The No Training Plan Training Solution

In this podcast and training tip, we are talking about a training technique that many many athletes & coaches prefer at this time of the year and don’t even know they are employing.

This method of training is old skool passed down from one group ride elder to another. It incorporates tried and tested rules, like ‘rest on Monday, go hard on Wednesdays, ride long on Saturdays’.  We describe those in this training tip and podcast, plus add some science and technology to make this training methodology work for you!

It's training the way you prefer to train but using science, data, this podcast episode and CoachCat to have FUN, be flexible and most importantly: IMPROVE. 

There are sometimes of the year, perhaps now in the Fall where you are coming off a serious portion of your year - maybe you just competed in Steamboaat or Leadville or any big A event for yourself.   Honestly you may be a wee bit fried from structured training.  We get it!

So the last thing you want to do is train like a monk all regimented & structured. That is scenario # 1.

Scenario # 2 is that you are social! Your group rides are tres-important’e to you.  We get that too - this is going to be a solution for you

Scenario # 3 is that your life is B U S Y with a capital B.  Everytime you start a plan its going well and whammo - it’s life happens.  Your training plan is like Mike Tyson’s famous quote, “everyone has  aplan until they get punched in the face’ - with life happening benign that punch in the face - family, work, weather, injury, illness - just the time in the day to get ‘ur dun.  We get that too because we’ve been there.  The no training plan training solution is for you! 

So let’s talk about the common solution for these 3 scenarios and using CoachCat to design your own training.   But let’s not stop there, let’s also talk about using your data to know if you are improving along the way.  And finally let’s finish with talking about when to employ this type of training and when to go back to structured training and how to do both at the same time.  Yes - you an use our training plans as templates to adjust to your life!!  CoachCat can help….

Okay so scenario # 1 - you’re fried, you’ve just completed (successlfy because you listened to this podcast) your bg A & B events, your goals aren’t until next year and honestly ye ol motivation is NOT that high.  So what do you do? You ride but you ride when you want and don’t when you don’t. 

But you still apply a few principles.  Monday and Fridays are no ride days because of work and because you are doing to ride on the weekends.  Friday is a rest day to have good legs for the weekend and Monday is a rest day to recovery from your weekend riding AND to freshen you up for good mid-week training. 

For weekly planning, tell CoachCat to put rest days on Mondays and Fridays. You can also goto your workout library and apply those as well. A lot of times you may want to do some yoga or stay ontop on your Foundations work OR you simply may want to live like a normal person and not train at all.  Its all good - because guess what - its yoru choice and you are designing your training 🙂

So Monday’s Fridays are off and that leaves Tues/Wed/Thurs which you have to work. And kids, family, errands, projects, life and stuff!  But you have this group ride you like to join on Wednesdays. Your riding buddies do it, its fun and you know from the past it helps keep you honest and in shape.  So put the Wednesday group ride on your training calendar for Wednesday - tell CoachCat, “please put a 75 minute group ride on my training calendar this Wednesday’.  Or apply one from your workout library. 

Now that leaves Tuesdays and Thursday.  We’ll get to the weekend in a minute. 

On Tuesday you're still super busy with work, the days are getting cooler, shorter and the motivation isn’t quite there to do intervals.  Your options are:

Ride for fun

Ride for fun in zone 2

Ride for fun in any zone you want

Ride short for 30-45 minutes

Ride with the kids in the neighborhood

Go mountain biking for fun

Hop on your virtual training platform of choice for a quick little groupride rip

Or NOT RIDE AT ALL - you’re busy, you have a good group ride coming atcha tomorrow and your goals are not until next year. 

Do you see what I’m getting at here? Its your choice - you choose and design. No pressure. 

So that leaves Thursday.  And you are coming off your group ride on Wednesday.  Oh and I forgot to mention - you can make all these day-to-day decisions on a daily basis the morning or day off based on how you are feeling, how the day is going, what the weather is like and how busy your day is or is not. 

Back to Thursday and you had a great group ride yesterday - check what CoachCat says about your recovery and ask for advice, ‘what should I do today?’ based on my recovery metrics. 

You may just be like, ‘I’m gonna ride for an hour’ irregardless of my recovery. And have fun.  So they you go - you don’t even need to put anything on your calendar but if you want you can tell CoachCat ‘put a one hour ride on my calendar” - you can be non specific or as specific as you like.  You’re the Coach here. 

