I’d rather be able to add a week mid block as a recovery week. The first time I did SSBMV1 I dropped a copy of the recovery week between the third and forth week and didn’t feel trashed. I repeated the same block once used plan builder and didn’t need the extra recovery week. Now in SSBMV2 the second week and we’ll see how trashed my legs are after next week.
Thanks for taking care of us grey beards @Nate_Pearson
For my 62 year old legs, increasing time between intense workouts seems to help the most. Right now I manually achieve this by adding days off (or recovery-level rides) into the calendar, but it’s kind of a pain as I’ve not figured out a way to “insert” an extra day off and have all the subsequent workouts pushed back on the calendar. I have to manually go move the subsequent workouts back.
Regarding intensity, I’ve long wished there was a setting that only scaled the VO2Max peaks. I can almost always finish a workout that is threshold or below, however I almost always need to scale down the 1.2x VO2Max workouts. If I use the intensity control, then I scale the peaks, but also reduce the rest of the workout which I don’t need to scale. My only alternative is to constantly be raising and lowering the intensity before every interval or settle for a workout that is scaled down more than it needed to be.
I’d prefer more time between intense workouts. I recently tried to do a mid volume block and learned the the recovery deficit I had was not noticeable day to day or even week to week until the beginning of week three. Then it caught up to me big time. By then the deficit was deep and it took a long time to recover. I’ve learned to simply be aware of what’s going on regardless what the workout calls for. Watch the subtle signals that can be detected before you do actually hit the wall. Wherever you’re headed with this, I’d suggest something from Chad that calls out the very early signs that you are in recovery deficit even if your head is telling you to just suck it up and get after it. Its very easy to get caught up in the comparisons one sees at times in the forum and that rarely ends well, especially for the more chronologically mature! Not unlike the observation by dfrietas, I too de-tune VO2Max efforts. I usually pull them down beforehand and revise them on the Workout Creator app. I understand the objective of VO2Max for those 40-50 years behind me, but for me the return simply isn’t worth the resource cost incurred to do them.
@dfreitas and @classof42 good points on vo2max intervals. The other option is to stop doing intervals after say 2 sets, which I think can be a good strategy to building up time-in-vo2max.
For the micro-burst style vo2 work (a weakness of mine) I’ve also reduced intensity in the 3rd set, and then used the skip feature to cut the 4th, 5th, and 6th sets short:
In the future when microbursts come up, I’m considering firing up WorkoutCreator and reduce time-in-zone by dropping sets 4-6. However I’m starting to think its simply easier to switch from Erg to Standard mode (Kickr) and riding out the sets 4-6.
Is there any data for which one works the best?
What does coach Chad’s research show to be the best? Or are they just two different paths to the same place?
Mix
i like your approach! The progressively declining effort demand tends to take one out to the end of what’s really possible rather than assuming up front and using the cookie cutter approach to all the intervals as I have been doing.
I have also struggled with VO2 max workouts. I eventually found Baird -1, I could complete it more times than I failed it so simply substituted in whenever required.
Just thinking out loud, to be honest my approach is a bit of trial-and-error along with the benefit of looking into the rear-view mirror.
Going beyond the microburst to the longer vo2 work, Mills is an interesting example where I’ve been able to complete at 100% and then there are times like these:
when I do need to drop intensity, it would be nice if I could hit a HELP or BAILOUT ADVICE button in the workout player and have it give guidance (either general, or based on the past). And if I consistently reduce intensity, it would be awesome if the workout player offered suggestions after loading the workout (something like “you consistently reduce intensity to 92% in order to complete this workout, would you like to adjust interval intensity before starting?”). Without putting a lot of thought into it, those two features seem like a good solution to push the athlete but offer advice based on past performance. And if the athlete consistently reduces the number of sets, offer appropriate advice (which today I’ll argue is switching from Erg to resistance/standard and doing as many intervals as you can before riding out the rest at endurance pace)
Right now before doing a hard vo2 workout like Mills, I try to remember and pull up past workouts before jumping on the trainer. But I don’t always remember, don’t always take nice notes like in the example above, and so it seems like low-hanging fruit to have the app offer suggestions.
@Nate_Pearson - I realize TR is making no commitments, just adding my 2 cents for consideration by the product managers.
Well, great question. I would turn it around to the TR gurus and ask “based on the data/research/scientific evidence, what are the emerging best practices for aging athletes?” And “is there enough data to stratify within the populations or identify inflection points that would change the appropriate prescriptions for an individual?” and then have TR recommend.
I value the question being asked as a way of gathering anecdotal evidence or opinions to create a starting point in your design work. However, my fantasy is to be able to turn more and more decision-making of this sort over to TR rather than still having to self-coach on the front end.
Now, having said that I would expect each of us individually to track how we’re feeling and performing to know if we’re getting far too much training stress; having far to little is a tougher think for me to assess personally.
And kudos for listening and acting! As others have posted, Amber’s involvement does inspire hope an confidence.
