Thanks, Nate. Great to hear that your team is working on this. I actually just posted a question on the podcast based on this thread, FWIW. One of the suggestions I saw in comments on this article, How Aging Athletes Can Get Faster (Yes It's Possible) is to stretch a 7 day plan into 9. That seems like a sound approach, and one I may try in moving to the SSBMV plan next week. Doing 90/90 minutes or 90/120 back-to-back days in the MV plan probably does not permit enough recovery for most over 60 cyclists. An option in PB to spread the week’s plan over 9 days hopefully would be a relatively easy tweak.
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The thread @DavidWms started and now this post from @Nate_Pearson is a big tonic to this geezer. I remember early TR blogs on “older rider,” which was used synonymously with “Masters,” of which @Chad on the podcast was the example, with continuing podcast jokes about poor old Methuselah. Yeah, right. I was 75 then (nearly 79 now), and doddering old Chad was almost 10 years younger than my son! I remember my ears perking up when on another podcast Nate briefly mentioned putting his 70-year-old mom on the trainer, and I thought “Hey, I really am in the club, and I’ll bet she gives him an earful of things to thing about!” 
Personally, I’d have set the geezer age at 65 for a number of reasons — e.g. average retirement age, which frees up time — but won’t quibble as long as it’s recognized that we really old people have goals just as passionately felt but different from young crit-racers or downhillers, or even “Masters” Chad’s age. I’m also heartened that Amber may be helping on this, so we don’t have to start the letter-writing campaign to Nate’s mom. She consistently mines out the potential in apparently daunting situations (e.g. rain or a loony physiology) so I trust her to treat advanced age as cheerfully.
The wish list has already started. I won’t add to it until after I find time to post my list of specific reasons why I feel so deeply indebted to the TR team, despite being such an outlier in the demographic, and maybe irrelevant to TR’s mission of getting me ever faster. 
For now just an observation about the demographics. Sure, there are a fair number of us older people here in the forum and/or subscribing to TR. But beyond that, age is a different kind of outlying than some other parts of one’s profile — like height, weight, disabilities, genes, etc. Although only a handful of current TR users are close to 80 today, absolutely 100% of them will be someday, unless they die first. So they too have a stake in this topic, and are welcome.
I don’t know if @scotscyclist65 meant it that way but I just love the black humor of:
Blockquote
The sooner the better
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Thanks for the prompt and very encouraging reply.
@Nate_Pearson this is awesome. Can’t wait to see what you guys are cooking up.
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Question to all the older athletes here.
Would you rather have more time between intense workouts?
And/or…
Recovery weeks more often (2:1 probably).
Or, a mix of both!
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I am 57 and nearing my first year of indoor training and TR after too many of doing nothing. Sometime in 2018 I woke up to the realization that I wanted to retire with all the health to enjoy the freedom for a long time, and so I dropped 40lbs and started the Work (hovering around 190 FTP these days, 2.5 W/kg).
Never having had a coach, I am in serious debt to coach @chad or all the things he taught me, and yet after reaching SSBMV2 last fall I just had to stop because those all-too frequent VO2 spikes where killing me. Probably, from what I read around this forum I just needed a stronger aerobic base, and for now I found the best way to go via Today’s Plan, and due to a “simple” feature: I could have their plan adapt to the amount of time I have on each day. If TR had this (so as not to be saddle with long workouts before certain workdays), I would jump back (of course I kept my subscription!). More “target options” for the plan builder would be good, too, in addition to those focused on races, breaking down the large endurance segment in a few parts.
I am one of those who wish for a middle way between Traditional and something like SSBMV2.
As others have said, I have also found that working on Xert was better adapted to my older/inexperienced legs by not necessarily saddling me with Spanish Needles (offering me options: it would be great if one day TR could also offer a few options as Xert does, so that on any day we could choose depending on how we feel, and yet satisfy training needs).
Otherwise, @Nate_Pearson, I suspect that smoothing out the intensity spikes would be best for someone like me, and not just put the emphasis on “more recovery,” because I doubt that any amount of recovery would make me feel ready for Spanish Needles 
I would rather have more time between intense workouts.
