I think you are incorrectly associating the Survey Rating with Workout Intensity. Additionally, keep in mind that each of those Progression Levels, and the workouts associated within them, all have a range of “easy to hard” workouts with WOL ratings of 1.0 to 10.0 and above in some cases. That means that you can have “easy” or “hard” workouts (and everything between) within any of the Progression Level Workout areas.
It is entirely possible to have a “simple endurance workout” with a 5-All-Out rating. If a new rider with minimal trainer time hopped on and rode one of the 3+ hour endurance rides (especially at 4 hours or more), I fully expect many would reasonably rate that “easy” ride a 4 or 5.
Conversely, it’s possible right now for me to take on an Anaerobic workout (with my current 1.0 PL) and end up rating that as a 1 or 2. That would be a result of incomplete data in my PL that does not accurately portray my current abilities. That or similar examples of the PL reset that happens from an FTP change, could lead to 1-2 ratings for otherwise “hard” workouts.
It’s all relative to YOU and the individual workout completed at that moment.
There are clear times that those may align and something like a 3-4 is practical and even expected.
But there are also clear times those will NOT align.
As such, having a more open interpretation rather than some association to workouts seems important to me.
That is the key point, and I believe it is the very reason the TR has not offered a strict “this is what the survey results should indicate” definition. Their continued comments reinforce the fact that they want you to take that score and use it how YOU see fit.
Ignore the labels or “transform” them to something else that makes sense in your head. Do that and be consistent over time, and it should lead to Progression Level changes that direct AT and lead to appropriate changes to the workouts on your calendar.
I’d have to imagine that AT scales the effort ratings for each person. Think of it like this, if I rate Pettit as a 6 and you rate it as a 3, the next time I rate something a 5, it will probably expect that same ride if you did it will get a rating of 2 or 3. Each person will have their own subjective scale on what “hard” means but as long as you are consistent with your own personal rating, it should all be good.
They way I think it works is that it will take what you though of the wo, and based on how YOU felt it will adapt and try to find something either harder or easier…
So you completed the wo, but it was hard… maybe the system will deduct that it will give you something similar until you pass and consider the wo less than hard…
I might be wrong tho.
We don’t know the threshold or triggers that move a workout from a “Pass” to a “Super Pass”. I do have at least one example verified as SP by TR, so I have one data point. But, regardless of the P/SP label, the reality is that TR is looking at:
The work you did,
The RPE you assign,
Your current Progression Level,
and then assigning a Progression Level change based upon that info.
I doubt that changing via Intensity adjustment or trainer mode really matter as much as the power data recorded. What happens if you turn Pettit into an Anaerobic sprint fest? The greater reality is that you completely moved the needle from the intended zones into something else.
In more typical cases, when you are feeling extra good and choose to over-perform within the basic range of the intended workout, they will still take the power data, your RPE, your existing PL, and then make a PL change.
That is what happened in my SP instance to a point. I really over-performed in my original case, and brought it to TR’s attention. They reviewed it and have made changes to how they handle Super Pass now (without any detailed info other than it will be “better”) so I hope that people stepping over the target power will be properly assessed and rewarded.
I tried to answer above, with the “P/SP labels don’t matter” approach.
You did the work you did, relative to your currently assigned PL, answered the survey as 3 or, and TR will consider the PL change to assign. Speculating:
If you did the prescribed workout, and rated it 3, you’d get a typical change in PL relative to the WOL and your current PL.
If you kick it up a notch, and end up with a 4, I think you should see a similar bump in PL since you elevated the workout, but gave it a harder rating as a result.
All that is considering that TR is tracking the history of your efforts and the prior RPE assigned, to try and guestimate your PL change at an appropriate pace.
For what its worth TrainingPeaks has long had two ratings, on Monday I did 12 all-out, max effort sprints and this is what I filled out:
Despite spending 20 hours Saturday/Sunday working on the yard, I woke up Monday feeling normal. That rating is what I use to track recovery. Over time it has become a metric that I find quite useful.
