+1
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While I also believe this, it’s not good enough. How long is eventually? It seems to be at least one block, which is probably 20% or more of many people’s presesasons and it’s totally unclear if or when in the year is the ‘going too hard in January’ thing going to bite the athlete
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Yeah, I don’t understand why it would need time to calibrate when most of us already have a deep history of doing the workouts. The data is already there. The model is what changed, not the data fed into the model.
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Trust me, I completely agree. That was more of a cold observation.
After ending this week, I’ll be honest that I’m unhappy. My legs are very sore, I got less time in zone for my actual sweet spot work that I was progressing before joining, and my volume is down because everything was just too hard.
I am just keeping optimistic, hoping that when this thing is dialed in it’ll be awesome. But I won’t repeat a too hard cycle like this again. I don’t know how productive this week actually was..
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I was in a closed beta from September which included the AI sim window etc but with the old AIFTP detection…. it was awesome 
I mean… I still think it’s awesome…but I was less tired with the old FTP value.
Remember we can just lower the FTP though if we want 
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That’s where I’m leaning… I just want to give it some chance and see if I can witness its master plan. I’m hoping there’s something more than just getting my FTP to go down per the projection. After all, I could have told it that from the beginning and skipped all the discomfort.
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Same here. Kept the AI value through the endurance week, will use it for today’s sweet spot, as it looks alright, but will lower it right after, because my OUs for Thursday are unrealistic.
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Update for myself after finishing my 3 week block with too high of an AIFTP, and now going into my rest week. The AIFTP was going to bump me this week from 296-303, but I have since lowered my FTP manually to 288 to be more in line with where the old predicted FTP would have been. The workouts look better straight away. I also deleted my plan as it wanted me to enter a build phase, and I’ve gone back to more base - way too early for me to enter build.
I’m curious to see how it adapts from here.
My first SS workout will be a 6.1 (system thinks it will be hard, but I think it will be more moderate), and first thresh will be a 4.1 (system thinks it will be hard, it it should be right in that zone for me).
I personally think SS should be mostly moderate and thresh right at hard, but not more.
Edit: I should also mention, it does seem a little odd that the first thresh level is 4.1, but I completed a level 4.4 last week with an 8w higher FTP. I assume it will ramp up over the 3 weeks though.
From what I can see, this isn’t a master plan thing as much as a byproduct of normalizing around the level 3 workouts. With the higher FTP, it requires shorter interval durations to end up with an appropriately hard workout. That also comes with a bias towards more intensity. None of that is inherently bad or wrong, but I think it’s an approach that is driven by the time-crunched bias that probably makes sense for a large number of TR users.
I debated keeping my higher AIFTP for a bit, but I didn’t like what I saw for sweet spot or O/U’s. Yes, the O/U’s looked more “wrong” since the unders where just above my previously set FTP. But the sweet spot was still sub-optimal for what I want out of sweet spot. When I had my FTP set at the higher AIFTP value, the proposed sweet spot was dropping me down to a small number of 10 minute intervals at wattage approaching my physiological threshold. Basically just a low threshold workout with minimal time in zone instead of long sweet spot. It would have been an appropriately hard workout, but flying in the face of why I’m doing sweet spot (I want lots of time in zone at an intensity below threshold that doesn’t leave me wrecked). Going from 90’ time in zone with long intervals to under 60’ in zone with short intervals isn’t the direction I’m looking to go in m first block of base.
The over/unders are really easy to see. Here’s the infamous Cloudripper -2 that a lot of people have mentioned. It’s the only workout I actually tried with my inflated AIFTP. 3x9’s with the unders at or slightly above FTP. Totally doable with the short intervals and the overs were only 1’ each, but this isn’t what I’m looking for during base. As you can see in the workout view, there is basically no recovery on the unders with the HR drifting up in each interval. They throw in a little section of tempo in after the intervals because they have to fill the time up with something since there is only 27’ worth of interval time.
