Are the Difficulty Levels gone? (Achievable, Productive, Stretch etc..)

[FergalK]

I must have missed a communication/update on this but I recall upcoming workouts used to have a Difficulty Level assigned to them eg; Achievable, Productive, Stretch, Breakthrough etc.. but I don’t see this anymore.
Case in point being tomorrows workout, which is a VO2 Max 7.0 Progression Level vs my current PL which is 5.8, I would have expected to see this identified as a “Stretch” Difficulty Level.

It looks a bit daunting to be honest, so I’d feel better substituting it for something a little lower if I knew it was rated as a “Stretch” Difficulty Level.

Appreciate any advice!
Thanks!
Fergal

[HLaB]

I don’t think its in individual workouts anymore but its still there in the filter and alternates.

[giventotri]

@FergalK

It looks a bit daunting to be honest, so I’d feel better substituting it for something a little lower if I knew it was rated as a “Stretch” Difficulty Level.

My understanding (based on previous threads where people commented on TrainNow suggesting workouts far above their current PL) is that the algorithm has evolved so that if you’re getting a 7.0 in your calendar it’s because it thinks you can handle it. I suspect they removed the labels because they’re not really accurate anymore—if you can handle this workout, is it really a “stretch”?

I’d just give it a shot and see how it goes.

[FergalK]

The algorithm has faith in me it seems
@giventotri I’ll give it a shot and see how it goes!

[Teddy_Focaccia]

Also, don’t count your difficulty levels before they’re actually loaded up and ready to roll. I’ve had the algorithm put a very “stretch” workout on my schedule for the following week, then adapt it down to something more doable the day of the workout. Not clear why it does it this way, but especially between weeks (i.e. a Monday or Tuesday workout) it seems to wait till day-of to actually correct a PL.

[roleypup]

My memory’s a bit fuzzy on the details of who & via which medium, but several months ago somebody at TR said that these difficulty classifications were “going away”. Possibly Nate, on a podcast episode or one of the new feature announcement threads.

[eddie]

Everyone here has the right idea.

We’ve moved away from those difficulty levels in most places, as we found that they were often distracting.

It looks a bit daunting to be honest, so I’d feel better substituting it for something a little lower if I knew it was rated as a “Stretch” Difficulty Level.

This is a great example of why we think those labels can be unproductive and distracting. The workout we’ve prescribed is likely a really solid one for you, but if it were listed as a “Stretch” or “Breakthrough,” you might fear the workout and look for a replacement, which would likely bring on a sub-par experience for you.

It’s always best to give the prescribed workout a shot to see how it goes. Those pesky difficulty ratings and workout levels can be distracting, but try your best to see through them for the time being. You’ll likely surprise yourself!

[Toasterthief]

I’ve noticed this as well. TR seems to change workouts significantly more often now, sometimes flipping the same workout back and forth multiple times a week.

[FergalK]

That workout went surprisingly well
I rated it as Moderate even though on paper it looked like it was at least going to be Hard if not Very Hard.
Thanks all for the replies!

[SpiderJ]

Hmm. I’m not convinced.

The difficulty level is still there if I select an alternative or filter. Please don’t dumb down your interface. That information is useful, especially when coming back from injury or illness. I simply don’t want to do a 2 or 3 point jump in level, and I shouldn’t have to click extra buttons to find that out.

AI is great, but it’s not infallible.

Please put this information back where it was.

[eddie]

I’ll pass this feedback along to the team, but I wouldn’t think of this in terms of making major leaps in workout difficulty with 2-3 point jumps anymore.

We’ve been working on workout classifications and better optimization to your abilities, so while you may see Workout Levels that look high or low, they will likely still feel appropriate for your abilities.

This is why we aren’t super keen on displaying Workout Levels anymore. They simply aren’t that useful and are distracting, and your example here shows that.

If you hadn’t seen that the workout was 2 levels above what you had done last, you would have taken it on without worry or fear, and the outcome would have almost certainly been positive.

Thanks for your feedback, though! It all gets heard by the team, and we value what our athletes have to say.

[Bbt67]

@eddie

If you hadn’t seen that the workout was 2 levels above what you had done last, you would have taken it on without worry or fear, and the outcome would have almost certainly been positive.

You can equally look at that the other way around.

Say you are give a workout, no levels, you look at it and think thats way harder than Ive recenty done, no chance, and pick something else easier. If I saw it was about a 2 PL higher I’d think I done that increase for endurance, tempo, sweetspot several times before so Ill give it a go.

[SpiderJ]

I have to disagree.

I don’t keep abreast of my levels. I use the difficulty classification to do that for me. Now I have to go back and check what my level is to compare it to what this workout is.

