Carbonfiberboy 

The motto is "No Fear!" Fear is the little death. (The French are wrong about that.)
https://bicycleuniverse.com/bicycle-safety-almanac/

I'll accept that level of risk. But they're doing it wrong! A road bike is maybe 1/3 as fast as a car, so per hour it comes out about the same, which makes sense. Group rides are even safer. I'm a big fan of competitive group rides. Everything I learned about cycling, I learned on group rides with friends. The way you tell who to ride with is that they come in and have a beer with you after. That's how you tell.

OBoile

That looks (and sounds) absolutely amazing!

Happy Feet

I just did 4 hours outside today in snow, added to two 1.5 hour runs earlier in the week, added to the 3 hour ride the weekend before. All without ERG modes, FTP's or intervals. Considering my real world goals are 12+ hour rides I'm not sure what 36 minutes at a sweet spot would do other than act as a warm up.

I don't know how you can deconstruct anything without first discussing what the goal of your training is so you can create a plan to peak at event fitness at event date. First set the date and event goal, then work backwards to fill in the steps needed to get you there. That's deconstructing a training plan.

rubiksoval

Ding ding ding. Exactly.

OP continually regurgitates the same old antiquated diatribes that say nothing and mean nothing because they have no purpose. Without purpose, you're not training. You're just riding around (or spinning in place, in his case).

fstrnu

36 minutes at sweet spot is an example from a training plan that you wouldn't follow. You'd follow a different training plan. I do realize now upon re-reading the OP that it's not clear that I'm talking about deconstructing a plan that does what you talk about above. So, for example, an athlete could, on his own or with TrainerRoad support, come up with a plan that has him doing 12 weeks of base, 6 weeks of build or whatever. It is THAT plan that gets constructed. What I'm discussing is how to monitor and adjust that plan. I'll edit OP for clarity.

Machka 

In order to construct a plan you need to establish your goal first.

Once you have your goal, then you decide on the steps you need to take to reach that goal.

We all have our goals and are working toward them. How about you?

fstrnu

OP updated with the following clarification:

Edit - By "training plan", I mean an existing training plan, i.e. one which already lays out so many weeks for base followed by so many weeks of build, etc. Such a training plan will also define specific workouts on specific days with progression from week to week, rest weeks between blocks, FTP tests at the beginning of a block and so on.

fstrnu

Goals are input into the training plan.

gregf83 

fstrnu

The training plan is the recipe that incorporates the carrots.

gregf83 

What's for dinner?

Bandera

Demonstrating competent knife skills on fine fresh produce without then preparing a tasty healthy meal with them is both pointless and wasteful.
Actually cycling on the open public roads, the track and on the trails is eating a home cooked meal, pretending to indoors is watching the Food Channel while consuming Cheetos.

gregf83 

Attempting to make a meal without a folded steel, hand hammered Japanese knife is like trying to train without ERG mode - impossible!

fstrnu

Let's review some things that a typical FTP-based indoor training plan does.

At the highest level, a training plan allocates time to each training phase. TrainerRoad get bonus points for providing support can help athletes to personalize which modules to use in what order based on where they are in the their training, proximity to event, etc.

So far so good, although cardiac drift is a better indicator of endurance development and readiness for higher intensity but providing a place to start can't hurt anything.

Within each phase, one or more blocks begin with a test and are separated by a rest week.

Again, no major damage yet although required rest week frequency is a highly personal matter which requires load monitoring to accurately determine.

With each block, microcycles based on calendar weeks are repeated with progression being based primarily on increases in combined interval duration up to a practical limit (usually available workout time) after which reverting to increases in intensity as a substitute for volume occurs.

Things start to go seriously off the rails here. Tolerable load and rates are personal. FTP-based workout intensity is troublesome for more reasons than can be addressed in this medium. One-size-fits-all and arbitrary duration-based progression which is backed into based on workout time limits is...just no, man, no.

Another issue that occurs at this level is the inclusion of arbitrary variability in workouts which would otherwise be solid interval workouts. One reason for this may be to preserve the relevance of the software in order to maintain subscriptions since true interval workouts are easy to perform using free software. Fortunately, this is not a deal killer as I mention below but I had to mention it while describing this level.

So, the general allocation of time across intensities can still be valid. How to salvage that? Interval structures can be re-used if actual intervals and in most cases arbitrary variation is easy to identify and replace with a valid interval workout which can be understood, which makes allocation of time across intervals easier to understand, which makes relationship between power and effort more clear and which makes improvement much easier to detect by comparing "like" (i.e. same workout or same intensity but more duration or same duration but more intensity) workouts.

Endurance workouts with arbitrary variation are also easy to replace with steady state workouts which allows better EF comparison and use of aerobic decoupling to inform ideal workout duration which will produce adequate stimulus without undue recovery requirements.

