I wrote TR support, and they said the AT adaptation applies only to other TR training plans, but not to personally created training plans.
Questions like this are why I hired a coach. But I’ll tell you what I think. I love sweet spot bursts, but for me that is not enough intensity. However criss cross intervals (FasCat website) feel like they do (and WKO confirmed) a better job at generating time above 85-90% vo2max (relative/estimated). And all the non-max above-threshold intervals from 2 to 10 minutes that my coach has me doing.
It will be interesting to see if anyone else has any experience / opinions on this. In the meantime I think I will stick with sweet spot bursts ( in 1st 8 weeks of base) but allow myself some short hard efforts on the Saturday ride outdoors. In the uk the punchy hills lend themselves more to vo2 max than to sweet spot, st least at my very modest ftp. It’s good to stick to a definite plan & record how you respond so you have something to review for the following year.
FWIW a quick look at SS with bursts every 2 minutes… about 6-12 minutes of total work above 85% (relative/estimated) vo2max. All the recent criss-cross work in the last month has been about 20-minutes of total work above 85% vo2max. The bursts are a good place to start, and then progress to criss-cross. The criss-cross work also better emulates surges and for the type of group riding I do, taking 1-minute turns pulling.
Thanks for all the info. It’s really helpful in developing my understanding and how to personalise my training at 66 y old, I don’t have to do much pulling at the front of the group but the punchy climbs 1 to 4 mins are a hard effort and we have them every ride. There’s not much flat around here!
Same idea, ride hard for 3 minutes and then 1 min punchy effort above threshold. Applies to short punchy climbs and rotating pace lines in a headwind.
That is what I understand.
I thought heard Nate say a month or so ago that TRs AT at the moment does not track outdoor rides nor custom workouts.
I don’t recall the podcast. He did say they were working on it. Last time I said I thought Nate said…he swooped down and clarified it. So I could be wrong.
Now, I have not seen any Adaptations when I ride outside and it´s not associated with a TR Outdoor workout. On the ohter hand, I can´t recall if AT made adjustments when I did a TR Outdoor workout. When I was doing them I was just trying to get credit for following the scheduled workout but in all my recent AT cases I have gone much farther than and longer than what the workout prescribed when outdoors.
Not sure this helps… I recommend sending a note or a chat to the help desk. They will clarify lickity split quick!
Good Luck
The way to get AT to acknowledge outside rides is to place a similar workout in your calendar before syncing up your GPS device. There is a limit of 3 hours to a ride i beleive. I use this for endurance rides as im roughly following a polarised plan.
That’s correct, Ray, but Junio should be careful what to ask for. I’ve picked a TR workout that matched the TSS, Time, and IF with my outside ride, and sometimes gotten a bigger bump on PL than I wanted! Before selecting the “credit” workout, think about whether the new PL is one you can actually perform when the next adaptations pop up! Sometimes I will pick a lower PL workout just to get credit without a big bump up.
I have to make and official correction I went back and looked at an outdoor workout and I did get adaptations. So I wanted to get credit for the workout but my intent was not really the TR Outdoor workout objectives. In two TR Outdoor workout cases one was an 1.5hr Endurance the other was a 1.5hr Sweetspot. But my objective was a XXL ride i.e. long ride 120km and 1500+M climbing (sorry been living overseas so long I’ve gone metric in my cycling parlance). Anyways back to the topic so I did get credit aka adaptions and they were big jumps for me 1.7 to 3. With the Endurance workout it was a breakthru and +3 for the SS I got progressions in both SS and Tempo.e So yes if you do an outdoor workout you will get credit.
@Raythebike Yes, you may be correct as I looked form the point that I got those big adaptions over a training block build phase my FTP went down from a 255 to 251 post two weeks from the out door workout and then dropped to a 240 post sixweeks… Don’t know exactly why??? As I was following a mid volume XC Marathon plan. I was NOT tracking my HRV. I had also included some light strengh Training TRX Force Trainer Plan with a new add of kettelbell goblet squats and kettelbell two arm swings very lightweight. Any ways I have since decided to accept the new lower FTP and restart tracking my HRV and adjust my Tng schedule based on daily HRV status.
FYI to all you over 60 guys and gals. Today TR had its Successful Athletes Podcast featuring Jim Mueller 74 year old USA National Cyclocross Champion. It was pretty good!
There’s hope for me yet!
Although TR reference Paul Laursen, their reference to his work is far from current.
Laursen specialises in research into the application of HIIT, and hence into Polarised periodisation. His more recent work, easily seen on You Tube, indicates his R&D favouring very short high reps intervals, not the classic 5min VO2 max, rather 5 min sets of 10+10 sec x lots; with longer intervals still under a minute. I found the shortest sets, ie, 10sec very hard to master logistically, as the athlete really needs to focus on the workout rather than the stop watch, ie, accelerating and resting. A positive of this type of session, which Laursen predicts, is how refreshed you feel afterwards, almost like you didn’t work anything like as hard as you actually do, in essence recovery is very rapid.
I’d be interested in Coach Chad’s feedback about this research.
I had the same thought and as a result I´m changing my game for 2022 with regard to nutricion and races. I´m looking for races with my age category right now the races that I´ve been doing locally year after year group 50 and above in same category. 
And witty too. A very grounded guy.
@DavidWms congrats on the big jump in adaptation 
I have never gotten past 6. something in my VO2 progressions and it is my highest overall.
What are you doing during your workouts?
I just hit the TGT wattage I dont exceed it or bump up intensity I just stay at 100%.
What are you doing? That gives you such a big adaptation jump??
I think the biggest jumps have come from matching outdoor rides to TR workouts based on TSS, IF, and time (which can create problems, as I mentioned earlier.) It’s taken a couple of months to raise that VO2 Max. I went from 2.7 to 5.2 on 10/17; up to 7.1 on 10/17; up to 8.1 on 10/27, with smaller boosts from rides in November. Last weekend, I did a mostly Z2 ride that matched up with Boarstone +2 and resulted in +4.8 on my Tempo PL (see pic.)
Same experience with big jumps, like when I did some over/unders which TR assigned a 6.9 VO2 difficulty to the custom workout (similar to some TR workouts). Zone PLs are actually a reflection of recently completed workouts (last 2 weeks?) and not your actual underlying fitness, so you can see big jumps.