I can’t dive into AT as it stands, lacking the ability to incorporate outdoor rides with wahoo bolt, especially group rides. With the return of big group rides and racing, it’s essential to factor these efforts into the plan. Xert has some odd workout suggestions (a little fancy for my taste) but I do like XSS tracking and MPA. I’ve been using Xert’s workout creator then exporting as a .Erg file into TR Workout creator. I made a 20 min interval to 0% MPA reserve +2 mins extra instead of a ramp test this week to keep my fitness signature updated. As you can see, progression level updated.
One thing to check (maybe only if the workout was done outside, but still): click on the workout in the calendar and see if it is associated with the correct workout from the plan. If not, they are not linked and you will not get progressions. Happened to me recently. Support said it should be automatically associated, but was not.
Right, sorry. As a narrow-minded, Garmin-only user, all of my data gets uploaded to TR directly from Garmin Connect. I use TR’s calendar, too, but I don’t need any data from Strava and I wish I could turn it off while still pushing the indoor TrainerRoad workouts to Strava.
Check if the initial ride sync comes from Strava rather than Garmin. That’s a known issue and seems to throw off AT in marking workouts for progression levels. I had both connected but because the initial push came from Strava, that caused problems like this.
I think this is absolutely spot on. When you tie the exertion ratings to specific zones it falls apart.
For example, if I were to do Taku on a fresh morning, it would be a 1, no doubt. But today I did it after a 60 minute VO2 workout and had to rate it as a 2. Moderate, as it was not “easy” at all
I’ve been in AT for a little over 2 weeks now and I’ve gotten 1 suggested adaption, which I ignored because it was way off. When I got into AT all my levels were either 1 or 2, even though I was completing 4s, 5s, and 6s. So it suggested something like a 2 for my only adaptation, so I ignored it and did my normally scheduled workout. Regardless, since then, I haven’t had any suggestions. And in my Career page, it says I’ve been in a “Recovery Week” for a month. I used Plan Builder so I’m guessing this is a bug, which is affecting AT and causing it to not give me any adaptations. Since the “Recovery Week” ends this weekend, should I just wait and see if it fixes itself for next week?
I love that I got an endurance bump last night for doing a “3” work out. Never mind the 13 hours of endurance pacing I did for unbound. Im not mad I am just laughing at the system.
This might drive the perfectionist in me to once a week choose a super hard number work out to raise all these levels to where they should be.
Your scale descriptors for the Pass survey, 1 - 5, are great. Thank you Chad.
But I think that there are missing cases. Today, I completed Pinnacle, which is 3 x 20 at FTP with various breaks within the 20 min intervals. Last interval, I failed:
Two things:
[1] I got the “Pass” survey – how hard did it feel? AT seems to feel that this was more like a pass than a fail.
[2] But my threshold progression levels were not raised. Evidently AT thinks it was not a good enough pass.
No complaints about that. But your scale needs to include the case when you did not actually complete the workout as prescribed, but AT still rates it a pass.
Personally I rated this as Very Hard – more mental focus and muscle endurance than I had today. But I thought it was clearly not All Out: I wasn’t nearly dead, throwing up or any of that.
Just a suggestion for some more inclusive wording to the scale!
You basically addressed it here already. You didn’t fail, it was super hard and you rated it as such. No further overthinking required, thats close enough
This is a good reference point and I will be using it except making a minor tweak to it. All Out for me means that I will need a recovery day for sure. then just shift All Out → V Hard → Hard
I agree with this a lot making my decisions much more simple. There is a TED talk where they talk about the fact that less is more. That is why Youtube went from a 5 star system to thumb up/down
I hate it when a post is materializing in my mind as I’m scrolling, then I realize @mcneese.chad has already written the exact same post.
Actually I don’t. It’s nice to feel validated.
The guidelines I wrote myself a while ago:
1 - no problem at all, thought about going harder, could have easily done more of the workout.
2 - Feelings of effort but not particulary tired at the end.|
3 - Consistent effort requiring more focus as it went on. Fatigued at the end. Could have done more but also fine with being done. Never in danger of stopping.
4 - Challenging. Serious effort. Maybe a couple of doubts, but able to complete 100%.
5 - Either had to adjust workout or it was a killer to complete at 100%. Don’t be afraid to give things a 5, it doesn’t have to be the hardest workout you ever did. Anything that feels near the limits of your ability deserves a 5.
Then there’s a secret, dreaded 6. Those are for the very few truly memorably difficult ones. Like maybe once or twice a year. The effort level that you really aren’t capable of very often at all because usually you give up before you reach that point.
Maybe I’ll make a new thread for stories about your LEVEL 6 workouts.
I’m trying to decide whether to do a workout indoors tomorrow or outdoors (with a Wahoo Bolt). Probably doesn’t matter too much either way, and I’ll just do what I feel like. But if anybody has had success disconnecting Strava and uploading Wahoo data either via Garmin Connect or manually, I could give that a go. But so far it still seems like only Garmin users have had success with this?
I have not tried it, so I’m not sure if it would work. Just a shot in the dark at the moment.
I’ve just been working around having outdoor workouts not counting in AT as I’m in the last four weeks of specialty at the moment and there’s only so much more I can do to be fitness ready. May give it a shot after my A event though!
Fair enough. I’ll do a post if I decide to try it, but I may not - I tend to keep my key workouts indoors anyway, but sometimes I get the itch to do one outside
I received a very helpful reply from Support after contacting them for advice on the matter:
Intensity: this would be selected when the workout is asking for 350w per interval but you were not able to hit the target (ie. the target power is too high).
Training Fatigue: this refers to when you might have residual fatigue from previous sessions such as a long ride earlier in the week or if you haven’t recovered from yesterday’s Ramp Test. Training Fatigue only refers to fatigue that comes from training and is aimed at finding potential overtraining. If the only reason that prevented you from nailing the targets was a difficult day at work and not the effects of recent workouts, then this is not the option to choose.
Stress/Motivation: this would fall under “stress or motivation outside of training” - so if you had a very stressful day at work and your mind just wasn’t on doing a workout, this would be the one to choose. Stress/Motivation can be both mental and physical. While a long day of physical work definitely tires your legs, it’s certainly going to have some sort of effect mentally as well. That said, as this category doesn’t explicitly match your situation, “Other” is also a good response in these situations.
Other: this might be due to your kids begging you to feed them, a thunderstorm came through and flooded your garage, or anything else that is not within the above options. “Other” is the correct and most appropriate response to use when your legs are so tired from doing your job that you were unable to complete the workout.