Friday is off and that gets us to the weekend.   Your days off work but kids soccer is starting Sunday so at best you might be able to ride 90 minutes.  But Saturday is wide open, what are you going to do? You have several options but all include getting in a Fun no pressure ride:

1. Ask CoachCat for a workout suggestion - intervals or no intervals
2. Ride with your buds for 2-3 hours or however long you usually ride for.
3. Go mountain biking or gravel - or really riding on a different bike than you normally do
4. Ride solo - can be a soul ride . Can be a Fall Foliage ride 

Basically what I am saying here is your options are endless as long as you ride.  Riding takes care of the consistency and the physiology. 

So finally now we are onto SUNDAY - but remember your son has a soccer game at 9am and after that your partner wants to goto Costco and <insert family errand> 

Strategically you are estimating you’ll have 90 minutes in the afternoon when you get back home and the kids are all settled.  But it looks like rain and you’re not into riding in the rain at this point of the year.  That is TBD because - you don’t have to decide until the time comes…. 

And when it does by 2-3 pm you’re exhausted, motivation is low, its starting to drizzle and the nail in the coffin, your rear wheel has a flat tire.  Zwift or IndieVelo is calling to you because you are all about consistency…. Guess what? All you have to do is hop on and see what calls to you.  You can ask CoachCat for a suggestion but you can also jump into a pace partner ride - those are fun.  Pro tip - choose a B or C , D or E watt per kg ride that’s your sweet spot or below intensity - make it productive but not full gas hellish hard.  Youre goals are next year and all you’re trying to do on this Sunday is be consistent and get a workout in.  Go for it. 

And that my fellow FasCat is an example of the no training plan training solution.  Repeat that for 2-3 more weeks on a flexible day-by-day basis and have fun, be productive and be flexible with yourself.  

The key piece of this training methodology is the 3-4 weeks max because after that you want to get back on the straight n narrow structured training such as our 30 week off season or 10 weeks weights or 16 weeks of sweet spot base.  Even then you can use CoachCat and these training principles to adapt the plan to your life and training preferences. 

I do not recommend utilizing this training style or methodology when you are inside 20 weeks of your season or goal event.  Then you want to be on training plan.

In summary - your may plan ahead and design your training out or you may take it day-by-day using CoachCat in the morning.  You’ll still ride 4-5 times per week and you’ll maintain a maintenance level of fitness. You MAY even see some peak power outputs including a new FTP from all the freshness of your training. 

Which leads me to point out what you should be looking at in your data during this style of training?  Here are 5 data points in order of priority to pay attention to during this phase of your training:

1. Consistency Calendar  - make it turn green
2. Auto FTP detections - if you rode really hard in a group ride
3. Training Load - you probably won’t be increasing your load but you also won’t see it declining too much. This is a maintenance fun phase. 
4. HRV may go up during this time of less physiological stress and pressure to perform
1. Pay attention to your 7 day 6 week trend and your 1 monthl/ 6 month trend of your  HRV baseline in partcular
5. Sleep may also go up, especially if you are not setting the alarm to ride early in the day
1. Similar to HRV - sleep trends are the name of the game here to measure if you are catching up on life an resetting your body from a long season 

Let’s go back to scenario # 2 - social and group rides, yes, I think by now get that this is a do the group ride phase and style of training.  Add them to your calendar, honor the 2 rest days per week rule and have fun, go for it. 

A lot of riders have Friday group rides which is cool - what I’d recommend is moving the rest day to Thursday,  and then riding Friday/Sat/ Sunday.  Ride on Sunday per how hard you’ve ridden the 2 days prior. Still take Monday off and so forth. 

Basically, balance your recovery and easy rides to the intensity of your group rides.  Use your Optimize training-to-recovery balance along with CoachCat’s interpretation for day-by-day guidance! 

Scenario # 3 is really like scenario # 1. Its just that in scenario #1 you want to plan ahead and in scenario # 3 you really have to adapt to what’s happening in your life day to day.  You are not planning ahead but rather planning to ride and seeking daily guidance based on how the day is going plus CoachCat’s analysis of your training-to-recovey balance. 

Like scenario # 1, scenario’s 2 & 3 should be sustained for a maximum of 3-4 weeks. Then its back to the straight n narrow!

Listeners - if you want to try training this way - get on CoachCat - the first month is free and no credit card is required - you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying out this new, fun training methodology. 

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