Ok, I’m confused. Earlier today, but after my workout, I received a number of proposed plan adaptations, which I accepted.
This evening, though, opened the app and there was another, new, proposed adaptation, even though I haven’t done any additional activities since the earlier adaptation proposals.
Any insights as to what causes this? Or why this adaptation wasn’t part of the adaptations proposed earlier today? It seems very strange to me, especially since it’s a large downward adjustment (Endurance 5.6 to Endurance 2.1), and comes a day after one of the adaptations earlier in the day significantly reduced the Threshold workout on the day before this (but no yellow or red days showing).
FWIW, I don’t plan to accept any more adaptations until Monday, which is my day to do my AI FTP update, as well as run the ‘Check Volume’ utility, which are both likely to change a bunch of things, anyway.
Yeah, they’ve talked about this a little bit on the podcast and frankly it all seems to come back to “the adaptations are mysterious and important”. I don’t get it either.
Similar here. It’s not at all clear what, why, or when. One basic question I have is if I follow the plan exactly as prescribed in ERG mode, why are there any? A couple of months ago I didn’t do any of the plan’s workouts for two week and just did unstructured outdoor rides. After that I got huge positive adaptations, and according to TR, the plan adaptations are no supposed to take into account unstructured rides.
By looking at your Calendar, the first adaptations (number of proposed plan adaptations) come from completing your workout, as you mentioned.
Then the additional adaptation looks to come from the Specialty Phase getting unlocked.
Do you remember what day the Endurance workout fell? I am not seeing it now since it looks like you rebuilt the plan with the Check Volume feature.
@Saddlesaur TrainerRoads plans are not fixed; they evolve and change to meet your current fitness. Depending on how you progress through your training and complete workouts, adaptations are meant to keep your training on track.
While unstructured rides don’t affect Progression Levels, they are taken into account for adaptations through our fatigue management system. That’s likely what you were experiencing. Or maybe the huge positive adaptations came from rebuilding the plan? I am happy to look into things if you can give me more info
@Caro.Gomez-Villafane the Endurance 5.6 to Endurance 2.1 workout change was made for this Wednesday, May 14. And, yes, I did perform a ‘Check Volume’ update this morning (I’ve been running that on the same days as I do my AI FTP updates, just to keep in sync, which also appears to have reduced the intensity of tomorrow’s Threshold workout. But I won’t question that one as much, since Threshold workouts seem to be my weak link. )
Related to my having run the ‘Check Volume’ function this morning (and having seen this in other posts): Why does the TR calendar update the start of the plan and/or current plan phase to the date of any changes made to the plan? I could see this making sense if events were moved around, but if all that is happening is a change in volume or training dates/times I feel like there plan and phase starts should stay the same, but it should be noted on the calendar that a volume change was made, similar to the notation for any FTP updates. Changing plan/phase start on the calendar leads to confusion with users, as all of the previous plan/phase start notations are removed.
@Caro.Gomez-Villafane ok, here’s one you might actually be able to look into: After having updated my FTP earlier today, AND running the Check Volume utility, AND accepting all adaptations, I suddenly have another pending adaptation this evening. And it’s another adaptation that further reduces my training load this week, after Tuesday and Wednesday were already reduced (and today was a rest day):
What’s going on here? Does the TR AI really think I’m that overtrained, after doing only the workouts that had been prescribed? I’m baffled, and a bit concerned, as my A event is now less than 2 months away.
@Caro.Gomez-Villafane and this morning the proposed adaptation I saw yesterday evening is gone, and no adaptations are proposed. This reminds me that a few days ago I had a proposed adaptation that showed up after I had already started that day’s workout, so I didn’t see it until after I was done. Something seems off.
I’ll take this feedback to the team. This is a visual thing with the plan start annotation when a plan is rebuilt but it does not mean that “Start Date” of the plan has changed.
Understood that it’s just a visual thing, but it’s also a ‘visual thing’ to be able to go backwards on the calendar to see where the various stages of a plan started, and all of that disappears after a plan change. (And, actually, if the plan is truly changed - event added, priority changed, dates changed, etc. - it might make sense to ‘start over’, but if it’s only a volume change my feeling is that none of that should be affected.)
I always make a note on my calendar for the plan start and the various phases so that even after I change the plan, usually by adding or deleting a C event, I can still see the original information as notes.
A few weeks ago I discussed this with another TR rep. It definitely was 2 weeks of nothing but unstructured outdoor rides with TSS and IF much higher than the plan workouts (associated with workouts identified as Solo Rides) follow by adaptations with big increass in TSS, IF and PL for subsequent plan workouts. Unfortunately, I had accepted those so there was no “before” to compare them to. In any case, since I was transition to outdoor riding with spring wx and didn’t yet understand how TR would work with that, I let my TR subscription lapse. I’ll check back and re-up sometime in the late fall.
And now that proposed (downward) adaptation is back, along with a few others.
In the grand scheme of things, if I don’t accept these adaptations (the first change wouldn’t be until Friday), and the next couple of days end up feeling ‘easy’ (today was a threshold workout - my nemesis), might there be new adaptations scaling things back up? And, if I skip the proposed adaptations, will TR just propose them again tomorrow?
If these Solo Rides that you were matching your unstructured rides to part of a plan, then I can see why you were getting adaptations as the ones you describe since they belong to a TR Workout, hence why they have instructions on how to tackle your Solo Ride so you’re able to hit the energy systems scheduled for that day by the plan.
That makes more sense than the previous discussion I had about this, and aligns more with how I thought it seemed to work. So with Solo Rides, do I get ‘credit’ as if I completed the workout or credit for the actual ride? If I’m going to do an unstructured outdoor ride, should I add a workout to the plan that I think is more in line with what I’m actually going to do wrt IF, TSS, and zone focus, or just associate the ride with an existing plan workout that will certainly be very different?
When changing a workout to outside, it is my understanding that TR assumes you executed that workout. TR has instructed not to do that unless the outside ride is actually the workout. Some months ago they introduced Solo Rides and Group Rides as a means of putting non-structured rides into the plan but I haven’t seen and explanation of how this works with respect to adaptations. TR instructs to change an existing workout in the plan to a Solo (or Group) ride and then associate the completed ride to that Solo ride. I’ve gotten conflicting info from TR on how this works and I’m looking for some clarifications.
Hey @NigelTufnel11 and @Saddlesaur I’m back with some updates! Please bear with me, as the devs are still actively looking into both of your accounts so as I have more info I will let you know.
@NigelTufnel11, TrainerRoad now looks beyond just Workout Levels, factoring in your fitness, recent training, and overall trends to pick the right workout for you on a given day, which could be leading to the levels you’re seeing. But I am having the team check over your account to make sure that the adaptations you are receiving are correct. @Saddlesaur, I did more digging, and what you are experiencing actually looks similar to an issue that was reported just a little bit ago and we’re bringing it back up with the team now.
And just to clarify (this was my mistake earlier): unstructured rides, including Solo and Group Rides should not impact your Progression Levels. However, they are factored into our fatigue management system, which can influence future adaptations in your plan.
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I’m back with some updates! Please bear with me, as the devs are still actively looking into both of your accounts so as I have more info I will let you know.