Why are there so many workouts that are almost the same?

The problem I am having, maybe because I am new, is that when I use the search functions I always get a bunch of workouts that, to me, look almost the same and the descriptions, TSS, and IF are all very similar. Other than trying them all, how do you pick?

Would doing one of the structured plans not work for you? That would ensure you’re introduced to a variety of workouts types and from there, you could begin to find out what works for you and your goals.

You’d be in a better place to tweak the plan(s) as you moved forward. I find that a lot of the seeming repetition is due to the workouts with + and - varients.

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I am on a structured plan. What go this whole thing started is that I noticed that I had two workouts a couple of weeks apart that looked almost identical to me. I was wondering how you would ever pick if you were doing it on your own.

I would think that if Chad determined that one workout was less effective than a similar workout, then the less effective workout should be removed. User’s assume that if a workout is in the library, it would be the most effective workout for a particular purpose. If it is not as effective as a similar workout, it should be removed.

There are many TR users, several of which are active participants here on the Forum, myself included, that are deeply knowledgeable about training principals from experts outside of TR (Joe Friel, Andy Coggan, Hunter Allen, Tim Cusick, Dean Gollich, etc) and the use of power-based analytics (TP Premium, WKO4, etc). Armed with such knowledge and tools, we can modify existing workouts and create new workouts using TR’s Workout Creator, or search alternative ones in the library to achieve more defined objectives that we have as well as help guide other users and answer questions.

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This made water come out of my nose :joy::rofl::joy::rofl:

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That ignores the possibility that one workout may be better for one plan vs another. I don’t think it should be a requirement for a workout to be included in a plan to be allowed to exist.

There are many reasons that we like having the + or - versions to shorten or lengthen our training in any given week. The options are valuable for altering plans to suit individual needs, so I think they are more than welcome.

In fact, for me, the large library and ability to adjust within a plan is one of the things I value most from TR.

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Wait until you’ve done a few structured base, build, and specialty plans and then you may have your answer :).

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It would be interesting to see the usage of the various workouts in the library. Top ten versus bottom ten and how often they had been ridden in 2018.

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I see these a bit like tools. I don’t need to use it every day, every month or even every year to be worth having. When you need it, you need it. When I need to grab that Park 4th-Hand Tool, it better be there :stuck_out_tongue:

The current search tools are pretty good, and they are planned to be better in the next major release. People will be able to tag workouts and make their own library if desired, with as many or as few workouts as needed. I see more options as a good thing overall.

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Really I want to see relationships between the workouts. Say I want to do Galena +4 in my plan. What workouts should I do prior to it? What workouts should I do after it? What workouts are similar to it that may suit me better?

This would make it much easier to stitch together a custom plan than it is now. Also it would give an avenue to discover and explore workouts that may have fallen through your search criteria and meet your needs.

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Another user made a request for something along the lines of “See similar workouts” function that would make some level of connection or list to related workouts. I really like that idea.

I think it might help for those people on TR plans that want to make a substitutions, and for others to take a known workout and branch out with their own plans. Could be worthwhile for a wide range of plan mods (TR and non-TR).

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This has to have context. If the context of a plan, that could be the very reason it was removed and replaced. Comparing the two similar workouts outside of a plan, what is to say one is better than the other.

There is no such thing as one “most effective workout” for a particular purpose. Otherwise, the library would have one workout for endurance, one for VO2max, one for sprinting, one for threshold/TT. Or to an even more ridiculous extreme, only one workout for the purpose of cycling

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It sounds like what you want is a personal coach or the knowledge and experience to make your own plans.

TR has plans. Why not use them? After going thru a couple plans, you will not only understand how the plans are built, but also understand yourself better w/regards to structured training and recovery. Along the way, you will discover some workout that you love and of course some that you love to hate. Add said workouts to your favorites. If not doing a plan, you will have your own collection of workouts for your own purposes.

Using your Galen +4 example. It’s 4x20min @90-95% FTP. If you open up Galena +4 or search on Galena, you can see all of the variations which might be sufficient. Otherwise, you need to build up to 4x20. Maybe that is progression that goes 3x10, 3x12, 4x10, 3x15, 2x20, 5x10, etc… Bottom line, only you know you!

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I think the situation here is more like 10 slightly different hammers for one nail.:thinking:

The issue with training is simple. To progress, you apply alterations to each workout as follows:

  1. Increase Work Interval Intensity (Via interval percentage or overall FTP, as compared to the prior workout)
  2. Increase Work Interval Duration (as compared to the prior workout)
  3. Decrease Rest Interval Duration (as compared to the prior workout)

You can do any or all of these, and each one (or possible combination) may lead to subtle, but intentional differences in the demand on our bodies (and the desired adaptation we want from that stress).

The many workout versions apply some level of those changes to get altered stress on our bodies. The differences may seem small, but they can and will drive our bodies in different ways. The simple path to progression is to gradually, and in a controlled fashion, increase stress over time to drive further adaptations. These are the tools to do it, even if they don’t look different to everyone, they really are.

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Maybe it would make sense to tag each workout with these three characteristics:

  1. Average work interval intensity
  2. Average work interval duration
  3. Average rest interval duration

This might make filtering easier?

These tags wouldn’t catch all features of a workout - eg an over-under workout might show up the same as a threshold workout - but that could be solved with a different tag.

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Agreed but… It would certainly be easier to understand the plan progression if you had a few basic WO’s with control of the key variables to monitor progression.

For example, a standard SS WO might be 3 x 15 @ 86% of FTP with 6 min RI @ 50%. If you could customize your progression to increase the number of intervals, interval length, % of FTP, RI length etc you could control the rate of increasing stress to a level you could handle. Your second WO might be 3 x 15 @ 88% of FTP with 5 min RI @50%. So in effect you have a limited number of WO’s in the library with variables that you customize as your fitness improves. You could control the rate of improvement. Currently, you can not easily see the changes in variables and you have no idea if your fitness is improving until you re-test (ugh!).

I would envisage a 3 week training block being made of standard WO’s for each day of the week for the 3 weeks, where you control the increase in variables in weeks 2 and 3 on a day by day basis based on your first week results. Thus only 6 workouts in the library for this 3 week block. I do something like this planning my winter erg training and I get feedback daily on my progression. It helps keep you motivated.

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I’d imagine it would be pretty easy to do this in the workout creator?

If you follow the plans, you also get a good idea of this progression eg on VO2max, bluebell to mills to Spencer.

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You could complete a plan (e.g., SSB), retest and still not see a gain in terms of your FTP. However, that does not mean your fitness has not improved.

You have to do the work, believe in the plan, and be patient. The gains will come, sometimes in tiny increments, sometimes in sudden big increments.

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