Interval length also is a consideration, most certainly, and those two workouts aren’t a great 1:1 comparison. It was just the fastest and easiest way to illustrate what I believe AT is doing based on my experience with AT thus far. At least, that’s what I suspect are the basics of how it uses the level system to prescribe workouts. I’m certain there is a lot more to it than what I shared.
Thanks, I hear TR talk about smoothing out progressions. And your examples align with that. I’m simply questioning the logic of some explanations. What I tend to believe is that after completing a sweet spot block, and FTP goes up or down or unchanged, then let’s say the next block is a build focused on vo2max work, I would be inclined to put sweet spot into maintenance (non progression) regardless of FTP changes. Dropping SS progression level is one way to accomplish that, but sends a mixed message IMHO.
Totally true and I agree. I didn’t clarify, but it would make the most sense to assume that the example I gave is assuming Sweet Spot is the only zone that matters from block to block and that’s the only progression being targeted. That’s not at all how it works in the context of a larger plan with end goals and targeting multiple systems over several months with a bunch of different blocks. But getting into the level of complexity of multiple zones to be targeted seemed too far to go down for answering the question “What do the levels even mean?”, so I aimed to over-simplify for the purposes of that.
Ah no. It’s because more people failed the workout. You might think this is the same thing but it isn’t.
The point of basing things on data analytics is not to make up rules on (well reasoned) assumptions, but to let the data speak for itself. It matters not why a workout is harder to complete - it only matters that it is harder to complete.
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Totally agree. What I mentioned certainly isn’t exhaustive of how the levels are calculated for the workouts. Everything I mentioned is very much the tippy tip top of the iceberg of what’s going on. While correlations exist for what I described, they aren’t the end all, be all for how they are calculated by any means.
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I don’t know if it’s just me but I seem to have problem with outside workouts. Now that the summer is here, most of my rides take place outside.
However it seems like there is some problem with the workout evaluation. In my experience, I get no evaluation of progress for the system stressed during workout and I also often get recommendation afterwards to replace my future workouts with easier ones, even though I am pretty sure I nailed the intervals. Ofcourse the progression levels go down at the same time if I take the workout outside.
Is it just me?
So it seems to me the outside workouts are evaluated either as failed or that they did not happen at all. As a consequence, the progression levels go down and I get recommendations to try easier variants.
Today I replaced one of my SS workouts (McGregor -5) with outside variant of the same workour and immediately got recommended to replace next week’s SS workout with easier one. Seems like for some reason, outside workouts are out of AT scope in my case.
There is a bug right now giving the struggle survey for outdoor workouts even if you don’t struggle, it seems like that causes adaptations to not happen even if you mark that you didn’t struggle. I’ve done a 4.2 and 4.9 anaerobic workouts in the last 1.5 weeks and hit power targets in both, but my anaerobic score is still 1.8 and I have a 1.0 anaerobic workout recommend for next week
If you’re on Wahoo, outside workouts aren’t currently working. If you’re on Garmin they’re supposedly working but I’ve read some feedback elsewhere on the forum indicating they may not be.
As for the struggle survey, it is always given for outdoor rides. But if you scroll to the bottom, you can tell it you didn’t struggle with the last option. Choosing that should give you the 1-5 scale for a pass survey. @Bhofstra have you tried this with your surveys?
I’m using a Garmin, have been using it outside since feb/March, I think something changed where it’s not adapting as of a week or 2 ago
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Hm, this has not been true for me. I’ve done a couple TR outside workouts with a Garmin, and I got the regular success survey on I think two of them. (Another one I didn’t plan my route as well as I thought and missed a couple of the targets, so the struggle survey made sense.)
Interesting. I’m using Wahoo and can still do the surveys (although it’s not actually being used from what I can tell) and every single time I get the failed workout survey and I have to choose the option “I didn’t struggle” at the bottom of that list to get the pass survey. I can also fill out surveys for outdoor free rides, but those only ever give the pass survey to rate 1 to 5, which makes sense since it doesn’t know what hte outcome is supposed to be. Maybe it’s different with Garmin or has been changed/tweaked/updated to serve pass surveys now?
Oh that’s even more interesting. I haven’t even tried outside workouts with my Wahoo because they’re broken with AT, but the regular unstructured rides on my Wahoo have only showed me the success survey (and I can only fill it out on the website).
(The Garmin I’m using is a Fenix watch I got for running, and I’m only using it for TR outside workouts because of the Wahoo-is-broken thing.)
Totally this. The only way I’ve been able to do this is from the Career page on the website where it says “Missing Survey” next to the ride in the Recent Workouts box. In my experience, I’m able to fill out a survey for every ride, but from what I can tell, it isn’t doing anything to my PLs. But hey! I am feeding it the data now for when it officially starts to work!
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, you can also do it from the workout detail page, from the three-dot menu.
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This is my experience. I reduced my FTP (manually) from 288 to 275 and my PLs increased.
The initial adaptations based on this seemed a bit strange, particularly adding in some terrifying-looking VO2 workouts later in the block, but that seems to have ironed itself out now I have completed a couple of workouts at the new FTP. All looks fairly reasonable.
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I have a question on outside rides into support. I’ve seen ‘response missing’ on the web page on prev rides so completed those sruveys. Yesterday was my first showing as ‘struggle’, but I didn’t struggle. As with others, completing the survey had no positive impact on PL for the targeted system, and the ride completed successfully was a stretch 1.4 points above current level.
Done on a Garmin, which worked for me last week… still hiccups.
I didn’t know there was a “pass” and “fail” survey. When I go to the workout on web page and update the response, the dialogue flashes and then I get immediately what seems to be “fail” survey (I select “I didn’t struggle” option and then rate the effort).
For some outside workouts I can see “response missing” in iOS app while it shows correctly on web. For other workouts it shows correctly.
PS: using Garmin
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When do you get a survey?
I haven’t been prompted to fill out a survey. I browsed to workout and clicked the 3 dots which gave me the option to “Update survey response” and asked how hard it was. When I selected Moderate it changed the status of the workout from Successful to Moderate 