Modifying Sweet Spot Base Plans?

I am beginning the SSB I plan and I know from past experience the High Vol plans are too much for me. Having said that, I do have the time and fitness to do more than what is prescribed in the Mid Vol plans. My thought is to modify the SSB High Vol I plan by replacing the SST rides on Wednesdays with a short, easy ride (Pettit, Carter, Taku, etc) and have a rest day on Fridays. I will leave the Tues, Thursday, Sat and Sun rides as-is. This will bring my TSS to a level that I think I can handle, somewhere between the mid and high vol plans.

My real challenge is how to modify the SSB II plan that comes next. Doing the same as I’ve described above won’t work for SSB II as I really can’t get in more than a 1:30 ride during the week. My thought is to keep the SSB II weekend rides the same but replace the 2 hour Tues and Thursday rides with 1:30 rides instead. I also plan to make one of those rides an Over/Under workout. Once again I’d do an easy Wed ride and nothing on Fridays.

Thoughts? Opinions?

yep. Did the same for a one or two of the rides. If you look carefully, at the bottom of the screen you will find alternative variations which have similar profiles.

I’d actually propose you use the mid volume SSB as your baseline and add to that (as opposed to subtracting from high volume).

High volume SSB has no threshold or VO2 max work - and if you’re not doing a TON of volume you’ll benefit from the variety that is added into mid-volume.

Therefore - add in some of the 60-90 minute sweet spot workouts to the mid-volume plan

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Ahhh thank you for that - that is really my question! I did plan to add at least some O/U work to the SSB II plan, but with the reduced volume, I’m not sure if that is enough additional intensity. From a TSS standpoint the progression across the two plans does work out on paper, I’m just not sure if during SSB II I’m getting the “right” type of TSS given volume I have scheduled (~8 hours per week). @chad?

In a recent TR Podcast @Nate_Pearson mentioned doing a similar approach as your original regarding Wednesday and Friday, but he did not mention shortening the Tues/Thursday rides on the High Volume SSB rides. It almost looks like you’d be repeating SSB HV I with your proposed modifications but with some over/unders instead of 100% Sweet Spot . I’d second the adding on to the mid volume plans suggestion. I’m doing something similar, but I’m just adding time on to the Wednesday ride, adding an active recovery ride on Friday, and going to a 2 hour workout on Saturday that puts me around 8-9 hours a week.

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@jobster I’m in the middle of SSB-1-HV and have missed workouts due to the recent fires in CA and unexpected travel. I do rearrange plans to better mesh with my schedule, first by starting plans on Mon and then swapping Wed/Fri. That leaves me with one long indoor or outdoor weekend ride (happy wife, happy life!).

A year ago I was able to complete SSB-1-HV, but things have changed at work. My plan going forward is to switch to SSB-2-MV and add in rides. That mid-volume plan has the advantage of starting work on VO2max intervals, while making it easy to add in sweet spot or 90 minute aerobic endurance workouts like Colosseum and Baxter during the week. And then if it is not raining a long outside ride on the weekend.

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