Not sure where this should go. I have taken the 4DP test several times and my results keep showing my rider type as a Sprinter. I do not race and am not interested in the sprinting aspect of cycling. Just wondering if there is a way to adjust plans to train to be a different type of rider?
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Your profile should identify your weakness, let’s say it’s sustained efforts. You can then choose a plan based on this to improve that aspect of your riding.
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Your rider type is a snap shot of where you are as a cyclist. It doesn’t dictate where you need to go. Even though you have no desire to train sprinting doesn’t mean it’s not important to consider it as part of your journey. For example if you wanted to complete an imperial century, improving your neuromuscular power may mean better muscle recruitment and less fatigue.
I think there’s an excellent post by Mac Cassin on this which explains it better but sadly I can’t find it.
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Hey Ted,
4DP gives you a complete picture of who you are as an athlete in a way that FTP never could. The Sufferfest app then takes your results, analyzes them, and assigns you one of 6 rider types to show you the kind of rider you are right now. Don’t worry – this isn’t locked in stone and doesn’t pigeonhole you. Rather, this understanding tells you your starting point (a starting point based on four metrics, rather than the single point that FTP can provide) and helps you focus your training so you can become the rider you truly want to be in the future (which may or may not be the same kind of rider type).
(https://thesufferfest.com/blogs/training-resources/learn-more-about-rider-profiles)
The sport science team have devised each training plan to the rider to make sure that they become fitter and more efficient as an all-round rider so spending a bit more time on their weakness.
In your example as a sprinter, it does not mean we want you to become a sprinter but more you are predisposed to this type of training and will see good overall fitness improvements from sprinting.
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That original question is a good one.
For example in another thread that @Alistair_Brown and I were contributing to - the point was that if 4DP goes a wee bit awry at some point … and sets you as a ride type ‘wrongly’ - so let’s say you know you want to train on more to be a pursuiter but the test says you already are as a result of me failing to complete the 20 min properly maybe, so the app thinks you’re actually a VO2 superstar …
The ability to ‘choose’ our rider type/weakness so that the automated plans, which still providing a rounded plan, would do that (rather than having to individually select workouts)
The articles written do explain a lot of this - I just can’t find it right now.
It feels to me though that either all the plans are the same and the rider type doesn’t matter then.
Or the rider type matters in which case it would be good to be able to select it and let the plans do their thing (in the example above it might show pursuiter when that isn’t actually the case for some specific in test issue that messed the ftp/map proportion.
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I don’t know what metrics are used when the plan is selected by weakness but if it was the current user settings then you could adjust things to fix/cheat the system as you like. By current user settings I mean whatever is automatically or individually selected for each metric. I typically override some of my FF 4DP results after every test (caveat, kinda know what I’m doing there) but hadn’t considered whether that would affect my plans (although to be fair I’ll always be an ATTACKER with a massive sustained weakass whatever I change with good conscience so possibly moot for me).
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@JamesT - good shout … if when the plan is generated it uses the manual settings rather than the last 4DP then that’s a good option !!
I guess I could try a few …
Ta
I suspect it doesn’t though. Half Monty updates some settings but doesn’t change your rider type. Was just a thinking out loud kinda thought.
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