AI FTP Down, but near the end of levels

[sjcieply]

These are my levels at a declared FTP of 269, based on what trainer road gave when it switched to the new system:

After 2 months of training on this FTP, the AI FTP detection keeps going down, suggesting an FTP of 257. While FTP in and of itself isn’t really an issue as there’s a lot of scaling within this range, my issue here is that when coming out of a recovery week (and AI FTP detection time), I’m now at the end of the available scale of workouts. I have some workouts starting at level 12, and others that need to be extended because there isn’t a level available. Everything is labeled ‘moderate’ and not ‘hard’. My “endurance” rides now sit around the upper end of zone 1 heart rate. Despite this, my FTP keeps going down, despite clear evidence that it’s not. All my workouts are outside.

While I don’t really like FTP as a be all and end all, the issue here is that it’s affecting my available workouts. I’m getting close to the end of what kinds of workouts that I can do given this stated FTP. Should I just increase my FTP manually and go from there?

[spinnnout]

Contacted support@ ? Feels like a bug in your data somewhere…

[Torneng]

Can you share some screenshots of you last weeks of training? Seeing what you have actually done lately can help people on here make informed guesses as to what’s up.

[sjcieply]

This would be the Monday:

A Wednesday light threshold session (way too easy)

A moderate anaerobic on-off set:

There’s also several endurance rides mixed in.

With the exception of the Monday ride, which was a reach, everything else I sticked to the top end of the range.

[Torneng]

I was thinking of screenshots of some weeks from your calendar. Sorry, should have been more specific.

[sjcieply]

Outside rides just give a map, which isn’t that useful, but here you go. I use my bike for transportation as well, so many of the “extra” rides are just there to track TSS. The first event is the workout.

[Torneng]

Seeing what level workouts you are doing, how you rate them and how the AI reacts (increasing/decreasing levels and yellow days) is probably the best way for us to get an understanding of what’s going on.

Have the weeks leading up to this one been similar?

[sjcieply]

Somewhat, the first week of the block and the 3-week block prior was mostly VO2 max, with a mix of Suprathresholds, On-offs, and float sets. In the past 2 weeks I’ve added more threshold and anaerobic work more recently. It’s been a fairly consistent rise each week.

These are the two weeks prior:

[Torneng]

The new AIFTP seems to be more closely tied to threshold performance. The fact that you haven’t done that much threshold, and that the WL you have been doing is “relatively” low and within what the AI would expect for a correctly set AIFTP, makes me think this might be the root of your problems.

Your levels might make the AI regard you as an athlete with exceptional abilities within VO2Max and Anaerobic, but an correctly set AIFTP.

My best advise would be to do a hard threshold session.

[sjcieply]

Which is odd, because it’s recommending me level 10 threshold sessions in the next couple weeks. Guess I’ll just try that out and see how it goes.

[G7NXX]

Id defo be contacting support.

You shouldnt be getting 10+ workouts (assuming you are still training at that level recently and not decaying) yet still have a falling FTP.

All of mine are around 3-5 with Tempo peaking at 7.2, yet being told im due a 10W increase, after just being given a 5W increase only last week.

I didnt know numbers above 10 existed for workouts lol

[Torneng]

@sjcieply

Which is odd, because it’s recommending me level 10 threshold sessions in the next couple weeks. Guess I’ll just try that out and see how it goes.

There was a similar example yesterday:

AI FTP - Not Accurate For Those Training Outside

Yes very valid point, yet again it makes no sense.. The long and short of it is i have been completing training either as or over what has been prescribed, i have been marking key session as easy when doing them and yet time after time AI FTP wants to continue to decrease FTP. Feels to me like there has been a shift from rider focus and looking at the data and what’s happening there to gamifying the AI. This is a easy mistake to make with AI…

The AI seems to dissociate between what it knows you can do, and what it thinks your AIFTP should be based on your recent training. Keeping your AIFTP artificially low and then turning around and serving you workouts at the very top of the WL range does indeed seem strange.

In my mind this should be considered unintentional behavior, but @eddie didn’t seem as convinced in the other thread.

[eddie]

@sjcieply I’m taking a look now. Do you mind if I share what I find?

@Torneng, It’s not that I’m not convinced; it’s just hard to make an initial call when I don’t have much data that says there is something wrong.

In these situations, it’s tricky and sort of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario.

Is the athlete’s FTP lower than expected because they don’t have any recent power records to prove otherwise, or do they not have any power records to show their potential, and therefore their FTP is low?

My goal in both cases is to work with each athlete as well as our team here at TR to try to figure out if there’s an issue and what it is.

