I would like to do an intermediate All-Purpose Road plan and incorporate strength. The options I have are (1) indoor and outdoor, (2) indoor only, (3) indoor only with strength. But what I want is indoor + outdoor + strength. So, I selected the indoor + outdoor option, which says in its Special Notes “This plan is designed specifically to incorporate our SUFSTR training progression”, and added “Beginner 1-2” strength cross-training. So far, so good.
However, when I look at my calendar there are a few clashes between the strength training and the cycling. For example, week 1 Thursday is strength + Chores, week 2 Tuesday is strength + Butter, week 5 Tuesday is strength + Nine Hammers (!). So it seems that the strength workouts are not really coordinated with the cycling ones - according to the documentation you should avoid doing strength training on the same day as heavy aerobic workouts.
I think I can move the problematic strength workouts around to make them fit in better with the cycling ones, but it’s a little disappointing that I need to do this since the plan is supposedly already optimised for strength cross-training. Or maybe I should choose a different plan - but I’m not really sure what to choose. The Full Century plan schedules everything nicely, and I am actually hoping to do a century ride in 3 months, but that plan needs around 10 hours/week training, vs the intermediate road plan’s 5-7 which is more realistically what I can commit. Or, maybe I am missing something.
Hello, I’ve taken a look at all levels of the indoor + outdoor road purpose plans and within the special notes, none of the levels reference a use for intergrated progressive strength. The indoor all purpose options can be used with strength. Your best options would be the Full Century, Mountainous Hilly/ GF and Gravel plans or you could try moving your strength to begin on a different day.
I am operating under the assumption that you have performed a 4DP and therefore the plans with your weakness are showing up?
I suggest choosing a plan based on your focus or goal. If it requires more hours, I suggest you pick the plan and complete the workouts that you can. Set yourself a limit of 7 hrs per week so that you are not trying to complete more than what you have time available for.
As plans are frequently being updated, always be sure you are on the latest version of the app. Hope this helps!
Simon: Yes I’ve done a 4DP and am an Attacker. I’m confused that you can’t see a reference about integrated strength - see attached screen grabs. Maybe the plan description is just wrong for this particular combination that I’ve selected (at least in my app, which is version 6.17 for Mac)?
The other fundamental problem is that I’m training for an event which I’m pretty sure will be cancelled, so it’s a little hard to know exactly what my goals should be! But I know I’m not the only one with this problem in 2020
Well spotted - so we have a typo for the indoor and outdoor description - good find - possibly carried over from the Indoor plus strength one by accident or something. I can see that description doesn’t exist for indoor only.
Appreciate the screen grabs. We will get that issue sorted!! I suggest the 12 wk Metric Century Plan with Strength as this includes indoor and outdoor rides.
It has been a year of self motivation and preparing for events that have not happened. The key is to keep up the training and recovery cycles so that when events do return you can get into racing shape quickly without injury. Use this time to build on weaknesses and refine technique.
I don’t want to make another topic a bout the strength integration into to training program so here is my question.
The Transition program states that I should do a STR workout and a GCN escalator at the same day. The STR FAQ guidelines state that there should be a clear indication about the order of the workouts, which is not present. Should I do the STR right before the ride or what is the procedure ?
In my experience with other STR integrations the STR workout has always been before the cycling one.
And that’s across quite a few plans over the years.
Just tested another one to see what it looked like (you can go in to the plan creation, select STR, and see what the plan will look like before applying it) and the one I’m looking at now is STR twice a week and always before the cycling.