Arbitrary duration-based interval workout progression which is required in order to sell software based on a single and troubling FTP metric can also be replaced with the self regulating maximum sustainable intensity. Existing interval structures (minus arbitrary progression on combined interval duration) can be utilized to fix duration while still targeting correct energy systems and letting power vary based on MSI.

This is not fantasy and is what many cyclists and coaches do. You and I can both do a 4 x 8 but the power you need to do them at will likely be different than the power I need to do them at. As we get stronger do we stop doing them? Nope. We just increase the power. The structure of the workout (just like a 2 x 20, 4 x 4, 5 x 3, 30/30 and so on) that ensures proper energy system targeting; not some downward spiraling cyclical math and normalization-based model.

fstrnu

Victory

fstrnu

False! Japanese knives are far too lightweight for any serious cook.

Bandera

Cheetos eaten alone n the basement.


-Bandera

Carbonfiberboy 

Yesterday we had the first ride outside on the tandem since Feb. 2. During our snowpocalypse we've been skiing and snowshoeing outdoors, doing strength work and long high cadence Z2 intervals indoors. We had a very good ride, 7 Strava PRs, held LTHR the length of every climb (only 1200' total , but still . . .) and had about the same Strava power on every climb with ~35' in Z4. Didn't see the drift we see indoors and finished with the group in spite of their taking a short cut, about killed ourselves bridging up to catch them a block before the finish. Yeah, training works. Who knew?

Deconstructing, we did a variety of stuff which increased leg strength and endurance and also devoted a good bit of time to decreasing the energy absorbed by just wiggling our legs. We kept up a gradually rising CTL.

I have an old-school Japanese handmade knife, folded, 2 different steels, flat on the left side, hollow ground on the right. Bought it ~50 years ago and only use it to slice tomatoes. I could shave with it. Use the right tool for the job, that's what you do.

Machka 

​​​​​​​But why?

hubcyclist

Here's the thing that bothers me: OP you're so stuck on this interval crap that you appear to be missing the point of training and why others keep asking about goals. It's that you don't just train intervals, you train for the demands of an event! So are over-unders (95-105%) arbitrary forms of workouts for you? Because in a real world race, you have to ride hard and then you have to ride harder. Just doing intervals at either 95% or shorter ones at 105% with rest isn't going to adequately prepare someone.

I race road (maybe) and I race cyclocross. I am going to train longer intervals and over-unders to meet the demands of any events I do. When it comes time to reset for CX I'll work on the really short duration stuff. That's what folks are trying to get at, not some obfuscated nonsense. And when people ask for outcomes, you need to say "I did these workouts over this time frame and my power over this duration has gone from this to this" Pretty simple, right? You get asked a question, you provide a succinct answer.

Also, you need to stop talking about load and monitoring like you're inventing it. It's called a Performance Management Chart, your ideas aren't novel and I wish the mods would step in and stop the proliferation of your personal ramblings here.

rubiksoval

Specific workouts on specific days? Your life is that regimented?

Man, according to that I haven't had a training plan in 6 years! But hey, I have goals and work backwards from those to ascertain needs and then structure my riding to meet those needs, so... Yeah, I'll take my method.

Carbonfiberboy 

I do specific workouts on specific days, which I plan a week or two in advance. I also have a long term plan (Ed Burke) which takes me all the way to my A event in July, but I only move workouts from that plan to my real plan a week or so at a time. Why? Because the Burke plan doesn't take into account the realities of my life and goals. I keep Burke's ideas and structure in mind, but plan workouts according to my needs of the moment and current life schedule. That's worked really well for me.

There's that old adage about failure to plan is planning to fail. I rather agree with that. I need weekly goals and need a plan to reach them. That doesn't always work but it works better than the alternative.

fstrnu

Nope

Actually, that's called AWLR and is not cycling-specific; nor is it the only load data analysis approach. The internal to external load ratio is a completely different load data analysis approach and is not mine. Looking at HR and drift together as an indicator of both the presence and magnitude of fatigue is mine; although I'd love to have a reference of someone else inventing, and especially legitimizing that.

fstrnu

That's how generic training plans are designed.

Machka 

@fstrnu ... I've been trying to think of an analogy to get through to you about the importance of setting a goal first.

Maybe this is one.

To me, what you're doing is typing out bus schedules.

Bus A departs at 7:12 am and makes stops at B, C, D, and E
Bus B departs at 8:15 am and makes stops at ...

It's great that my local transit provides bus schedules.

But before I can use the bus, I need to have a goal in mind. A purpose. A destination. And I need that because there are a whole lot of buses that go to places I'm not interested in.

Maybe my goal is to see a certain part of the city and I just want to ride around at random.

Maybe my goal is to get to work or university or back home again.

Once I have a goal in mind, I can select the right bus or buses in order to accomplish that goal.


First the goal ... then the plan.


Or maybe I need to ask this: Where does your bus go? If I follow your plan ... where would I end up?