I’m just about a month into my trainer road journey. Loving it so far. But the AI FTP seems off (low) for me.
When I started TR a month ago, I sync’d my Strava history. AI FTP recommended 257W. I felt that was low, but chalked it up to the Strava data which is mostly solo and group outdoor rides. I did a manual over ride of the ftp to 285 and started an 8 week “getting faster for group rides” program.
Now 4 weeks in and have done all the rides at 285 ftp without any issues. Filled in all the RPEs. All my RPEs aligned well to the predictions… easies were easy, moderates moderate, etc. Also did quite a few outdoor rides. One recent one I entered as moderate RPE that had a 60m NP of 264W. I was expecting the AI FTP update to be at 285w or maybe a few watts higher.
Just got my updated AI ftp and it’s now 258. This seems again too low.
Is Trainer road still catching up to me and building data? Should I override it again? Adjust workouts harder and let it ride another month?
(Edited for clarity on my recent outdoor rides, and to correct a typo on the ftp)
You will find a lot of information in other threads here about AI FTP . Issues and solutions. Best to read them rather than start another thread on the same subject.
Good reading
I read through a bunch of threads before I posted, but didn’t see one that spoke to my situation. I’m struggling to understand why it would “detect” an ftp that is lower than a recent 60 minute net power wattage that was rated moderate.
Don’t forget that AIFTP isn’t meant to be what you traditionally thought of as FTP. It’s the number that TR thinks will make you rate a L3 Threshold workout as “hard”.
Taking what I said before, you’ll see that at your AIFTP it has you as TH 3.3, which would mean it’s meeting the objective of TRAIFTP, not what you traditionally thought of as FTP. You have 8 weeks of Specialty phase on your calendar. Is this correct? I ask because typically, Specialty doesn’t focus on TH workouts, and I can’t find any of them on your calendar for several weeks, so I’m not surprised if the AI has your number dropping. It doesn’t really have anything to compare it to.
You do a lot of outdoor rides, sometimes multiple of them per day. We’ve seen others say this causes issues for them. Also, you have many with no RPE rating, although it seems you’ve been adding one to more recent efforts
We know outdoor rides have a bug, and traditionally, TR has had issues with unstructured outdoor riding. We’re not fully clear on what that bug is, but it’s highly likely it’s impacting you
Very helpful reply, thank you! Yes, it looks like it has me at 8 weeks of “specialty” with no threshold workouts scheduled.
I guess my main question is, will TR still do a good job of workout planning and improving my fitness regardless? If I do a ramp test, will that make the training plan more effective for me?
I’ve seen other posts where people say their ramp test results don’t seem to impact TRAIFTP. That doesn’t mean it’s true for everyone, but that’s what I’ve personally seen. Again, remember that no matter what you do on the bike, it’s not going to be aiming to give you what you traditionally thought of as an FTP. It’s going to stick to that TH L3 objective. If you do a 3.3 TH workout and feel it’s “hard” at your TRAIFTP, no matter what you think (or test and prove) your FTP is, TRAIFTP is meeting its known objective. If you think that TH 3.3 is “moderate”, or “easy”, and it doesn’t change, that’s a whole different thing.
Interesting. So, for the effectiveness of all my other non-threshold training - VO2 Max, endurance, etc. - is it important that I have an accurate AIFTP? Or does trainer road do fancy AI stuff to calibrate everything (like give me harder endurance workouts) so that it doesn’t really matter?
Mainly, trying to understand if my AIFTP is too low, if that leads to a less effective training plan?
The Ai will try to give you similar workouts regardless of what you have your FTP set at. That’s why, when you increased your FTP, you got a bunch of very low level workouts. And now, with a lower FTP, your upcoming workouts are much higher level.
If you want to override the Ai FTP, you usually have to override the workout selection as well to get the most out of your training.
Just to add, my personal experience is that if you manually set it lower, you will get longer but lower intervals. If you manually set it higher, you will get shorter but sharper intervals.
This is very helpful. Yes, have definitely noticed my workout levels have jumped up a lot after “accepting” the new lower AI FTP. Like my next workout is now an Anaerobic 8.5 even though I’m only at 4.4 currently. I was debating doing a ramp test tomorrow. But if it doesn’t really change my training that much either way, then I won’t bother.
I’ve just taken a look at your account, and I think there are some things I can share that might clarify what’s going on here. Do you mind if I share some of your training details here in this thread?
Yes, if you can genuinely complete 2 x 20min at 105% of FTP without it being extremely difficult, your FTP is probably set too low. Doing 20 min at 105% should be quite hard. Doing it twice should be very demanding. If these feel controlled and repeatable, I’d suspect your FTP is higher than it’s currently set to.