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I manage my issue myself. I need more time between tough intervals, and I can do that myself. If there is a 4 minute valley between rough spots, I mentally commit to riding out 3 minutes of them, just to convince myself “that last one didn’t kill you, yet, but you’re not ready for the next one.” Then, with 1 minute before the next one, before the instructions start again, I get off, go get a glass of water, drink two, then start up the workout again. I guess this isn’t back pedaling, but back piddling.
I’m 67 and so far, I keep progressing a bit, 20 watts up from last year, doing the same plan I can compare.
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Of course, I’d like to have both options. But if I had to choose, I’d opt for more time between intense workouts. The SSB LV of 3 workouts per week is (at least so far) not challenging enough, but the SSB MV of 5 workouts with 2 back-to-back weekend sessions seems too intense for most older cyclists. And since older cyclists eventually retire (not there yet!), their schedules are not wedded to a strict 7-day schedule around a 5-day work week. Stretching those challenging weeks for more recovery time in between seems to make the most sense.
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both. This is my take:
- recovery weeks for me vary, I can handle 3:1 and have even done well with 5:1 during base, but come build and the higher intensity work pushes me to 2:1
- 2 intense workouts a week during build/specialty is likely all I can handle with adequate recovery to go hard a 2nd time (during base I can handle more sweet spot work). I’ve bombed out on build (reasons below) and just started doing one or two weekly focused workouts on the trainer and turned my attention outside.
- there needs to be a persistent setting to customize vo2 interval workouts in terms of the # sets/intervals -simply put there are times (e.g. newer riders, long break from vo2 work) when the number of sets appropriate for a 20-40 yr olds is the wrong starting point for 50-70 yr olds
- there needs to be a persistent setting to customize vo2 workouts with the appropriate %ftp for individual physiology, although this rqmt transcends age
- in the past you’ve described modifying plans to be fatigue dependent but plan builder doesn’t allow for custom blocks, and I can’t find any plans with that type of weekly structure. And going with low volume and adding lower-intensity volume doesn’t feel compatible with plan builder, especially when combined with needing to insert extra recovery weeks from time to time
My 2 cents. I’m not 60, yet, have managed to do SSB1-HV (not recently) but without the right tools or self-coaching fundamentals have managed to get annihilated by build and turned my attention to outside riding. Hope that helps.
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Goodness, you’re fast, Nate! And good question.
Fast answer is: Both of course. if it doesn’t break anything, including the bank.
Better answer, for me, is neither yet. TR is already amazingly flexible and even an old coot like me can figure out how to tweak this and that and concoct pretty much anything he wants, even a monster.
First I’d like to know way better than I do – maybe a segment on a podcast – what a geezer in particular should hasten to tweak in a TR plan or workout and what should be left well enough alone. Is there any science-based best practice that could guide answers to the questions you’re asking? If you just give me what I think I want I may turn into Dr Frankenstein.
I realize it’s reversing my joking endorsement of “the sooner the better”, but I’d rather see a deep dive before a quick fix unless it’s something really easy.
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Both would be preferable. I have to admit I’m currently looking at how best to structure my training. As a triathlete I have three sports to juggle. I’m leaning towards a 2:1 schedule. Thanks again for the prompt reaction.
I would like to have the ability to space my weekly workouts out over say a 9 day cycle as opposed to the default 7 day cycle.
I’d also like to be able to choose whether I want a 3:1, or a 2:1, or even a 1:1 hard:easy cycles and be able to adjust this for each of the three phases (Base, Build, Speciality).
I would also like to have the ability to choose “Tradional Base” instead of the “Sweetspot Bases” whilst using the “Plan Builder”.
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Given these two alternatives, I would rather have more time between intense workouts. To me, on a low volume plan, a recovery week feels like taking two steps back following the 2 steps forward I made in the preceding weeks.
