This is my feeling too. Progression levels are nice as a short-term motivator, and they determine your next workout (or allow you to make good choices if you want to substitute an alternative workout). But they’re not representative of fitness across FTP changes - that’s not what they’re for. Nate, I think your suggestion of an aggregate “fitness” number - with historical graphs and the ability to track it separately for different training zones - would be the best addition. Don’t conflate PLs - which are a tool for determining workouts - with a measure of fitness. Just provide a separate metric for that.
I really don’t understand all the complexity. In my mind it’s simple- I have my current FTP the progression levels show me……well…progression toward a higher FTP. When I reach the higher FTP those progression level recalibrate in relation to the jump in FTP. A large jump in FTP means a larger reset in progression levels and vice versa.
This ISN’T related to Absolute Progression Levels, at least not yet, but I’m wondering how do people compare fitness from years past?
I just tried to look back at my calendar in early 2020 but couldn’t see Workouts that far back.
I can use the Personal Records chart, which seems to indicate I’ve improved, but it’s hard to tell precisely what’s improved and where.
Usually with seasons comparisons at various power PBs (5, 10, 15, 20min). I’ve also used volume (hrs) as a good relative metric month over month (and comparatively year over year - ie this past January vs previous Januarys). Really, it’s not rocket science to help understand if you’re fitter or less fit year to year.
However the metric that also is kinda easy is…um…don’t people have a local segment outside that they benchmark themselves on? Truly seeing if i am faster?
That is not what they do though. When properly used within a plan, all they do is show what level of workout you can consistently achieve within your plan. When not used within a plan, they show the highest level of workout you have completed within a zone.
For example, I might be able to achieve high PLs If I do a LV plan because I don’t carry much fatigue in my legs. If I subsequently switch to a MV/HV plan I might need to lower my levels to consistently complete my workouts. If I respond well to more volume, I might have lower PLs but increase my FTP.
Therein lies the confusion - they are marketed as a measure of progress when that is not what they are.
Thanks, I guess my problem with TSS, IF etc is that they are a relative number.
I though I found it in the HR/Power chart on ICU but there’s too much noise.
Hanging out for the TR Analysis suite.
At the highest level I keep it pretty simple and look at power curve and pull out specific durations for the events I routinely do. In addition I look at absolute VO2max estimates (WKO) because I’m getting old and well into the ‘lose it even though you are using it’ phase of life, and anaerobic capacity.
I even have a nifty WKO chart with some annotations.
Spot on!
The term Progression Levels is misleading and confusing. You can “progress” in a training zone but your PL go down (higher FTP). 
It’s a marketing issue as well and putting PLs on Strava compounds the issue. PLs should be used to compare workout difficulty, not an indicator of progression of fitness in a training zone.
interesting discussion,
maybe you should show progression levels like W/kg?
So to say:
2.0 W/kg = progression level 2.0 @endurance
3.1 W/kg = progression level 3.1 @Sweetspot
Sure, then progression levels couldn’t so high like today! 
@Nate_Pearson quick question…
FTP == Threshold == CP60 (I think).
Is it (kind of) true that the other 6 “progression levels” are associated with a point on the CP curve?
For example, is Sweet Spot something like CP20? If so, the absolute measure for Sweet Spot would be your current actual (or in TR’s case, the projected optimal capability for CP20 based on analytics).
The SPRINT progression level might be CP0.5 (30 secs)? And even though I’ve never done a sprint workout, TR’s analytics would still be able to assign me a projected CP0.5 estimate.
Absolutely there should be something like absolute progression levels. How is that even up for debate? If you have the same FTP at two points in time in your history, you’d currently have no way to distinguish a difference in your fitness at those 2 points.
What’s most likely the case is that, in spite of the same FTP, you would have had different characteristics to you fitness. Describing that doesn’t necessarily need to be progression levels, but they’d be a nice way of describing where your relative strengths were at that point, in a way that your PD curve at that same time, might not.
We addressed this topic recently in Progression Levels relative to FTP changes. Does this post (and plan for more PR visibility in the future) cover what you’re referring to?
Not really. The PR comparison tool is great, but it assumes you had max efforts in the time periods you’re comparing. For me, one of the awesome things about AI FTP is that it’ll assure that I can compare different points in time, even when I didn’t have max efforts or tests.
Sure that makes sense. The term ‘Personal Records’ can be confusing in this context because as you mentioned, it does imply a max or best effort.
That said, the Progression Level relative to your FTP at the time ‘chart’ may or may not end up living there with PRs!
It’s a tool that will grow and change plenty in what it looks like as we continue to discuss it internally. I’ll be sure to provide updates on the forum on this resource as updates become available!
Wanted to revive this thread because it seems really important. At it’s heart, TR is progressing you as a faster/stronger cyclist. In the very first post, @Nate_Pearson lays out a good case for making PLs absolute values, and then the discussion kind of gets lost in the weeds.
Absolute PLs would 1) be easy to understand 2) give you the ability to compare progress season over season, and the PLs you had for key performances 3) allow TR to push FTP to the background.
Love to hear others’ opinions, but I don’t see the value of relative PLs, except for picking workouts, which AIFTP should now be doing.
Something needs doing with them, the AI doesn’t use them and for me at least, I often get lower PL’s on workouts that appear as hard or harder than those I recently did, so they make no sense to me other than as a very average guide to where I’m at.
Hopefully there is a revision in the pipelines, but I’m not holding my breath.
Something needs to be done with PLs, but I don’t see any value in absolute PLs.
The absolute number in the equation is your FTP. If working correctly, the way I see it is that PLs should help further define your fitness to let you see how developed your training is in each specific zone.
As an example, if this year I have an FTP of 320 and I am doing PL 6 threshold workouts. I can tell that my fitness is better than last year when my FTP was 320 and I could only do a PL 4 workout.
But what if your FTP was different or the testing was different? An absolute PL (whatever form it takes) would give you a better comparison.
That is why you do the same test. The simple answer is do good testing. Not, come up with some new convoluted metric that no one would ever understand.