Strava Premium Training Plans

harringtonp

Now that these are around anybody got any opinions about them ?

Some random thoughts to (hopefully) get some feedback started.

- 4 week plans though they are really 3 weeks followed by an easy week.

- If 5 days is a bit much the Tuesday hour endurance session which seems to exist in all plans could easily be dropped with very little or almost no decrease in benefit.

- They seem to be put together in a hurry and are not properly checked. For example there are several cases where the intervals with their designated rest periods are as long or longer than the total given session duration.

- As 3 weeks is short, they could be best used in sets where each set takes on a shorter "climb", e.g. 60min, 10min, 45sec sprint.

- Strava would have been better to leave reference to "climb" or target segment out of them completely and just present them as 3 week plans followed by a taper week.

harringtonp

Bump

Hmmzis

I kind of like them. Plenty of workouts in there and I quickly found my weak spots in the intervals (also my strong points).

It's different to having a coach, you kind of have to look after yourself more with these plans. Three weeks on full bore can be too much for a lot of people. Have done the 10min and 15min version and had to skip/cut short sessions after the second week due to being knackered too much. Now I'm on the 6min plan in week 1, so far it's looking good as well. They give me a reasonably good idea of what needs to be done in training to do well on a particular segment or area. For the price I can't really fault them much.

lennymc

I did the 15 minute (i think one) but had the minimum amount of time. It was ok - I did miss some of the intervals, but that was because my schedule was all over the place. I was thinking of doing another one now that I have a bit more time. I didnt like the infelxibility of it tho.

butterworth

I'm about halfway through the 45 min one. I've followed it more or less to the letter so far, and if anything it's given me a better understanding of the kind of stresses I need to put on myself to actually improve aspects of my fitness. I guess it depends on where your motivation lies, but I've always struggled to get in proper amounts of threshold work, so at least with this plan I have something telling me what to do and how. Perhaps next month with a more in-depth knowledge of the work requirements I'll be able to make my own plan and stick with it better because I know what I should be doing, instead of taking a stab in the dark.

harringtonp

lennymc wrote: »

I did the 15 minute (i think one) but had the minimum amount of time. It was ok - I did miss some of the intervals, but that was because my schedule was all over the place. I was thinking of doing another one now that I have a bit more time. I didnt like the infelxibility of it tho.

With 5 sessions a week there is not much room for manoeuvre. If you regard the Tuesday 1h endurance session as "optional" for weeks when you have plenty of time or inclination then you can shuffle the Wed/Thurs hard sessions across 3 days.

harringtonp

Hmmzis wrote: »

I kind of like them. Plenty of workouts in there and I quickly found my weak spots in the intervals (also my strong points).

It's different to having a coach, you kind of have to look after yourself more with these plans. Three weeks on full bore can be too much for a lot of people. Have done the 10min and 15min version and had to skip/cut short sessions after the second week due to being knackered too much. Now I'm on the 6min plan in week 1, so far it's looking good as well. They give me a reasonably good idea of what needs to be done in training to do well on a particular segment or area. For the price I can't really fault them much.

The plans came from carmichael and you see the similarities with his 11 week time crunched program where every 4th week he has an easy week. These programs though seem to pack in a little bit more in terms of hard interval time.

They can feel really hard and I think a lot of that is down to the way his field test is set up where you can score too high wattage if you don't burn off some anaerobic juice first.

crosstownk

I signed up for the 'free' month from Strava and out of curiosity I subscribed to the 30 min climb thing.

Once the emails arrived I lost interest. I'm not that big into that kind of thing, tbh. I'll be opting out of the premium membership before the 30 day trial ends.

I'm not racing - I'm just doing it for fun.

My training plan is best summed up by Freddie Mercury - "Just get on your bike and ride".

harringtonp

crosstownk wrote: »

I'm not racing - I'm just doing it for fun.

My training plan is best summed up by Freddie Mercury - "Just get on your bike and ride".

Ah the joys of the leisure cyclist, I do miss it at times.

If I just got on my bike and rode, I would get spat out of races earlier and earlier and would be a grumpier and grumpier.