I’ve always felt that the progression of workout difficulty is too quick for me. Perhaps a third alternative would be to suggest easier workouts in some plans. For example, I see that I have Spencer +2 approaching in the SS Base low vol plan. I’ve never been able to complete Spencer, let alone Spencer +2. Is there a workout that has shorter intervals than Spencer, or how much are we allowed to turn down the intensity?
Along the same lines, my experience with the Build plans is that I start with a bump in FTP AND the workouts become harder than in base AND we get to do entirely new types of intervals that we haven’t prepared for. Sometimes I’ve thought I should just go back to base and maybe get to the point where I can complete Spencer.
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One quick way to implement a “senior plan” might be to offer the “-1” versions of the workouts automatically if someone choses a lower intensity option. I know some of the workouts are already the -1 version like Mary Austin -1 so these could become -2 instead.
This way you are still following the desired progression at the correct FTP so all your zones are correct but the intensity and TSS is dialled back a little.
On the other hand being able to specify a 9 day “week” for the workouts would allow for extra recovery whilst still using the existing workouts.
At the moment I’m fine with scheduling the LV plans in a normal 7 day week with just a day’s rest between each workout with the weekends left open for outdoor rides (I do Monday, Wednesday, Friday as my workout days) but that does mean I can get to Monday and it’s my fourth day riding in a row but whilst I’m doing the TR plans the weekend rides are usually steady rather than full on efforts.
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Some interesting questions!
I’m well into your old fogey category. For the past year, I’ve followed a MV sequence, from base to specialty, though with some periods of other plans [eg a polarized block, also MV] and with 15-30 minutes endurance riding tacked onto the end of 3 or 4 workouts per week. All this added up to well over 10 hours per week on the bike, especially when tours and gran fondos are counted in. And 2 hours per week in the gym [but with about 12 weeks missing over the course of 2019]. My target is to get a somewhat higher FTP, but more importantly to seriously lengthen times at sweet spot [endurance for gran fondos].
This week I started a HV plan, as recommended by Plan Builder. Three intense workouts per week + two moderate + one easy + 2 gym sessions. Who knows how I am going to feel in a few weeks! My experience with tours of up to three weeks and with past training is that a day off [or of lower intensity/duration] is sufficient. This implies a pattern like Hard - Moderate - Hard - Easy - Hard - Moderate - Off.
I do think that I’m going to need frequent recovery weeks [eg, your suggestion of 2 on, 1 recovery].
But above all, I would like the options in Plan Builder, separately. Eg, via questions:
[1] how many intense sessions do you want / can you handle per week?
[2] how often do you want a recovery week?
Given those options, I would likely plan for 3 intense sessions in a HV plan [so no extra days between intense sessions], but with recovery every third week. However, it’s not just about old fogeys’ plans, but about options that even some people who have not yet attained our degree of wisdom might like.
And as bbarrera writes, ideally these options should be available separately for the different steps [base, build, specialty].
Oh, and while I’m here and you are presumably reading: can we have more non-race options in Plan Builder? ‘Gran Fondo’ really covers a lot of different beasts!
I wish you and the team good planning, and then good coding.
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I’d rather have a little more time between hard workouts.
But…are we sure that older riders need a different plan? Or is it just that we think we need a different plan?
I’m only 51 so maybe this will be clear in 10-20 years
Joe
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At 67 I’d opt for both. I’m new to structured training, and perhaps I missed it, but I’m using plan builder and just picked a date in Sept. as a race day. I do not plan on racing and would like a plan builder option of “continue to build fitness and speed” option. I already drag and drop the workouts to include 2 or 3 days between if not feeling up to the planned day. That way I don’t skip a workout, just push it forward.
Finally, it would be great if the plans would self adjust and take into account overall TSS as outside social, group riding increases for us northern, snow birds, soon (hopefully!!) Doesn’t seem like a hard algorithm to implement?
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I’ve been using TR long enough to know when I need extra recovery time so these options wouldn’t help me as much as other users.
I’d prefer to have the ability to extend recovery valleys between intervals. Most of the time, I need that extra time (especially later in the workout), but not all the time. Keeping the prescribed workout on the calendar would work better this way as well and I wouldn’t need to search for a “minus” workout.
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