Volume Progression
How TREN ramps your weekly volume from where you are today up to a safe ceiling. Three regimes — linear, cycle, continuous — chosen automatically by current chronic. Calibrated against 10 published plans and 9 elite case studies.
Fetching your latest chronic volume…
The three regimes
Each band has different safe-growth math. You don't pick — TREN picks based on your chronic.
Linear
Additive +0.6–0.8 km/wk. No cutback weeks below 25 km — confirmed by Higdon Novice 5K / 10K and NHS Couch-to-5K data.
Cycle
4-week Jump → Hold → Reduce. Build steps 5–6 km/wk; cutbacks 10–18 % depending on volume. Matches Pfitzinger 18/55, Higdon Intermediate/Advanced, Hansons Advanced within ±15 %.
Continuous
Discrete cycle dissolves. Slow EWMA growth at ~half the cycle rate. Kipchoge: "only slight variation". Norwegian model: macro-cycle deload (winter→in-season) instead of weekly.
Your safe ramp to 180 km/wk
Build 3 weeks, cutback 1, repeat for 12 weeks, then consolidate 10 weeks at the new baseline. Above 150 km/wk the cycle dissolves into smooth continuous growth.
Why 180 km/wk as the default ceiling?
The Norwegian double-threshold target band: Jakob Ingebrigtsen reports a winter base of ~181.5 km/wk; Marius Bakken (originator of the double-threshold method) sat at ~180 km/wk typical. Above this band the population becomes very small (Kipchoge 200–220, Kiptum 250–300+) and the safety evidence thins out to uncontrolled case series. 180 covers the realistic sub-elite-to-elite arc without extrapolating into the long tail. Soft default — you can override.
Deep dives
Each link opens a focused interactive page with charts, citations, and the underlying math.
Safety-net algorithm + the 100→180 km/wk ramp simulator
The interactive simulator for the same math used on this page, with full parameter sweep + the 8-reasons explanation of why elites don't need weekly recovery.
Plan benchmarks — 10 published plans, side by side
Pfitzinger, Higdon, Hansons, RunnersConnect. Live overlays of TREN's cycle and continuous models against each plan's actual week-by-week mileage. Scatter plot of cutback magnitudes across all plans.
High-volume case studies — 9 elite athletes
Kipchoge, Ingebrigtsen, Bakken, Mo Farah, Galen Rupp, Bekele, Cheptegei, Kiptum, Canova's athletes. Documented weekly km and session distribution. Multi-year ramp simulator.
Why Jack Daniels' J-H-H-R cycle doesn't hold up
The original investigation. Why the discrete cycle is coach folklore not RCT evidence. The continuous EWMA-headroom alternative. Sick-week handling. Cycle vs continuous trade-offs.
Implementation plan — cycle → continuous engine
The 8-step PR-sized plan for moving this three-regime model into the planner engine. TypeScript orchestrator + Python mirror, cross-platform via tren_api, no DB migration, no new endpoints.
Roadmap → implementation plan
Read the implementation plan → 8 steps, each PR-sized. Cross-platform via tren_api (no iOS-specific code needed). Source markdown lives at plans/2026-05-21-cycle-to-continuous-engine.md.
Companion docs: research/high-volume-progression.md (elite tail), research/published-plan-benchmarks.md (10-plan library), research/jhhr-cycle-evidence-and-continuous-formula.md (original critique), todo/fasterIncrease/NOTES.md (pending decisions).