Contrast that with my over/under workout from this week after I manually bumped my FTP down to a reasonable physiological number. The intervals were 5x12’ with the overs being 2’ instead of 1’. That’s 60’ worth of intervals at real O/U wattages compared to only 27’ of intervals at the inflated numbers the prior week. The graph shows a slight dip in HR on all of the unders as you would expect. Both workouts were rated “very hard” (so the system did a nice job with that), but the one at the lower FTP is much better aligned with base training IMO.
I haven’t seen anyone from TR say it’s a bad idea to manually make this FTP adjustment, just that you lose FTP prediction and you run the risk of reaching the progression limits of your FTP at a given number. Losing the prediction isn’t ideal (I’d still like to see a projected “net” drop or gain), but the risk of reaching progression limits is low unless you are time crunched and can’t extend the workout durations.
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Yes, I’m heavily leaning towards just manually adjusting. If I don’t hear back on my previous question, I’m going to adjust down before tomorrow’s SS workout.
I totally agree on your sentiment regarding SS at the higher value. I basically have two threshold sessions and one vo2 max session a week. I won’t be able to handle that kind of intensity long term and I am only just getting started for the year.
There are many users that need to be served by the platform, so it’s hard, if not impossible, to make a decision to keep everyone happy. But if I’m struggling on workouts and the predicted FTP says I’m going to drop, why wait? Just drop it and let’s get productive.
Part of the value of the platform is to not have to manually adjust this value. I’m sure they’ll be able to better optimize for those of us in this thread in the future.
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That’s the official advice, actually. I’m only doing my sweetspot with the high FTP today because I already struggled enough for the algo to give me 2x20 at the sweet spot/threshold border (and not outright threshold) and I have until Thursday to recover. One last glance at the FTP prediction after the workout and it’s manual mode from there.
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And it’s worth noting that it takes 30 seconds to go back into the system and re-accept your AIFTP any time you want to check the prediction “trend”. Once you look at it, just delete that AIFTP record in your FTP history (under account) to bring it back to the preferred value. Basically, you can check the prediction any time you want, you just need to flip it back and forth to do it. It does make the prediction somewhat flawed because it will change all the workouts when you re-accept the AIFTP, but close enough if you just want an idea. It’s all just guestimates anyway.
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For some reason I did not realize that! Thank you!
edit: I don’t know why I waited to update my FTP manually. Everything looks so much more reasonable. The hard days are still hard, and the SS days are exactly that.
Immediately I’m back to longer intervals for the SS, albeit at a slightly higher power, and I know I’ll be able to swap for some alternatives to get more time in zone when I am ready to (probably after I’m done recovering from last week, haha).
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Let me know how things go with that new FTP. 
A 3.0 Threshold workout is the benchmark the system uses when calibrating your FTP, but that doesn’t mean your first Threshold workout after an FTP detection will always be a 3.0. Depending on your fatigue, recent workouts, plan goals, training approach, and other factors, the AI may recommend a workout a bit above or below this level.
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So different plans have different starting points, a plan with a criterium goal may have different starting PLs than one for Cross Country Marathon? Or did I misinterpret that.
Plans don’t have set Progression Level starting points—the AI is never looking at Levels to begin with. But different plans do emphasize different zones and workout structures to develop discipline-specific fitness, so you’ll be pushed harder in certain areas than others depending on what plan you’re following (effectively changing what workout levels you see at the start of and over the course of your plan).
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Thanks. I’ve got Cloudripper -2 right after my first new AI detection. Wasn’t sure if it was a 4.0 because my plan is Cross Country Marathon. Or if it’s because it’s base.
Probably because it’s base. It seems like a lot of people have reported Coudripper -2 as one of their first O/U’s after their first AIFTP change. I got it and I’m in my first block of base. I’d bet it’s base training for a lot of people this early in the year. I honestly don’t even know my “plan type”, but I doubt it would be XC Marathon.
Yeah, I think that would be great. My planned event is an imperial century close to the end of the year, so I’m going to go through the plan and see how it adjusts my workout durations and TiZ. If I’m a couple months out and not seeing that change then I’ll probably switch to my own workouts for a while leading up to the event, but it deserves a fair shake out.