Main Question:
If one’s outdoor performance is chronicly low relative to their indoor performance, should outdoor rides be removed from the data set for AI FTP?
Context:
My wife (TR account, pedwar) is 69 and has been on TR for nearly 2 years. She had made good progress, but the progress curve is tipping towards flat. That might be expected at her age and training history.
However, I’m also curious whether AI FTP is being mis-led by her outdoor rides given we’re on MTB which drastically ups her cognitive load, nerves, etc. As such, she’s always regulating her effort to keep things in reserve.
Her last few rounds of AI FTP updates have moved her from 96W, to 96W, to 97W.
If the conservative approach to outdoor efforts might be telling AI FTP that she’s not progressing, would it be worthwhile to remove outdoor rides from the calculation of her AI FTP?
Equipment:
Indoor is a Tacx Neo 2T with Specialized Vita
Outdoor:
NGEco Power meter on Giant Trance Dual Squish
In short, the outdoor rides your wife is doing don’t need to be removed from the AI FTP Detection as there is an extensive data set that’s being calculated and these won’t necessarily drive AI FTP Detection to think she’s not improving.
In these cases, it is best to look at the Difficulty Level of the structured indoor workouts and how hard they are feeling at the current FTP level.
For example, her last workout Glassy -1 a Sweet Spot 2.7 was meant to be a Productive workout. Productive workouts are just above your Progression Level. They’re great for consistency, maintaining the balance between growing your fitness and not overloading yourself with too much fatigue.
From the Survey Response, “Moderate” it sounds like her FTP is in accordance as to how difficult the workout should have felt at that zone level. If that workout would have been duper easy, then we’d know her FTP is probably set too low. I see she’s due for a Threshold workout today, let’s see how that one feels!
From looking at your wife’s account and past Survey Responses, I am pretty confident that she’s at the correct FTP. It’s also worth noting that as she completes workouts, her Progression Levels will change, and these will drive future workout adaptations that are more real-time representation of your fitness and ability to express your FTP across each training zone.