I’ve had to take a 2 month break due to injury and the AI doesn’t do a good job of understanding that. So I’ve had my FTP knocked down, but my workouts (especially TrainNow) set at levels that are way too high for me.

I think you are fixing a problem that doesn’t really exist. Or, at the very least, make it a user choice. I want to see the classification, others may not.

[eddie]

It sounds like this could be an issue with your FTP.

When your FTP was knocked down, was that by AI FTP Detection, or did you do that manually?

Injuries can have all sorts of effects on our fitness and ability to pedal, so these cases can be a bit unique, but there is usually a simple way to get back into training slowly without needing to analyze each workout you’ve been prescribed.

I’d be happy to take a closer look at your case to see if there’s something I can help with, as well as things we might be able to learn on our end.

Let me know if you’d like to chat some more about this.

[SpiderJ]

I have no issue with my FTP. I have an issue with not being shown useful/relevant information.

I am capable of making my own informed decisions if I have the necessary data in front of me. TR has simply decided to not show it to me because it thinks I might be ‘afraid’ or something.

I appreciate that integration with Zwift means you have a different customer base than previously, but please don’t ignore customers who have been with you for years and don’t always need their hand to be held.

[kevistraining]

@SpiderJ

I simply don’t want to do a 2 or 3 point jump in level,

The productive, stretch, breakthrough etc classifications are just a pretty basic “workout level” minus “your current level” equals “difficulty” equation.

It could end up wildly off especially when comiing back from a break.

Assuming your FTP is set correctly then you will be far better off trusting TrainNow recomendations and trying those higher level workouts.

Remember that your current progression levels are not a measure of fitness - they’re just a record of past workouts really - so those 2 or 3 point jumps are not always measured against anything relevent.

[Pbase]

I have to agree that seeing the “Productive” or whatever labels was a benefit for me. I also don’t like having to go look at my career and see what I am currently vs. what I have coming up. I understand that TR is trying to say “just trust the system”, but you’re taking away functionality that you taught us to use, and no one likes having functionality taken away from them.

[SpiderJ]

I disagree. AI doesn’t know how well I’ve come back from illness or injury. I could just need some very easy workouts.

Bottom line - I don’t mind being given recommendations. But I do want to understand where those recommendations sit compared to what TR assesses is my current FTP level.

The information is in the system - TR have just made a choice to hide it from customers. I would prefer that they didn’t.

[kevistraining]

But your workout levels should always really progress within the 3-7 ish range….. with the intensity of the workouts being governed by your FTP setting?

Anyway, hopefully whatever new feature Jonathan keeps hinting at will fix this

[FergalK]

Kinda related to this subject is an issue I raised a ticket for with TR - just interested if anyone else has observed the same issue.

I recently did VO2 Max Thimble +2 workout but I didn’t really pay much attention to the PL rating of 7.4 for this workout.

If I had checked my current progression levels, I would have seen my current PL for Vo2 Max was 3.4, obviously this is a very big delta.

Since I had not done any VO2 Max workouts TR reduced my PL from 4.3 to 3.4 on 18/Oct. My last VO2 Max workout was on 21 Aug with a PL of 7.1

So it makes sense that TR drops my Career PL since I’d done very little VO2 Max workouts in the past approx 2 months, but throwing a 7.4 session at me was a little cruel I reckon

Anyway, off I went into the first set of intervals (3 sets of 7 in this workout), I got through them (target was 367w and I hit that except for the 7th one where I got 360w) but felt that they were excessively hard.
Next interval I only got 358w and really struggled with it so I knew then that I’d have to drop the intensity (to 90% which equates to 330w) in order to complete the rest of the workout.

Nailed the rest of the intervals (possibly could have upped the intensity a few % but said I’d leave it) and just to spite myself I went hard on the last interval to average 384w.

So in terms of scoring for the workout, my PL did not increase at all (still at 3.4)

While I did drop the intensity to 90% after the first set of intervals, I still hit 347w average out of an original target of 367w, this equates to nearly a 95% completion performance. It’s a similar figure when you compare TSS and IF target-to-actual figures.
Thus I expected my PL would have increased somewhat above 3.4.

I got a reply from TR advising:
”Since you did not complete the workout fully, you won’t get the Progression Level increase from this workout. However, it will be taken into account for workout recommendations, AI FTP Detection, and you will, of course, get the physiological training benefit from the work you completed. ”

Essentially what TR seems to have done is to ignore the workout performance completely with regard to PLs.

I would suggest for a future enhancement that as opposed to ignoring the workout completely when a user eg; drops the intensity, that TR algorithms take into account the actual performance-to-goal of a workout, in particular for the intervals if the primary benefit of the workout is completing the intervals.

A point of note is my upcoming VO2 Max workouts, do you think they seem like they have taken my Thimble +2 workout performance into account? appreciate any comments