There seems to be more people posting on the forum about TR not working for them, even though they are following a plan. But when a TR rep checks their calendar, their actual compliance is low. I wonder if it would help TR and TR users for them to show a plan compliance metric (something like % of recommended workouts completed) for the current plan. It might give people a visual reminder to stick to the plan. Or for those of us who deviate from the plan, we have a sense of by how much. If deviating from the plan leads to higher FTP or better race outcomes, keep doing it. If it doesn’t, maybe go back to the plan. This seems to be the type of data @Jonathan refers to on the podcast about more users get faster following the plan. On the forum, we are in a small bubble and we are all in our own bubble about our own training.
How would people view this metric do you think? What would be the negatives? It might make @eddie s job on the forum a little easier!
I would love this. Right now most of the problems seem to be due to not following the plan. Of course I do, 100% with this and that when needed. So am I really following it? Am I leaving big gains on the table? I’d love to know.
“I didn’t follow the recipe but this meal was terrible!”
I think it would be neat to see our compliance score but I could also see it working negatively for people. You think you are following the plan and then see a 49 or 66 compliance score? Is that going to motivate you to keep using TR?
I think this has been suggested before in some form, but the features thread is enormous!
To your point there could be an inclusion of some text explaining what you are doing to generate the score. Like you always skip Wednesday workouts maybe reduce the plan days or there’s lots of yellow maybe move to masters.
I would find a compliance metric incredibly helpful. I know my life tacks me off track, but how far off the track did I go? Even if I can’t improve compliance, it would help me gage if the lack of results is normal
Maybe a good compromise would be a score for the week, and then each week resets. That way, if you skip a whole week and have 0% compliance, you are not spending the next X many weeks trying to bring your average up. Would probably be better for the athletes’s moral.
“Yes, I had one bad week, but my week 2 was 91%, week 3 100%, and week 4 100%”
Interesting suggestion. I am only a new user on TR, but have already swapped out planned workouts for suggested alternatives (just to avoid repetition (repetition)), and also shifted some days back and forth due to family life. A compliance metric would need to handle all that in a common sense way.
What happens if you get 100% compliance, but are still not getting fitter (or whatever metric you are chasing), maybe to due diet, stress, low level illness, or some other factors that don’t stop you following the TR plan, but will affect your performance?
Well, ideally that would allow you to rule out TR as the cause of your issues, and focus on those other necessary components. Then, if you’re satisfied that you’re doing everything you can with fuel sleep/recovery, life stress, etc., you could go back and look at what changes you could make to the TR plan. Ideally.
You have to believe in the plan or the plan won’t work. I’ve been doing TR for about 7 months and have kept to it really closely. Occasionally I’ll skip the “adaptive” adjustments to my calendar but after racing for almost 20 years I think I know my body a bit and when I can do harder workouts than the “adaptation” suggests (or vice versa). I have a state RR championship this weekend so we’ll see if this 7 months has changed anything. I feel stronger and I suspect I’ll be stronger in this race but everyone has to understand that doing TR isn’t going to move you from a cat 3 to a world tour pro (especially for someone like me who is almost 65 years old).
A training plan compliance metric would be a great addition to TrainerRoad. It could show how consistently athletes follow prescribed workouts, factoring in missed sessions and intensity deviations. Seeing overall compliance trends might help identify overtraining or poor scheduling patterns. It’d also motivate users to stick closer to their plan while offering valuable performance insights.
I think this would be one of the most beneficial easy wins as it plays on the human brain & how certain people are wired ( me for one ) I’ll use the Duolingo app as a example. But some people are wired differently & this could have a negative effect on them maybe
