choose workout type (Z2, SS, Z4, Z5) + time allocation per weekday + load/recovery week pattern, I’ll be back on plain full TR 
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Welcome to the internet, where everyone is smarter and faster than average.
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My first, second and third thought.
Are you serious if you ride a =5k bike, ride for 12+ hours a week and still make up the numbers at your local Tuesday Worlds?
Are you serious if you can quote verbatim every scientific study into zone 2 training in the past twenty years?
Please. Serious Amateur. That’s almost comical.
Who cares what you use when you line up. You either do the punching or you’re getting punched. I don’t care how many hours you train, on what, using what. The only thing that matters is can I beat you…?
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One thing about amateurs is they can have the perfect plan, the perfect coach and still tinker with it and do their own thing.
Not saying TR plans are perfect or coaching (it’s not)… not even saying tinkering is a bad thing. You gotta figure out what works for you & often that comes from making mistakes. How often do you see kids new to the sport emulate a pro or do something crazy (because their friends did it)? And even when you mature or have a coach you provide input and adapt the training to what you need. No plan is the perfect formula, there are no secret workouts.
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It’s just noise. A lot of the noise here is from the same small number of people (which is verging on the trolling for me!)
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My key suggestion for questions like this is to go directly to the source. Speculation by those of us here with a limited statement and no context will potentially miss the mark by a little or a lot.
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Nothing wrong with asking a general question like this. Maybe those people will arrive here and reply, or maybe some of us can correctly guess & summarize those thoughts? But it’s probably not as beneficial as replying or contacting directly via those actual comments you read.
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i wouldn’t dismiss all as just noise or trolling (although I agree there are a few dedicated users who seem interested in undermining TR). there are valid critiques to be made to the TR approach and whether, for example, 4 intense workouts a week are really the right way to structure a medium/high volume plan, when coaching consensus recommends 2 or 3 intense workouts a week. i think multiple things can be true, TR can work for people for a long time, and there are folks who are best served by a different structure
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Yeah, really interesting. My initial impressions have been that the UI/UX are terrific, and that FTP Detection is in fact a game changer, both for the accuracy and the fact that you’d have an automatic, consistent measure of your progress over time. I’d say it’s so good, it’s almost worth it on its own.
Even in this thread there have been a few people talking about how they heavily modify plan builder, but maybe that’s unavoidable.
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Sure, some will modify for a range of reasons. Others may run them with limited alterations, especially with the advent of Adaptive Training.
I used to apply some heavy edits by altering the Work to Recovery week layouts along with workout swaps in the days before AT. Since it was introduced, I am able to follow them largely as-is by accepting the suggested adaptations from AT. I do tend to add some one Endurance workout per week, but that depends on the plan and phase I’m in.
No different than many other things in life, people don’t often praise what works as much as what performs short of expectations. Squeaky wheel and all that with negative comments getting more air than positive from what I see. Broadly speaking, on the forum at least, I see far fewer “TR’s plan blew me up…” since AT was introduced. I’m sure it still happens with some reports discussed here. TR reps tend to step in to help investigate and answer those issues as they arise now.
Main point being that at least some of the long running complaints and criticisms have been reduced with TR changes like AT, AIFTPD and a revamp of the raw plans before AT even steps in. Despite those improvements, some still have new issues while others seem to be retreading complaints of old as well.
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Great post 
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Ive never really looked at hv, but at mv IT IS 3 hard workouts a week and a “moderate” sweet spot one that always has accompanying notes to swap out for endurance if you want.
Its only sweet spot at all because users were self selecting shorter harder workouts over the longer easier workouts.
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TR is great. While it can suit the needs of many people, there are also limitations to it. Many (most?) will never run into those limitations being significant to them though.
However, at higher levels it does seem most successful athletes have individual coaches. Whether this association is causative or not is a separate issue.
A coach can provide more specific recommendations on your specific training, and can titrate your training with your goals and performance and recovery to a finer detail than software can. Having an external locus of responsibility in another person, especially one who is experienced and can act in the role of a mentor is priceless.
At a very basic level though, given that many/most high level riders are training more hours per week than any of TRs plans have in them… that on its own means that after a certain level people will likely move on from them.
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To the extent there is a sentiment it’s probably based more on history than current reality. Most of the time it’s been around, TR was very specifically focused on trainer rides and not just trainer rides but trainer rides of one hour with the max at around two hours. By its nature, the program was designed to be done indoors on a trainer And the plans were generally tailored more towards peaking for one big event rather than managing fitness while racing every week or so.
This does work great but, it does not match how “serious“ amateurs actually ride in real life. It would suffice for the winter, but once the season rolled around, anybody who’s serious about racing or being at the pointy end of the local bike groups is doing at least one group ride and probably two group rides a week, one being a longer three hour plus ride on the weekends and racing very frequently, sometimes once a week but at least once every two weeks. No matter how much you loved TR, at least until recently, you were kind of automatically going to be off the program once the weather got nice and you’re riding outside.
While it’s gotten easier to tailor TR to work with outdoor rides and group rides. But, the legacy of seeing TR as being a winter training tool only has persisted a bit in some quarters.
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You made some really valid points….but I would just throw a word of caution out here. It can be very easy to don the rose-colored glasses when looking back at earlier years when you had great success / improvements and think “I need to do that again because that was what created my improvements”. In reality, it is often just the big gain we often see once you start using a plan, any plan.
I’ve been lured by this temptation a few times over the years, but when I step back and look at the numbers, I realize that I am further along now then I was then.
There are, of course, potential lessons to be learned from past training regimens but just try and look at it objectively through the data when possible.
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Yep, and I’d add this is also why legacy pricing makes sense for the TR management.
I now see it as either one trusts TR’s proposed plan (now with AT etc etc) or ends up using TR as a mere tool to control the trainer.
Goes without saying that after the first couple of years of trusting the plan, now I wouldn’t pay for the latter at the current full retail price or surely not for the entire year as I do now with the yearly subscription.
“Yes you can add Z1/2 volume to a TR plan but that’s never the same as a week that plans for both your volume and intensity.”
This would really make the difference IMO. Setting volume on your actual time availability.
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