How your training plan is written

What is the plan built from?

The plan is built from your sign-up answers: your goal and target date if you have one, your experience, which days you can train and for how long, your injury history, a short health screening, the equipment you own and any performance values you have measured. No template is picked; each week is written from scratch around that.

• Your time budget is asked day by day: someone with three free days a week is never handed a six-day plan.
• Your level is derived from your answers, so the same goal produces a different week for a beginner and for an experienced athlete.
• Plans cover triathlon, running, cycling, swimming, strength and yoga; you can also focus on a single sport.

Why is the plan written one week at a time?

If you have a target date, a long-term frame reaching it is set first: base, build and race-specific periods. But the plan is written one week at a time, because a good plan has to change with what the athlete actually does. Each new week is written from the data of the week before.

How are progressive overload and recovery balanced?

The body improves not from training itself but from the recovery that follows it. So load rises gradually over several weeks, then a lighter week gives the body time to adapt. How fast the load rises depends on your level, your age and your injury history.

• Training moves in blocks of a few weeks, each with one main goal — trying to develop everything at once develops nothing.
• The block goal is chosen by what limits your performance most: aerobic base, threshold, speed or technique.
• The aim is never to tire the athlete out; it is to apply the right stimulus at the right dose.

What are the week's key sessions?

Every week has one or two key sessions: the ones the block goal depends on. The plan places those first and builds the rest of the week to support them. Key sessions are marked in your plan; in a difficult week they are the ones to protect.

• Easy days stay genuinely easy; letting them drift into moderate is the most common mistake.
• Hard sessions are not stacked back to back; recovery goes between them.
• Every session states its purpose, how to do it and, where it matters, a technique note.

How is training intensity set?

If you have a measured value — FTP on the bike, threshold pace on the run, critical swim speed in the pool, or a measured threshold heart rate — targets are written in training zones derived from it. Without a measured value, intensity is described by perceived effort (RPE). The Ai never guesses a number it does not know.

What are the tests for?

Tests keep your training zones current: as you improve, targets written from an old value become too easy. The test screen in the app shows how to do each test and saves the result to your profile. The plan puts tests on a rested day, never schedules a maximal test close to a race, and suggests retesting values that have not been measured for a long time.

How does your training change the next week?

When you complete a session you log its duration, how hard it felt and, if you like, a note. The next week is written from that: if all is well the load rises, if it was a struggle it holds, and if there are signs of fatigue or pain it eases back. If things change mid-week, the remaining days can be rewritten.

What happens if I miss training?

Missed sessions are not crammed into the following days; piling load into a few days raises injury risk. Instead the week's sessions are ranked: the ones critical to the block goal are kept and optional ones go first. After illness, travel or a long break, the plan does not simply resume — it writes a lighter re-entry week first.

How does the plan change as a race gets close?

In the final weeks before a race, training volume is reduced while intensity is kept in short doses; this is the taper. The aim is to arrive rested without losing the fitness you have built. No maximal tests are scheduled in this period, and heavy strength work that causes muscle damage is taken out.

How are the three sports balanced in triathlon?

With a triathlon goal, swimming, cycling and running each keep a regular place in the week across the season; the growth does not all go to one sport. Strength and mobility come in by phase: more in the base period, less close to the race. The conditions of your event — open water or cold water, for example — are part of the preparation.

How are injuries and health warnings handled?

At sign-up you complete a short health screening (PAR-Q) and your injury history. Until the screening is complete, no high-intensity sessions or tests are written. If you report an injury, load on that area rises cautiously. The plan tells you to stop on warning signs and recommends seeing a health professional for pain that does not settle.

• Athletes under 18 are never given an adult plan; load is set for their age.
• The Ai does not diagnose and does not give medical advice; it is not a substitute for a health professional.