Hi David,
I am 61 and took up cycling 6 years ago. I use TR but have typically followed my own plan. This winter I did SSBHVL1 (I modified it by dropping the low TSS Friday ride - 5 times a week on the trainer is enough riding for me mentally). I then moved to Sustained Build MV for 4 weeks, I looked at the HV Sustained Build plan but the over/unders and the 120% VO2 intervals looked too long for me. I am now switching to the last 4 weeks of the HV Sustained Build plan, again, dropping the low TSS Friday ride. I am careful to monitor my “tiredness”, I track my average weekly TSS and don’t let it increase by more than 35 from one week to the next. I also do upper body weights 3x/week, glute leg presses 2x/week and stretch and do core every day. I also monitor my general mood and sleep patterns for signs of overtraining. If I fail badly at a workout I usually take the rest of the week as a recovery week and try again the following week. I think the key to these higher volume plans is to be flexible and modify them if needed. Also, you may find that the lower volume plans are more intense to compensate for the lower volume.
Cheers,
Bruce
2:1. I’m not in the over 60 crowd, but I’d like to throw in my .02 if I may. I’d like to see an option on plans like SSBLV1-2 or the output of Plan Builder (esp. tri plans) that allows more frequent recovery weeks. Ideally the ability to accommodate any of 1:1, 2:1, 3:1.
If TR is game to add additional flexibility, another option would be if the selection was 3:1 initially for instance, sometimes there’s a desire to introduce an ad-hoc recovery week out of the planned sequence. It would be nice if plan builder could insert that on request and then just re-adjust the remaining plan to match the initially structured x:y ratio – or possibly to switch from 3:1 to 2:1 (or vice versa) mid-plan if the initially requested ratio is too easy or hard. But none of this is as useful as just being able to ease things up to a 2:1 from the very beginning.
I find it easy to add a recovery week into the current plans when I realize I am just fatigued. Did it in December and then continued along in my plan. Would love to know what the data shows on rides as to what is better for recovery weeks. If we look at SSBII the plan goes to week 6 before a recovery week. The build plans are 3:1. I find if I do SSB1 then SSBII then to a general build which ups the intensity the build up tends to need an extra week of recovery at some point for me. I dont expect this to be built in but think planning with plan builder for some extra recovery weeks just to keep older athletes operating well would be useful. Option to add extra recovery or option to have recovery weeks slated 3:1 or 2:1 would work.
I find doing VO2 workouts at 100% intensity too hard for the whole ride when they are 130% of FTP. Sometimes they just get to my knees other times it is just the fatigue at the end. I know from my own experience reducing the intensity from the start makes the whole ride a lot easier even if it is just 2% lower. We can already do this but I see a lot of comments that a number of people dont like the mental side of not being able to do the workout as planned. It just makes me think some of these tweaks are more playing with how older athletes feel about success in training. Aged versions of the workout would have us be more successful without feeling we are under performing is my thought. I dont know if I need more time between intensity or just slightly less power. I do know I can do the workouts at a slightly lower power.
The difficulty at the moment with ad hoc insertion of recovery weeks [or holidays / sickness] is that pushing all the weeks to create the space for the recovery / holiday / sickness pushes the events as well as the planned workouts.
The ability to push weeks without pushing the events would solve a lot of problems that I face.
Shhh!!! We almost got them on the hook 
I think you might have a point.
I have to disagree. We oldies definitely need our own plans.
I’m trying to think … considering our age, maybe the ideal plan for us would be whatever direction we want to take in our choices of build. But in sweet spot, build etc that we simply keep to low volume and fill out our days with strength training. Men really loose it from the waist up when we get older.
That’s the big caveat to all of this. We’ve got a strong idea that both paths are good, but we don’t know for sure what’s best for each rider.
I’ve got some ideas on how to build this now and I think that we can constantly improve based on the choices/data that come from masters athletes that use this feature.
I also think this could be helpful for anyone that doesn’t recover the best. I remember I used to do a hard, aerobic, recovery three day block and that helped me be fresh enough for the hard days.
I also like the idea of breaking free of the 7 day cycle for people that aren’t slaves to the 5 day work week.
To set expectations for everyone you’ll see the thing amber is working on launch first before we dive into this. That feature will help you too, and you’ll know what it is because we think it’s a big deal 
.
And keep the ideas coming! We’ll comb back through this thread multiple times while we improve support for masters athletes.
We agree 
. I believe TR will be the study/data source for this moving forward.
As long as we build a system to improve we’ll be golden.
This may not help with any final decision, but I originally preferred the extra recovery week option and was happy to see both options implemented. However, having a little time to think about it the recovery week option is an easier option to implement with the calendar and this may have skewed my thought. A longer ie 9 day option could well be better for me. I am returning from some health issues and am currently building up, adding volume and intensity slowly. The additional load is dependant on how well I‘ve recovered. I feel my fatigue levels are easier to manage this way.
