What My Base Training Season Looked Like (Dylan Johnson Video)

From my point of view, you’re proving my point.

Dylan’s critique mirror’ed my own, as well others I have talked about this with. Now I control my own plans using TR, but the Build Planner did exactly what he said.

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How?, When?..kindly expand. Thx

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Lol, I think there’s a thread of 2651 reasonable comments where this is discussed.

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The irony of calling a Youtuber disingenuous when you yourself link directly to your Youtube channel in your profile.

I agree with Dylan. Others who I trust and race shared the same opinion. Some have switched, some do what I do.

As for this particular video, I enjoyed it. Did I learn a ton, no, but always curious to see how people who do this for a living make it happen.

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Wow, that’s a huge amount of volume. It just makes me wonder if he was limited to 1/3 of the training time whether or not he’d be doing a lot more tempo and SS. It would still be a significant reduction in training stress. Would he burn out from that? I doubt it.

The more I learn about this, the more I’m convinced that it’s not the healthy dose of SS in TR’s plans that’s the problem. It’s that the ramp test is overestimating FTP for quite a few riders and they end up doing huge blocks of threshold when they think they are doing SS.

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That is exactly what I found for me.

I think perform well on the ramp test, so my sweet spot work becomes threshold, tempo becomes sweet spot, etc.

This is part of my problem with FTP in general. Some testing methods over estimate, some are contingent on testing experience and pacing strategies.

If you follow Lachlan Morton, you’ll see his training volume is consistently as much or more than Dylan with similar elevation gains, and he does it at altitude (lives in Boulder most of the year), so his recovery would be slightly weakened as compared to Dylan due to the lower air pressure. On the surface, it just looks like he rides a lot, not very fast, and for long distances, but then he and Alex Howes entered a local “rally” race a few week back and they dropped the hammer and were flying.

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He never said that all youtubers are disingenuous… He said that he thought he was disingenuous and that he’s a YouTuber.

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Fair, but he can’t defend himself?

I provided evidence of agreeing with Dylan’s point, for myself and others who race, as well as a EF Pro who trains just like Dylan.

See my statement about a cult. TR is great, I love what they do, I use it and am a customer, but there are valid criticisms and it isn’t the only way to skin the cat.

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:man_shrugging:t3: I just saw he wasn’t necessarily be accurately represented.

But I agree with both sides a bit. I personally think there’s a bit too much intensity in TR plans with OU’s on week 3 and VO2’s on week 7. But I also think DJ messed up a bit by using studies that said polarized but were actually using more pyramidal. Whether or not that was done disingenuously I’m not so sure though.

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I’m suuuuper surprised you can match your peak ftp by doing only zone 2 work, however many hours it is.

I guess it doesn’t matter as it’s not realistic to do for most of us.

Using Lachlan as an example, he mostly rides 50-60 miles averaging around 12-16mph, several thousand feet of climbing (2-4000’). I am not sure what his interval training looks like as he doesn’t share power, but he’s mostly riding pretty slow, just a lot (380-ish miles a week average).

He has a few hundred Strava miles over Dylan but a little less feet gained (not much though).

About a month ago he and Alex Howes, the defending US Road Champ, and both EF riders, entered the 100km course of a local rally, mixed paved and gravel with a lot of climbing in the Colorado foothills, they ended up finishing with nearly a 25mph average speed. I believe that even included a crash at one point. Keep in mind that riding was all done at 6000’ + elevation, so their power numbers would be down nearly 10% and have an impact on their speed at times.

That’s super interesting. I really wish I could try this sometime. As much as I like 1 hr 2 hr destroy myself rides, it would be fun for a season to just look around and enjoy it. But yeah… Time…

My takeaways from that video are:

  • As a pro rider he does a lot of miles. Quelle surprise!
  • Those miles are at low (for him) intensity. Mon dieu!
  • Sometimes even pros get it wrong.

(Schoolboy French added for extra sarcasm :roll_eyes:)

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It inspired me to stay out a bit longer on my rides this week, so it was a good video to watch.

I do like how he shares all his riding so we can get a look at the reality behind how Pros get to these big FTP numbers and incredible endurance levels.

Doesn’t bother me that he sells coaching or that he’s promoting his coaching. He will be riding and coaching and selling plans in a method he believes in. When he attacks other platforms like Zwift and TR you can add just a pinch of salt and keep that in perspective.

Everyone has bias. No biggie.

What I’d love to see is a Pro with big numbers like Dylan, on sub 10 hours a week, and all their Strava rides shared. That would be very cool.

Seems to me a lot of guys who ride a fair bit and consider themselves good get to around 300watts +/- for years on end, then talk about genetics holding them back.

Maybe they just need more volume. Maybe it’s always been as simple as that…

Intent on discovering this myself at the moment.

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That’s a really interesting point. I’ve been in the bucket you describe for a number of years. If I’m honest, my hard rides could be more devastating, and I don’t ride with really fast guys who would push me even more often enough. Also, if a big week now is 12-13 hours, what would a consistent 20 do? To this point, more load has only meant better fitness, but that might break down at some point, and also now that I’m not 35 anymore.

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:point_up: Hell hath no fury like a TR-user scorned.

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pretty sure there weren’t 2600 reasonable comments…

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Why be so surprised??

FTP is about aerobic capability and endurance riding works everything related to aerobic development, just with more volume required over time? He also does gym work and maintained it during that period, and of course all this ‘base’ is on top of his lifetime of previous training - he didn’t get off the couch at the start of his base phase.

I’m not surprised at all. When I look back at 10 years of my own data, its very clear that best numbers (and ride performances) were always in the years with biggest training volumes and the most time riding in z2 and nothing to do with the number of TR/structured interval days I did that year.

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Surprised cause I didn’t know. No need to big deal out of it. I’m not making a comment on his training I believe him 100%. But I assumed to hit your peak 20 mins you would have to spend a good chunk of time at those watts and even above. Apparently not.

Hence the surprise.

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