I just follow the training plan consistently and make sure I'm putting in 100% effort every day! So far I've gone from 4hr at my first IM in 2014 to 3:13 at my most recent race, and I'm still making big improvements. It also helps that I've gone from 220 lbs to 195 lbs in that time. Treadmill work in the winter helps too. Set it to 0.1 mph faster than last time if it was semi-comfortable and force myself to hold it. Works for me, at least.

I'm definitely not a programmer but seems to me the simple solution would be to reinstate the previous list of "recent workouts" and allow the user to toggle between that and the new calendar depending on what works best for them individually. You obviously already have the code for both already.

You're absolutely right, a toggle is exactly what we will need in order to make everyone happy. We are currently looking into the possibilities and design architechture that would allow such a toggle to exist. As with a lot of software related objectives, many goals that seem simple can actually require a lot of groundwork to make work properly. We are currently in this exporatory stage where we are looking into the best way to make this work, but we do not have an ETA or timeline at this time.

Cheers!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

I recently heard Matt Fizgerald on That Triathlon Show and read his 80/20 book, where he heavily suggests that 80% of the workouts be below approximately 78% of MHR (83% of FTP). Do you agree? If so, do any of TrainerRoad's programs (especially the base or build programs) follow this model, and if so, which ones?




(My apologies if this has been discussed before. The sheer size of this thread makes it difficult to search.)

If you are looking to do non-TR running ans swimming plans, then I would still recommend using the Full Distance Triathlon Plan, and just skip the run/swim portions. The reason that this is the recommended course of action is because the Tri plans specifically account for the TSS generated from your other two disciplines. This ensures that your stress is appropriately balanced. We are considering adding the ability to add the Tri plan without all the Runs and Swims, but for now, each run/swim will need to be deleted manually.

As for the ability to export training plans, we do not have that ability at this time.

Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Thanks, I appreciate that you are at least looking into it.

One other small thing that I've always found slightly annoying is the scale of the display. If I'm doing a workout where the max power target is 250w, the display will go all the way up to 400w or something like that. It just compresses the actual workout down and leaves a lot of dead space on the screen. Maybe allow the user to set the scale as a % of FTP or % of the max target power for the workout? Or hard code it to one of those limits?

There is a huge thread on this exact topic over on the new TrainerRoad Forum :) You can check it out here:
https://forum.trainerroad.com/t/quality-over-quantity-vs-80-20-or-chad-vs-matt/3962


This forum is infinitely more searchable, I'd recommend checking it out! You can log into the forum using your TrainerRoad Username and Password.

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

All workouts are scaled to their % FTP. In other words, the % FTP is always at the some spot on the screen, and the rest of the workout scales to that.

This is done on purpose to allow you to easily differentiate what will be a hard effort vs. an easy effort based on bar size relative to your FTP. If we were constantly re-scaling the workout screen, it would lack this consistency and be harder to follow as a TrainerRoad User.

Thanks for your feedback!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Howdy TR coaches. I’m looking for advice on base building.

Thanks in advance for how attentive you guys are to this thread and all of the questions. This is an excellent product, I rely on this for my training needs and it has afforded me great fitness gains and, thusly, podiums. And, I tell my friends how awesome and valuable it is.

My primary discipline is xc mtb, 50 mile races with lots of climbing (Idaho, Utah, Montana). I also race road, 50-100 mile events and a good amount of climbing as well, not nearly as much as mtb.

Basically, I’m trying to decide between a traditional base and sweet spot, both high volume. I followed the sweet spot high volume plan for my base last year and saw huge performance gains with it, both in 20min FTP and endurance, but endurance would fall off after 2 hours.

I have read all of your blog articles, and, yes, sweet spot does look the best, but it’s that 2hr power drop off that I want to focus on.

Last year was my first year where I really stuck with structured training through the season. Previous years had been minimal or no structure through the winter and training was just riding hard. Races then were only 1.5-2 hrs. I’d say about 5-6 years of this before last years dedication. I’m 37.

I’m landing in the top ten overall of my mtb events, frequently in the top 5, and my goal next year is to be top 5 consistently or take the top step, but I have work to do in strength and endurance. Toward the end of the season I could just barely hang the leaders for the first part of the race. But my power would fall off after about 3 hours and I’d lose a lot of time on them. That number was closer to 2 hours earlier in the season. I definitely have work to do for the fast starts, those are brutal and I’m not used to them, but I’ll focus on that in the build or specialty phase.

