One thing I found on this is that AT threw me a more challenging endurance ride on the Saturday of my recovery week, and it wasn’t until this that my endurance PL felt close to what it should be. (Obviously assessing unstructured outdoor rides will help even more.) Like you said, it makes sense, since the endurance workouts in the build weeks are very easy. But it was good to see what happened towards the end of the reco week.
I’m very tempted to throw in a “super difficult” endurance workout early into my recover week next week for that exact purpose. Earlier this year I did up to 2:30 hour-long endurance workouts, and the biggest problem for me is fighting boredom. Fortunately, there are podcasts. ![]()
Hi, for some reason i logged in to TR and all my progression levels are super low `1-1.7. Last week they were around 4.
I dont know if this is a bug. If it is not a bug, its not very well communicated why this is happening.
How do you get to 9?
I’m pretty solid on the 5.1 workout, so I’ll see an increase of 0.2 each week so it would take me 20 weeks to get to 9.1 by which time I would have retested FTP three times…
Not seen that - email support
Did you just do an ftp test?
Howdie - yep I did. Apparently that shifts everything down. I emailed support and apparently that’s what happens ![]()
Yep. If you think about it, that makes sense because what was a Threshold 3.0 is going to be less when your FTP goes up.
This is my one criticism of the new platform though. The time it takes to get the levels correct after the test is about the time it takes to get to the next FTP, and that makes me feel like I’m wasting workouts. The flip side of this is the old way, which involved failed workouts and burnout, which I hated, but I do admit I wonder if I’m under achieving.
So when you say that…
I just did a ramp test.
- Gained 15W
- PLs displayed all the same (I think) as before testing
- Adaptations dropped all my workouts way below my PLs
- Emailed support with screenshots
- Half an hour later my PLs are all 1
I don’t know if this is related to something I did last night. After completing my Alternate workout indoor the adaptations didn’t take place right away. I went to the web browser to loaded it and was offered pending adaptations.
*CONTEXT
I am tinkering to find where my VO2 level should be right now since after increasing my FTP 3% manually my VO2 didn’t move down at all from 6.3 So I am trying to find where I should have been to avoid crushing myself. I am slowly getting myself back up to that level now from the standard (3.X) starting point and have not found the workouts to be too hard yet we will see what happens at the end of this week.
I’m doing the polarised plans, the VO2max progression in the mid volume 8 week plan (categorisation in parentheses) goes:
Nevado - 5.4 (breakthrough)
Ancohuma - 6.5 (skipped, was away)
Cayambe - 6.9 (breakthrough)
Churup - 7.5 (productive)
Piscani - 8.8 but I subbed it out for Sierra+2 - 9.0 (stretch)
@Joelrivera @JoeX and any other multisport athletes.
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Do you follow the stock TR Run/Swim?
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Have you shifted your hard interval runs? I am looking at moving the VO2 Max run to later in the week to get the most out of it.
I do follow the running Wo, but not the swimming.
I don’t change the run vo2max Wo (usually Wednesdays for me), but have swap the weekend schedule and have done LR on Saturdays…
Swim, the main set guides me but not the wu or drills, and I’m limited to 45mins.
Run, I’m using Garmin Coach so will align the easy runs with TRs base runs, long runs or brick runs, and speed work to speed work, tempo to tempo.
My whole week is arranged the way I want to train which means hard swim and bike Monday, SBR on Tue, Thu, Fri, and long run on Sunday.
You might want to check out the Ironman or Short Course threads as this isn’t really Beta related though.
Interesting thought, I wonder if they will/should be spacing the Ramp/FTP testing a bit further. Or perhaps, have AT adapt a test to a workout if athletes haven’t reached X-level in whatever zone relative to the plan.
I kind of wonder if we’re better off training to a higher Level at an FTP than constantly increasing FTP but only being able to do low level workouts.
(This isn’t directed at you PB, but inspired by your post about the build time between testing)
I suspect that plenty of people - particularly those who’ve trained for a while and who normally see only (very) modest FTP improvements at best - will behave so as to make what you suggest happen anyway, ie. by performing tests less frequently than their plan schedule states, and perhaps much less frequently or hardly at all:
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They’ll already have a visible metric (their PLs) showing them that they they’re progressing, so a higher FTP number won’t seem as big a “reward” as it did previously prior to AT
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They’ll avoid the “risk” following an FTP increase of AT lowering their PLs too much (conservatively overshooting) with them then “wasting time” on what feel like too-easy workouts until the levels adjust upwards (plenty of anecdotes on here re this issue)
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By letting their PLs progress slowly higher they’ll potentially be exposed to novel workouts they won’t have seen before, perhaps keeping things fresher feeling than if they were to potentially revisit lower level workouts following an FTP rise and PL reset
I’m not saying that people should do that, just that I suspect plenty of people will - particularly those who feel they’ve got a good handle on their FTP number without needing a test protocol to confirm it back to them.
I completely agree, and that’s kind of what I’m getting at.
For me, I’ve really gotten a better handle of what FTP is, and what my FTP really is, and I seem to be getting much more value out of training for longer at a more accurate FTP than constantly pushing what my FTP could be. Obviously I want my FTP to continue to grow, and that means increasing the intensity, and monitoring it via some form of testing/benchmark workout. I think this (with AT) is another great method for preventing overtraining.
Great comments. Funnily enough, it hadn’t occurred to me to just skip the test. ![]()
Just a query for the more ‘knowledgable’ people on this thread; is the following pretty normal for AT … ?
Just about to finish ‘General Build’ low volume and have really enjoyed it. It’s my first time trying general build as opposed to short power etc. Over the 8 weeks of work I have swapped out four of the longer weekend rides for higher TSS outdoor sessions (200k ride 9 days ago as an example) but have nailed all bar 1 workout (failed midway through last interval of a multiple interval threshold workout).
I’ve felt pretty good doing this programme - and put in my usual extra ‘rest’ period to account for being an older rider (coming up 50) who recognises recovery can be slower sometimes.
Anyway - I’ve noticed the AT Beta has bumped my levels up significantly on both VO2Max and Threshold (from around 5 on VO2Max to the numbers in the screen grab below by way of example).
My question is, is this normal?
I’m concerned that my next training block might end up being too challenging if my FTP is ‘bumped’ by the spike in shorter duration power, as historically I’ve found my endurance is my weakest attribute. I suspect I’m just second guessing the system and should just trust in the process but still have a nagging doubt the AT will start me off with a level I cannot cope with.
My next block (after a week’s holiday in Devon - definitely taking my bike
) is going to be more ‘build’ as I have no event to focus on, via a speciality block and don’t fancy returning to base - so am thinking Sustained Power Build to target my endurance more.
I guess doing the ramp test again will re-baseline things, but I’m curious as to how the AT actually works in this scenario - I’m not a tech geek guy so admittedly struggle to wrap my head around how it is supposed to operate.
Any steer gratefully appreciated.
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Are you saying AT bumped your PL for VO2 to 7.6 without you having done a workout that high?

