Hi all,
Sorry if this has been discussed to death.
I’ve been using TrainerRoad consistently for the first time for about 18 weeks. Started out with low volume base, and at this point I’m halfway through a mid volume general build.
I’ve seen big improvements to my fitness (weight down 15lb, FTP up 20 watts), but at this point all I can manage without wrecking myself is my rides. I’ve had to cut out weight-lifting (which I had been doing 3x a week, then down to 2X a week during Base phase) and cut back my cross-country skiing to a couple times a week or else I’m completely exhausted and useless.
Do you folks find mid and high volume plans are only appropriate for cycling only athletes? Should I switch to low volume?
I’m very happy with how the training is going, but ultimately I’m not looking to win races and would like to be able to balance a bike-forward mutli-sport existence.
Mid volume is 5 days a week
You lift 2 days a week
You also XC ski on occasion
Thats a lot of load no matter who you are. Even if all those sessions are just 1 hr long thats 8hrs of training stress every week.
I dont think the plans are “cyclist-only”, however the demand of a mid-volume plan will certainly take precedence over everything else.
You could lower it to low-volume, but your intensity will go up.
Maybe stay mid-volume, sub out 1 high intensity workout for a gym session, and 1 moderate intensity for skiing? Thats what I would do, if i was adhering to the principality of being more than just a cyclist with your provided situation.
Don’t be afraid to tweak the plan to suit you. I was on a MV plan and found it suited me (but I often, Covid lockdown permitting, substituted the weekend SS sessions for outdoors rides). With lockdown ending and predominantly riding outside I switched to LV. Although LV is a lower Volume it actually has 3 HIIT workouts during the week, whereas a MV plan only has 2 sandwiching a endurance one. I actually found LV with my weekend riding more taxing and now do a Hybrid, a LV plan but with the MV midweek intensity.
HLaB, for your hybrid plan is there a way to customize the training program to give you the types of rides you are wanting on a given day, or are you subbing / adding workouts each week to make it your own?
I set up a standards LV plan, then go through the calendar adding ‘time off’ annotations for the midweek session. It blanks the days out and when I get to them I do a Train Now workout.