A couple people have said they think it’s poor hydration, but I think I do a decent job of drinking lots and often in races (as well as food) and staying hydrated the days leading up. I do run lean on hydration, but never have felt dehydrated. Plus, I saw my time to power drop off increase through the season.

I’m leaning toward doing a more traditional base to get aerobic endurance closer to the 4 hours of racing I’m doing. Yes, it’s a big time commitment, but I’m single and my work hours are flexible, so I could make it happen.

I am also considering the sweet spot plan and adding an hour or two of easy riding after my Saturday session to build endurance (Saturday is my final day of the week, Monday is the start, so Sundays are off days).

My thinking is that being able to hold power for a longer period of time is more important in endurance than building power. Is this correct?

Thanks!

I'm with TH3 on this as well. The fact that the scale is something like 0-200% of FTP kind of makes the scale so big relative to the data you're trying to use that I all I know is that the interval is either on or off and not hard, really hard or WTF hard. When none of the workouts go above ~1.25x or below ~0.5x FTP, that leaves a lot of dead space in the chart. It also makes it hard to use the chart to really dial into a power level for those of training w/ a dumb trainer and powermeter. FWIW, the scale is probably OK for the workout chart on the bottom, but the interval one could be dialed in a bit more.

Thank you so much!

Edited to say that I just read through the thread and have downloaded the linked Flo podcast. While it was certainly informative to see so many different viewpoints, I am primarily curious as to how one would go about trying the 80/20 approach using one of the TrainerRoad plans. It looks like my initial suspicion was right and no current plan follows this approach, but that Traditional Base 2, and to some extent 1, can be modified to make it into an 80/20 plan.

So what would you recommend to someone that is interested in trying 80/20 and wants to use TrainerRoad to do that?

It sounds to me that you are currently on the pointy end of racing and are struggling a little bit to get to that "next level". Traditional Base can be great for that.


I'm not sure when your season starts, but if you have the extra time, it can be great to double down on Base and do both Traditional Base and Sweet Spot Base. This huge 24-week base will work wonders on your long endurance.


If you don't have enough weeks to pull that off, then a switch to the High Volume Traditional Base could be the change you need to get to that next level. It certainly requires more time on the bike, and since building long endurance is your big hurdle, I'd say give it a shot. It seems that you've been training a while and you know what is working and what isn't, so go ahead and try something a little different to see if you get different (better) results. If you don't have enough time to swing the High Volume Traditional Base plane, then I would probably still recommend the Sweet Spot Base Plan since it is more effective on a limited schedule.


Good luck with your season, and let me know if there is anything else I can help you with!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Hi Bryce, any input on my question in post #4615? I'm curious whether I should limit my mileage at a certain point or continue to use the 3 hour and 2.5 hour lengths for my long run regardless of pace.

BigBoyND wrote:

Hi Bryce, any input on my question in post #4615? I'm curious whether I should limit my mileage at a certain point or continue to use the 3 hour and 2.5 hour lengths for my long run regardless of pace.

Ah, sorry I missed that one.

Unfortunately, I have somewhat limited knowledge regarding highly specific run/swim training questions like this, so I'm not quite sure on this one. I would recommend posting this question within the new TrainerRoad Forum as there are a lot of high-level athletes in the community that can chime in with their personal experiences and adaptations to the standard plans. Chad himself even chimes in from time to time.

Here's the link:
https://forum.trainerroad.com/


I'm sorry I can't be of more help to you on this particular subject.

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

You might have misunderstood me. I'm just talking about the x-axis "headroom" on the display graph. If the wotkout is 100% FTP intervals then there is no reason to waste all that space by having the x-axis display go to 200% of FTP. That visually compresses the hard vs easy of the workout and serves no purpose. My suggestion is to have the display scaled to maybe 110% of the max target of the workout. The line showing FTP can always be there as a reference point.

Just started 4 weeks ago on trainerroad as our first son was born and I'm already loving it ;-) I do have some questions about the planning. I just started with triathlon OD base (mid-volume) because that seemed the most appropriate, given the fact that I am racing OD and sprinttriathlons next season. My question is where to go from here. I suspect that my first race is somewhere at the end of week 17 next year, so that leaves my specialty fase to start in week 11. My current 'OD base' ends at the end of week 46. How should I fill the months in between?