And back on RPE, those sprintervals felt like I could have gone harder because a) my best effort was last sprint, and b) I didn’t feel like puking. So I gave it a 9 out of 10 on TP. Over on TR it received a Very Hard (4 out of 5):
Thank you for the clarification. I like to go on a 4ish hour gravel ride on Fridays. Would you just delete that workout or leave it as skipped? Before I got into the Beta I would just sub out my longest planned workout for long outside ride.
I think the question for the survey “How did this effort feel” is a bit too ambiguous? Perhaps more like “What effort did it take to complete the workout” would be more applicable? In the context of intensity and duration:
Easy - means I completed the workout and could have gone further and harder;
Moderate - means I completed the workout and could have gone further or harder, but not both;
Hard - means I completed the workout and could not have gone any further or harder, the workout was juuust right;
Very Hard - means I didn’t complete the workout because it was too hard or far, either I could maintain the intensity but it was just too long, or I could have kept going if I slightly lowered the intensity;
All Out - means I didn’t complete the workout-complete failure, went home sobbing…
I think having a little bit of subjective context helps me maintain some consistency when choosing level of effort for a given workout…
This is not appropriate because if you “couldn’t complete the workout”, you will be served with a “Struggle” survey (fell short of power targets and such) or “Short Time” survey (didn’t complete the full duration of the workout) as appropriate to the actual workout & duration.
Also a bit off, related to above. Effectively you did complete the time at a minimum (no “Short” survey), and didn’t drop power enough to "fail the workout (no “Struggle” survey).
But this selection does trigger a supplemental survey that asks ‘why’ this workout was so hard. It parallels the “Struggle” survey, but seems to be classified differently than a true “Struggle” that starts with a totally different survey, and lacks the 1-5 “Pass” survey largely discussed here.
I will add, that all this discussion and confusion about the surveys shows that TR must do at least some work on education in this area. They may well already have something in mind, but if not… now is the time to start
I don’t expect firm definitions, but I think some more guidance is essential here, because we can already see a wide range of interpretations of the surveys and how they are meant to be used.
There’s the outstanding bugs/issues list - do we raise a ticket if we have workouts that match one of these or will the team pick up that something’s wrong with them? Roughly 50% of my endurance workouts done outdoors don’t get PL updates.
Last sentence is particularly important when using his guidelines:
“Since perceived exertion increases over time even at a constant exercise intensity (power), the suggested values or ranges refer to perceived effort as determined relatively early in a training session/series of intervals.”
If you are properly sending, performing and completing TR outside workouts via Garmin, and getting problems, I think you should email them. AFAIK, that is the only avenue for outside that is and should be working.
Anything else is a known, non-issue until they officially release fixed for Wahoo and other unstructured rides imported to TR.
I hesitate to repost this, but for the sake of the discussion (and not that my take is correct or necessarily be used by others), here is what I previously wrote on the topic of the “Pass” survey ratings:
TR has mentioned more than once, that the most important thing on the surveys is “to be consistent”. So, we may all have varied definitions about what a “3” means, and that may be fine.
They make it sound like AT looks at our response, along with what it sees in the workout performance metrics, and “learns” about the total result. As such, there may be no hard definition of the survey response that applies to everyone.
Since I have been using my own scale of effort for years in the ride notes, I already had a thought on what the max, min, and middle of any scale meant to me.
EASY: I did it without any real effort or consideration (more work than siting on the couch, but not by much).
MODERATE: Not “easy”, but I didn’t have to work that much.
HARD: Took some real effort, but I never felt in trouble or doubted my pending completion fully on target.
VERY HARD: Took more mental focus than a 3. I actually wondered if I could finish at one or more moments, but I didn’t need to “cheat” in any real way.
ALL OUT: I finished, but I was in a DEEP hole mentally, fighting breathing, muscle fatigue, cramps and/or used some tricks to get to the end (back pedals, pauses, etc.).
Previously in my own system, this was also the one I used for any “fails”. TR’s system uses it in the Pass section, and has a separate Struggle one. So when I use 5, it is because the workout smashed me and left me in a heap.
