Adaptive Training - Progression Levels of Past Workouts and Future Planning

Power and time are abstracted into PL, as they are into TSS.

So at VO2Max of 7.0 it could be:

  • 12 minutes @ 124% in 2-minute chunks

or

  • 24 minutes @ 120% in 2-min chunks

or

  • 20 minutes at 120% in 2.5 minute chunks

or

  • 27 minutes at 118% in 3-minute chunks

As work interval increase from 2 to 3 minutes, you see a decrease in power, which intuitively makes sense. However for the 2 minute jobbers that is a pretty big jump in total time.

Overall looks reasonable. But is it? While my legs can handle the first one, from experience I don’t feel that way about the last one. The 2 minute jobbers are more anaerobic, while the 3 minute are more aerobic. For myself I don’t see much value in asking an algorithm to progress workouts, with TR plans I get it (and needed it years ago) but I’m starting with plans built around a different approach. And for a given athlete, how can you prove which does a better job of picking workouts? :man_shrugging:

Definitely see value in what TR has put out. No system is perfect and TR has put its best foot forward.

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I saw that in the release notes, so does that mean traditional base now works with AT?

I had completely missed that. It’s great news. Plan Builder insists on slotting in all 3 phases - base, build and specialty - into the available time, squeezing each phase too much for my use (which should be a ton of base and a bit of build). While this has the advantage of yielding shorter cycles with more frequent rest weeks, it does not give me what I need.

I’ll re-do my winter schedule now. Remains to see what will happen if/when I insert an extra rest week somewhere in a plan block.

See I agree with you here. I personally don’t follow this association that “any interval length between 115 and 125% is VO2” and think that there’s a fundamental flaw in how TR assigns VO2 workouts… Different topic for a different thread I guess… so it would be nice if AT reviewed custom workouts. I personally prefer 4-5 minutes VO2 intervals based on RPE and start hard to actually achieve VO2 max early in the interval and ignore power. If AT saw and assessed like a 5x5 VO2 workout done this way, I wonder how it would be affected.

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How do you plan to do that without the Push/Pull functions that were removed?

Ah - another set of news then… not as good as the other ones. Did TR hire some Zwift engineers or something?

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Yeah, I’m not thrilled either. Was never stated, but I presume they were removed with some relation to AT.

Really sucks! I would like to know why that was done, and if they plan to bring them back. Any chance @IvyAudrain can get us some info?

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This is something that I don’t think any of the respondents, including myself, have picked up on.

AT isn’t looking at highly specific progressions such as this so even if you’ve sifted through all the similar existing TR workouts and done them so AT can account for them it’s not going to recognise that’s what your intention is. AT’s starting points are one of the existing plans as that’s a much smaller problem to solve than trying to be completely generic.

@mcneese.chad - I hadn’t noticed the push/pull functionality had gone until I read your above post. I suppose the push functionality has been replaced by being able to add “annotations” which include holidays and illness. Not obvious though and has gone from being part of an easily overlooked menu to a slightly oddly named sub-section of a dialog that most people probably only find by accident. I appreciate UI design when trying to fit in multiple features isn’t easy but what was an edit to a whole week is now accessed through a “daily” edit dialog box. It’s a bit like putting tinned tomatoes in the vegetable aisle in the supermarket!

From the team:
The recommended way to insert an extra rest week is to add a week of ‘vacation’, and now with Adaptive Training, the plan will adapt from there. We removed push/pull functionality because it doesn’t make sense in the context of PlanBuilder, where the end week of your plan is anchored by an event, so pushing out a week isn’t a good experience since your plan would then spill past your ending event.

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I was wondering how to do this without the push/pull, had not thought to click on the annotations link assuming it was to add notes/comments

It really isn’t obvious is it?

I get that, but since AT now apparently works with individual plans being added into the calendar, it does make sense in that context.

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Agreed. Makes sense to block or remove those tools from PB, but they make way more sense to have for ad hoc plan use.

Just to be clear on the use case for some of us old farts: I don’t have events. I normally do an extended base + build cycle over the fall/winter/early spring, and leave it at that. Apparently Plan Builder insists on me doing a specialty phase and pegging myself to an end date, both of which are useless for me. And I sometimes insert either an extra rest week, or an entirely off week - and the push function has been great for that. And sometimes I’m sick or hurt or traveling for business so I also push the schedule out. And the end date moves, and I’m fine with that.

So - how do I do that while benefiting from AT?

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In Plan Builder select beginner from the experience step, that will give you more Base and Build rather than Speciality. If you don’t add an event then PB will by default give you a full year of workouts.

Then to push things out (this is on the desktop) in the calendar, click on a day in the week you wish to push. From the dialog, select “Add an annotation” and then fill out the ensuing form. Your plan will be modified and AT will do its thing.

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I thought that’s what I did, but I ended up with a base-build-specialty sequence. I’ll maybe try again once I finish base 1.

Does anyone know if the annotations method also work in a plan added directly to the calendar without using Plan Builder?

On the back of this topic, are levels automatically set to 1.0 for athletes new to TR? I’ve recently joined TR and will be starting my plan next week. When I look at my calendar, it shows all post-ramp test workouts as ‘Adaptation Pending’ with all workouts due to be downgraded to level 1.0. I’m guessing this is correctn, and as i complete workouts and answer the surveys, these future workouts might again have suggested adaptations? Thanks

Exactly! Go ahead and knock out that Ramp Test, and as you continue to complete workouts, you’ll receive more adaptations as you go!
As always, if you feel something is amiss with your adaptations or progression levels, check in with support@trainerroad.com so they can take a look and make sure everything is accounted for appropriately!

Thanks Ivy :+1:t2:
So, I don’t need to worry that all my workouts are due to be adapted down to 1.0? I should just accept them and crack on with the workouts? Cheers