I use TrainerRoad's WorkoutCreator App to build my own workouts. If you've listened to our podcast, you'll know you need 90% of your training time in Zone 1. For that I built a workout with a low intensity that runs the entire time. For example 50% of FTP for 90 minutes. When the workout starts, I warm up for about 10-15 minutes while I slowly brining my HR to just below the top of Zone 1 using the intensity percentage arrows in the TR app. Then I hold my HR for the entire ride, and cool down for roughly 10 minutes. For the 10% high intensity, I've built my own workouts with variations of 4 minute, 8 minute, and 16 minute intervals. I do those between 102-110% of FTP. If I need 48 minutes of Zone 3 work, I might do 6 x 8 at 102% of FTP.

If you want, take a look at my strava account. It will show the workouts. Just note that during the last two week of my training I was tapering for a race, so going a few weeks back will give you a better picture. https://www.strava.com/athletes/139144

I'll leave you with this. I took a few years off from training. I'd do a few weeks here or there, but could never stay consistent. I've been training with this approach for about 6 months now and I'm the strongest I've ever been. An FTP test will confirm that this week, but based on training intervals I'm pretty sure I'll be over 300W for the first time in my life. That will be a 40-50 watt FTP jump in 6 month. And, for a guy who was constantly injured, I can say that to date, I'm still injury free.

As a final note, you have to be patient for this to work, and you can't break the protocol. For this approach to work, you'll likely have to do a lot of solo riding, or find a friend who wants to go really slow with you.

Best of luck.

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Chris Thornham
Co-Founder And Previous Owner Of FLO Cycling

I think I understand what you mean, you want to change the vertical Y axis range from 0-200 to 0-120 for certain workouts. The horizontal X axis is related to time and would remain the same.

This is likely not something that we will pursue since having a consistent y axis scale is something that we prefer from a design perspective, however, if enough people disagree we are more than happy to reconsider. I'd recommend making a feature request post in the new TrainerRoad Forum. We keep tabs on those posts, and if a certain post "explodes" with activity and agreement, then consider those feature requests more strongly.

The sad reality is that there are a lot of things we could do, and we need to focus our relatively small design and development team on projects that will have a major impact on the way users interact with and utilize our software.

I hope that makes sense!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

wilbert wrote:

Just started 4 weeks ago on trainerroad as our first son was born and I'm already loving it ;-) I do have some questions about the planning. I just started with triathlon OD base (mid-volume) because that seemed the most appropriate, given the fact that I am racing OD and sprinttriathlons next season. My question is where to go from here. I suspect that my first race is somewhere at the end of week 17 next year, so that leaves my specialty fase to start in week 11. My current 'OD base' ends at the end of week 46. How should I fill the months in between?

So it sounds like you have approximately 9 extra weeks, is that right?


Generally, if we are going to extend any phase, we recommend extending the Base Phase.


Since you are now 4 weeks in, this is what I would recommend:


OD Base (4 weeks) Already complete
Sweet Spot Base (Weeks 2-6)
OD Base (12 Weeks)


This will allow you to get a much larger base, which will pay off in a big way once you move onto Build. During the Sweet Spot Base plan, feel free to mix in the runs and swims from the Olympic Distance Base plan as well so that you don't neglect your other two disciplines.


I hope this gives you some good guidance, let me know if there is anything else I can help you with!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Unfortunately, my coaching expertise is mostly contextual within TrainerRoad's training plans, so I can't offer much in the way of advice on 80/20 polarized training. That being said, we are preparing a podcast on 80/20 training and you may be able to glean some advice or suggestions from the words of Chad. If you watch that podcast live on Facebook or Youtube, they field a live Q&A session after the main podcast ends where you can ask any specific questions that weren't fully covered.

Canadian above also have some rock-solid advice that would be great to read through.

I'm sorry I can't be of more use to you here, but be sure to tune into the upcoming podcast for answers :)

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

I stumbled across another thread that may interest you:
https://forum.trainerroad.com/t/my-polarized-training-experience-chad-mcneese/3852


Cheers!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Can't wait!

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Chris Thornham
Co-Founder And Previous Owner Of FLO Cycling

It sure does give me good guidance, thanks for your time!

Bryce, is there a way of extending warmups and cooldowns on the windows app? Recently started using it (coming from Android app) and can't find the same feature which I almost always used.

Is there any way for the smartphone app to act as a remote for the desktop app? Specifically, I want to be able to start a spin down calibration on my phone while having the desktop on my bigscreen. I don't want to have to get off my bike, go to my computer, click on the calibration button then run back to my bike and start pedalling.