How does the scale of the plans change to fit different athlete levels and abilities in each discipline?

The majority of our daily workouts include options to shorten or extend sessions in order to provide options for developing and experienced athletes and for both time-starved and time-rich athletes. 

For the majority of cycling and running workouts, all intervals are prescribed in duration (time), which makes the scaling easier.  As an example, a midweek cycling session might include an integrated message that says, "Breakpoint:  If you are time-starved or a newer athlete, this is the perfect place to end the workout and simply cool down."  Alternatively, a session might integrate a range of duration, such as 50 to 70 minutes in a run.  Of course, it is easy to choose the appropriate time relative to the time you have available, level of experience, or fatigue.  

Swim sessions are typically prescribed in distance (yards/meters) as they are performed in a swimming pool.  In these sessions, you will often see instructions that are prescribed along the lines of 8 x 150 to 250 (8 intervals of each which are between 150 to 250 yards/meters).  More is not always better. Imagine you are in the pool in San Francisco:

Lane 1:  Pros and strong swimmers:  Intervals of 250 yards/meters

Lane 2:  Moderately strong swimmers:  225 y/m

Lane 3:  Experienced amateurs (send-off of 1.30 to 1.35 / 100 yards): 200 y/m

Lane 4:  Developing swimmers (send-off of 1.40 to 1.50 / 100 yards): 175 y/m

Lane 5:  Less experienced swimmers (1.50 - 2.30 / 100 yards):  150 y/m

Additional educational resources in our Education Hub will offer practices for scaling and moving sessions to optimize performance.