I will preface this by saying I’m new to structured training. Started cycling in August of 2025, and started with Trainer Road 2 weeks ago.
My initial ramp test gave me an FTP of 212. I thought this was a touch high (for what I thought I could sustain based on previous rides on my trainer), but decided to stick with it. I completed 2 weeks of the General Base Mid Volume and was mostly given “workout levels” from 2.0 - 3.1. I’ve rated most of my threshold and sweet spot workouts as “very hard” or 4/5, as they’ve been fairly tough.
I reached 10 workouts today and decided to try the AI FTP detection, thinking that I would stay the same or have a very small boost.
I ran the AI FTP detection and it gave me 227, which was very surprising to me. Does this seem within the realm of normal? During my last workout, my HRM stopped working halfway, and so one thought I had is that it interpreted my HRM not being there to having a HR of “0” during that time, and thus translated that into a very easy workout for me. The average heart rate listed on TR does still say 156 though (which is what is was when my HRM was on).
Any insight into whether this seems normal would be appreciated. I feel like my new FTP might make my new workouts too challenging, despite the fact that it’s lowered my workout levels for my upcoming sessions.
Try out the bump and see! The feeling between them may still be very hard, but are probably achievable. Sort of learn some suffering is ok and part of the progression.
You could change your ftp manually. Or you could try a couple of workouts and see. I have said no to aiftp increases before because I thought I wasn’t ready.
10 workouts is not a lot of data to give the algorithm to work from.
I would do an “old school” 20 minute FTP test. They are very hard and pretty horrible but it gives you a good idea of what your body and your mind can actually do. It’s also a solid workout.
AI FTP is a great thing, for sure, if only because it means that you never have to suffer those 20 minutes ever again. But it’s also useful to calibrate your own body and not to rely on shortcuts.
If the OP starts doing 20 minute tests, and does more than a couple, they’ll get a feel and then they’d have a good gauge of their effective 20 minute power. That’s a bigger lift (starting to add 20 minute tests to your schedule, and executing them properly) and still won’t be more accurate to gauge your FTP than 2x8 or especially AIFTP, but if they were willing to then use that FTP (95% of the 20m) as the baseline for their zones, ok, but then why use AIFTP at all?
I’d recommend just using the AIFTP they got and rating the workouts. If it’s too high, the system will adjust. So as to not “lose” training sessions in the event the targets are too high, you can adjust the target wattage down, if need be.
I agree that even your ramp test was a bit high. I’m thinking you’re closer to 209 right now.
It seems like you definetly know yourself well!
I’d manually bump yourself back down to see how that feels. Let me know if that works for you and we can dig into why we gave you a boost a couple days ago..
Appreciate the response! I’ll bump it back down to 212 and go from there as I was feeling pretty good with that before. I’d be curious to know what caused the bump and whether my heart rate monitor cutting out halfway through a threshold session may have contributed.
@eddie I feel like mine was bumped higher than it should be. Could be wrong though. I was at 301-then after a few weeks “off” I was bumped down to 298, and then AI FTP had me jump to 320.
While I’ve only done 2 rides (1 endurance on Monday, and SS today), the endurance rides it seems actually accurate. The SS ride I did today was quite hard. currently dreading Saturday
Looking at watts alone, if you were able to knock out Warlow last Saturday and it felt “Hard,” then I think you should be in a good place for Wheel -2 this week. It’s totally okay for it to feel a bit harder than last week’s workout, but it it ends up feeling too hard, let me know!
I’ve done a little more digging on the back end as wel and I think 320 is a decent place for you. It opens up more for you to work up to when training with TR. Since we’d rather only upadate your FTP once a month, I think this is a good move for you now.
Yes, it did, but again, if you look at the structure of the workouts an the power targets for each given your FTP at the time you did and will do them, I think it’s certainly doable.
I was stoked to see that I had the new features as of yesterday. I was surprised that AI FTP gave me a healthy increase in my previous FTP suggestion from 258 to 275 in less than a month.
Since I just did my first set of OU’s earlier in the morning and rated it hard, I rejected the new FTP suggestion. @eddie Can you look into my recent workouts and tell me if the suggestion is off the mark?
Also, I was stoked to see a predicted FTP of 284 at the end of my block which is damn near my best recent power output in the last couple of years. Pschologically, it’s motivating and I’m already more willing to follow the plan to a T. I’m also curious as to how close I will get to the predicted power output next month.
As time goes on I’m curious to see how closely these predictions align with actual results.
This is pretty wild. I was checking my TR ap earlier after I had added some available training time to my plan and I didn’t see the predicted FTP. I logged onto my laptop just now and I was prompted with an AI update which is weird because I was a couple of weeks as of yesterday. I went ahead and accepted the new suggested FTP of 281. This is coming from a previous FTP of 258.
As expected, my new workouts are a notch or two up in intensity from what I had on the plan. I’m rolling with it, because for the first time in many years I may be withing reach of the elusive 300 watt mark. @eddie Personally, I think updated FTP is high as is the predicted FTP so if you can look under the hood that would be great. I’m still going to follow the plan and let it adapt and do it’s thing. I’m curious as to what your feedback would be.
FTP detection went to 277 from 253, a 9% increase. Seems too high so i might manually decrease the wo intensity like2/3% to keep things managable. Is that ok or it’ll srew the new feature up?
I asked the same in another thread. W/c 16th Feb I have a 4 week period before I go on holiday for a week, and then when I get back I’ll start a new plan.
I’m going to use the 4 week period to do some FAFO experiments. I’ll add this to the list.
