Do they mean that you, and more importantly everyone, can intuit your/their FTP on any given day? Accurately? No, I won’t accept that without evidence.
I’m 13yrs in training, when I’m fit I’d expect my ftp to be around 250-260. But that could easily be ten watts more or less. And I’ve used the same meters for seven years, unlike most.
I don’t see the connection between this and zoning systems that you do. If a prescribed day (series of days/training plan) at X watts makes you faster, then it makes you faster. Whether that can be translated into OldSpeak or inherently vague terms like “Zone 2” really doesn’t matter.
Your underlying question of whether it really does make you faster is valid.
It also forgets one important fact: at least if you stay within the TR ecosystem, since AI FTP works with absolute power (as opposed to fractions of your “FTP”), the system should prescribe the right workouts for you.
TR’s database is huge, much better than anything researchers at a university can come up with. So TR’s solution have the potential to uncover and exploit relationships that are beyond reach for coaches and exercise physiologists.
That could lead to some breaks with orthodoxy and “established truths”. Hence, concepts like zones need not coincide with the definitions Coggan and the early contributors to power-based training came up with.
Overall, what I would look at is whether TR AI represents an improvement, i. e. whether it works better.
The funny thing is that the estimated 20/60min values coming from TR (only a few data points available) are ~105% of AIFTP for 20min and ~95% for 60min. There were some outliers but that’s the ballpark. Which means that they didn‘t reinvent the wheel in this case.
That’s true, but my comment was meant to be about 3% off of a “true” FTP is pretty close. Especially with all the caveats around if that was an actual max effort (pacing, nutrition, previous days’ workouts, cooling, motiviation, etc.)
I would say my evidence is specifically the past 7 years of training on TR. Dating back to the OG SSBHV plans and the ramp test protocols and through the og AI FTP detection my FTP has consistently come out of the offseason in October/November around 370 or so and increased to 400-408 by February/March. Typically I’m doing level 7-8 sweet spot workouts and 4-5 threshold workouts at that FTP. Without going down to sea level there’s been no evidence I can do more than 405-410 for 30+ mins at any point in my life. In March/April I either hit my genetic ceiling, I get sick and lose 10-15 watts of fitness and then race with what I can get back….and the temps warm and I struggle with cooling and hitting those same numbers when it’s 80+ degrees, or I use that fitness on ultra endurance stuff and tend to lose the interval consistency that got me to that point, or some combo of all that.
This year I’ve stuck to the same script and followed my plan fairly well and been as consistent as past years, and TRs telling me at 40 years old I’m 20 watts better than my all-time bests at the same time in the year?? Their reasoning is that the “scale* is now more accurate. So that means it was 20 watts off before? I was undertraining that whole time, despite running a 130 CTL? I underperformed at every ramp test? Their AI ftp detection was always off? I should’ve been doing Tallac +3 at 390 instead of 370? Sorry if I don’t buy it without any evidence except “trust the AI, it has lots of data”. My evidence says my all time best up my local climb is 435 for 12 minutes, and now being way older, I’m supposed to believe without evidence I can do 428 for an amount of time that would justify it being called an FTP?
No, what I’m saying is there’s little evidence for that. I’d love to be fitter and maybe I am a little but, but not enough to justify 428, as I keep saying. If I was doing the same workouts now at 20+ watts higher, then that would be evidence. And maybe I should go replicate a week of what I did years ago at higher wattage and see what happens.
To me those look like someone with very similar fitness. At least within the margin of power meter/kickr core error . It’s similar workout levels, similar RPE, similar power/np. To TR AI that’s a 4% difference. I don’t think either one is capable of pushing 420+ for a time duration that would justify calling it an FTP.
As a former triathlete that’d consistently get his ass kicked by much older men and women at masters swim, I know firsthand that swimming is as much technique as it is fitness. Not saying you are, but you can be less fit and be faster by moving through the water better with better technique. On a bike, watts are watts are watts.
No, but it shouldn’t call it Anaerobic if it’s VO2. Or call it VO2 if it’s Threshold. Or Call it Endurance if it’s Tempo. Or call it an Over-Under if it’s Supra-Threshold.
This isn’t the way it’s working for everyone, but it is the way it’s working for some people. And there’s a time and a place for each zone.
I did used Critical Power testing the beginning of December, and a Zwift 20 minute test and both provided the same FTP number. I trained through January and then restarted my TR subscription and the AI gave me an increase of one whole watt. Following the plan set by TR AI I would say it was accurate, and the increase I got a week ago seems to bear that out.
So far the start to this training plan has felt more challenging yet more successful than the past. It will not be perfect, but it feels like the company is very much on the right track with this.
It depends, their ai engine might be boosting “ftp” while simultaneously killing your tte. The fastest way to improve fitness doesn’t necessarily translate in to race day performance. Tr likes to push sweet spot work in to threshold, which will end up with a different physiological response.
I’ve actuality been using Gemini to help me build and interpret my previous fitness gains and race results.
I haven’t verified ftp for a bit since I’m still working back in to consistency after having another kid at 45, but the ai ftp is usually within 5 watts of my manually set ftp so I never accept the updated number. It seems silly to update the number in the middle of a block.
I can’t accept this TTE didn’t exist in isolation like that, FTP/MLSS is a good enough proxy for cycling fitness.
I think that’s just pandering to TSS trackers , there is surely no justification to ignoring fitness gains during a training block - whatever you perceive a block to be.
Not that FTP really matters in this sense, for this paradigm!
Sorry - this is just not broadly true. While TTE doesn’t exist in isolation, neither does FTP.
First - FTP does not equal fitness. You can have a higher FTP and be way slower because of how you train (within reason of course.)
For people who are relatively untrained or still new to structured training, sure it works better, but there are absolutely scenarios and events where it’s beneficial to pretty much ignore FTP gains from a point and focus on extending TTE and durability because of the demands of the specific event.
. It’s similar workout levels, similar RPE, similar power/np. To TR AI that’s a 4% difference. I don’t think either one is capable of pushing 420+ for a time duration that would justify calling it an FTP.
, there is surely no justification to ignoring fitness gains during a training block - whatever you perceive a block to be.