Another 2.5% FTP increase after 1 week of a 2.5% FTP increase

I know the title makes no sense, but I had a 2.5% increase last week. I had 9.8 sweetspot today and it suggested I run an AI FTP detection and it went up again after a week! Shirley this is a bug?

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It is not. Completing sweetspot workouts with that high of a PL automatically triggers a FTP update.

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Seems appropriate per prior TR rep comments. But the best option whenever in doubt is to email support@trainerroad.com for review and explanation.

this automatic increase for high progression level just shows me how little TR actually understands about FTP (in my opinion, and in the opinion of others I highly respect). I have very recently done sweet spot at 92% for 90mins and even 2x50 average 91% for both efforts (it was more like 93 + 89) and my FTP did not change. It’s a bad assumption to make and it drives me crazy that TR is basically trying to brute force users into higher FTPs for the sake of “progress”

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I know that, but my concern is my FTP has increased by 2.5% in a week?

Depends partly on your definition of FTP. If your definition is 40-60 minute power, then yes it’s possible that you can do those sessions and your FTP doesn’t change.

The TR definition of FTP is broader I think, as effectively they’re using it as a number to set workout intensity across every workout type. In that context, if you’re approaching progression level 10 in one of the zones then it makes total sense to increase FTP so the you don’t run out of productive workouts.

Whether or not you agree with their definition is a different point. The challenge is balancing simplicity for the user vs individual variation and complexity. Sufferfest/Systm moved away from a single measure of fitness to have 4DP instead. TR chose to keep “FTP” as a single measure and then use Progression Levels to allow for individual variation. That works within their system, I’m not sure it’s really FTP (I wouldn’t use AIFTP for pacing a TT for example) but it works for training.

Other context I guess is how hard those sessions were for you. I know I am capable of those sort of numbers myself but I’ve only ever produced them in race situations (long TTs or road races where I’ve got in a small early break) where I’m fresh and highly motivated, for me at least they’re not efforts I would want to replicate in training. So if I was able to complete those sort of efforts as TR workouts and mark them as anything other than “very hard” or “all out” then that probably would be a good sign that my FTP had gone up a bit.

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they got the data bro. all the data bro. every second of power data bro. just more data bro and the scientists will be out of a job bro

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i know that’s the reason, but it’s dumb

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@James_Sanderson if you were able to knock out Redondo +4 and it was only a “moderate” effort, I’d say that your FTP definitely needs a boost!

This is also shown through your recent crushing of Carpathian Peak +2, and Gawler which tells me that you’re performing really well in Threshold and VO2 Max workouts as well – not just Sweet Spot. Nice work!! :muscle:

@hubcyclist if you’re going to specifically train TTE in Sweet Spot, it’s no problem to decline the bump in FTP. Most of our athletes’ goals aren’t to do 92% of FTP for 90 minutes.

You could apply the same principles to Threshold TTE, but again, that’s not most athletes’ goals, and it’s why we have things built out like they currently are.

As mentioned before, there is a time and a place to focus on building up Progression Levels for most athletes and we have that built into our Specialty phases.

Feel free to continue on down that road, but the OP definitely needed a new FTP! :slightly_smiling_face:

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eddie, I believe everyone should train TTE in sweet spot, regardless of what they are training for. One problem I see with TR is it’s hyper focus on specific race disciplines, when race specific stuff probably only needs to be a thing for a lot of people for a couple of blocks, and a lot should be devoted to TTE building and VO2 building

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If anything I would be more interested in why your FTP wasn’t higher coming in to last week. It hasn’t increased 2.5% in one week, the FTP you were given last week was wrong.

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Well thank you, we’ll see how my threshold goes tomorrow :slight_smile:

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