In the other case that you’re referencing, I asked the athlete to use Workout Alternates to pick a workout from the “Harder” section to see if they could get a workout that felt more appropriate to their abilities. Doing that helps to get us data that better represents their fitness.

If we then know that they should be getting harder workouts, we can hopefully figure out why they weren’t getting them in the first place.

Troubleshooting has a step-by-step process, and it’s better to prove things along the way than make assumptions.

@sjcieply, if we don’t find a solution before your next hard workout, could you try using Workout Alternates to find a harder workout?

[sjcieply]

Feel free to share. Fortunately, I’m currently on my deload week, so there’s time till my next hard workout, Monday. I have been using the alternatives as well, however, in some cases there just aren’t more workouts. I guess I could just aim for having more watts above target, which is what I’ve been doing in the past.

[eddie]

Alright, I’ve taken a closer look here and have chatted with a few others on the team as well.

I’ve got a question on how you’ve historically answered post-workout surveys. When was the last time you had a workout that felt hard?

Also, when you use Workout Alternates, are you rating them as they felt, or are you considering the original prescribed workout in your rating?

I think that when an athlete generally only rates workouts as easy or moderate, the system gets a bit confused as to what would feel hard, very hard, etc. for them. In your case, you’re missing a lot of RPE responses for bike activities too. I’d try to go back and fill those in to the best of your abilities.

There’s definitely some conficting info mixed in as well. One day you did 309 for 20 minutes and rated it as “Max Effort,” but didn’t tell us why (illness, fatigue, intensity, etc.), when the week before you did 1hr40mins with an NP of 307 and rated it as “Easy.”

If there are any RPE survey responses that you think aren’t accurate regarding the work that you actualy did (not the prescribed work), going back and changing those definitely will help.

Otherwise, we just need to find you a hard workout or to that will help the system realize what feels hard to you. From there it will have a better idea as to what to prescribe.

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If it helps, here is how we recommend rating workouts:

How to Rate Your Effort

1. Easy
   This ride felt easy and non-taxing, requiring little effort or focus. You could repeat the ride and pass it without issue.

2. Moderate
   This ride was somewhat comfortable but required some focus to complete. You felt a little challenged but had confidence that you could finish. If the ride had an additional set of intervals, you could complete it.

3. Hard
   This ride required effort and focus and was challenging to complete. It felt tough, and you looked forward to the ride ending. If there were an additional set of intervals, you could have done it with significant focus.

4. Very Hard
   This ride was very difficult to complete, and it tested you. If there were one more set of intervals, you wouldn’t have been able to complete it.

5. Maximum Effort
   This ride was extremely difficult. It pushed you well beyond your abilities and took a massive amount of energy and focus to complete. You’ll feel like you barely made it to the end of this ride, and that you had to pull out every mental trick in the book to finish. If you had to pause during a workout to catch your breath or adjust the power demand down, the workout was likely a max effort.

• If a workout was a maximum effort because of external factors like illness, poor sleep, or fatigue, be sure to add that detail in the follow-up survey.

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Also, here is the link to the Help Center article where there is more info about post-workout surveys, struggle surveys, etc.

Let me know if this helps.

I’d like to ensure that you’re on a good path forward, so lets stay in touch and work through this together as you wrap up your rest week.

[sjcieply]

My last hard workout was this 9.9 VO2 Max workout. Basically, I rated that “very hard”. I was able to do almost all of the sets, but my legs gave out almost exactly at the last set. (I might note that I did 11 and not 12 sets as well, but that was more because I accidently bumped the lap button on one).

TrainerRoad

The one several weeks ago that I rated very hard turned out to be mostly because of some sort of illness which raised my resting heart rate. I was basically maxing out my heart rate in intervals, which I never do. I only realized that a couple days after riding. When I recovered, that sort of intensity felt easy. For some reason I sometimes don’t get a prompt for why it’s hard.

I’d say that many of the workouts that I’ve been doing end up being in the moderate/hard level, but only because I try to make the top end of the lap power range my goal, rather than trying to hit the mid.

[sjcieply]

A large portion of my bike activities are just ports over from my Garmin and are commutes or casual rides. I always mark my actual scheduled workouts, both the hard ones and the endurance rides. Is there any use for predictive power from trainer road to tell if I felt my ride to the grocery store was hard (it never is)?

[BenB]

Your calendar looks private right now, can you double check you have it set to public?

[sjcieply]

It’s been updated

[BenB]

I didn’t dig too deep, but I think I agree with Eddie wondering about how you rate your workouts. For example:

You rated this one Easy and set all time power PRs during it? It’s hard to tell from the snip but it looks like the durations are getting shorter and HR slightly down each interval?