Having created a plan with the new Plan Builder, it is giving me a 30 minute workout every Wednesday, such as the likes of Manly , West Vidette and King. I’m struggling to see what the reason would be in doing workouts such as this, the aerobic benefit is surely very low and I can’t help thinking that I’d be better off adding the 30 minutes to existing rides to get greater benefit. If the purpose is recovery, then I think an extra 30 minutes sleep or yoga or foam rolling would be equally beneficial.
Can anyone enlighten me on the logic of Plan Builder with regards to this? It seems an awful lot of hassle to get everything set up and then have to shower, clean up etc for such a short and easy ride.
I guess the logic is to give you the number of workout days per week as you requested while getting roughly in the volume as you did before.
Of course you can absolutely just add this 30 min of endurance to any of you other workouts and take a nap instead. I know that I’d do that.
Good question! Have been wondering the same. And I didn’t request 4 days, it was recommended by plan builder. I skipped them for exactly the same reason …a lot of hassle for a ride that doesn’t seem to do much…but if I’m missing something important, and there is a real benefit, I would like to know that.
That’s the thing, I didn’t request five days, I just left everything as default and let Plan Builder do it’s thing. I think I’ll take the extra sleep and add the time elsewhere, it seems awfully conservative on how much outdoor riding it will allow before it warns you off anyway. Thanks.
I have not run through every possible approach to the training plan process, but one test right now still allows manual adjustment as it has in the past. This example shows the choices presented during the plan review stage, after clicking the Settings option.
So I’d suggest review during the planning process and alter it as needed to suit desired days of workouts at the very least, along with the many other tweaks than we can apply.
I’ve also just had a play around with it, by removing the Wednesday and adding the 30 minutes to Sunday I got the overtraining warning, choosing the four day option shortened every workout! I’ll leave things as they are and just not do them and just ride the extra time at the weekend outdoors or if I’m up for a workout use TrainNow , which I’m sure will probably recommend an hours endurance session. I would though, be interested in the logic of why these workouts are being recommended, it seems that the new Plan Builder is very fixed in what it recommends, I’d hoped it would stop me thinking so much about what I need to do, but unfortunately it’s filled my tiny mind with even more questions!
As @Slowwithouttwitch said, the logic is generally to give you the number of workouts per week as requested in the Plan Builder setup flow while maintaining a similar volume to what you’ve recently been doing.
Adding the volume to a different workout may trigger Red Light Green Light warnings (it seems to have done so in your case) if it “upsets” the TSS balance of your overall week. As an example, yellow/red days often start to pop up after multiple higher-stress days in a row, which I’m guessing is what’s happening in this instance if you’re getting those warnings after adding the extra volume to Sunday.
If you have a rest day on Monday, though, I wouldn’t worry too much about the warning – yellow/red days will typically clear after a day totally off.
Ultimately, you know your schedule best – so if skipping the 30-minute midweek session and adding that time to another ride in the week works better for you, then go for it! After a few weeks of training with that schedule (or similar), Adaptive Training should pick up on what you’re capable of doing and adjust your RLGL warnings accordingly.
Hope that helps clear things up – feel free to let me know if you have any other questions!
The strange thing is, in December I have two rides at 4.5 hours and a couple at 2.5 hrs duration, this is at a time when I’ve been doing a bit less on the bike and more in the gym. Whilst the 5hr Z2 comment was tongue in cheek I suspect, I do find some of the recommendations strange, but I’ll work with it and hopefully as I feed the AI data it’ll change.
Following a TR plan as well with 4 workouts per week. I tend to extend the 30 min workout days to 1 hour and keep the additional time in Zone 2. I also do this a lot with 1 hour workouts (even hard interval workouts) and will extend 30 minutes of Zone 2.
The extra half hour adds up during the week from various workouts which I find helpful. This is often an additional 1.5 - 2 hrs of additional riding for the week without much difficulty or sacrifice.
