I never said that was all there is, or what is or is not connected to the AI/ML TR is using. To be honest, I have no idea how deep it goes… none of us on the outside do. I was purely answering the specific question (quoted below to show for clarity) in the context of what I do know.
There is plenty of speculation about how much or how little is actually going on. Lots of guesses, based on minimal info from Nate and others because they are protecting whatever they see as special about their setup. I firmly believe there is far more to all this than any of us know, but I could be dead wrong too.
It’s not though, it’s making workouts that should be hard, easy. I don’t see how that helps me in any way, shape or form.
I had to turn it off during my last build / speciality phase as it continually wanted me to do easier sessions when I knew I was capable of harder. I ended up picking my own adaptations based on a progression that I knew I could handle.
Not being able to pick hard / very hard without negative adaptations leads me to either not use the system, or encourages me to lie and go with what’s essentially a pass / fail system of moderate or all-out.
Apologies if someone already asked about this question I have. (it’s pretty hard to keep up with all these long threads and I find myself skimming more than reading)
I wondering how AT is looking at the survey responses in regard to indoor vs. outdoor workouts. My outdoor workout today (it was sweet spot) was marked as “hard” because, well, it was pretty hard. Inside, I’m pretty sure that workout would have been moderate, like my recent SS workouts). I think it was harder outside due to the environment (wind, traffic, warmth, etc.)
Whole hearted agree, understand Nate’s reasoning and not questioning what you said. Curious myself as to the mechanics, have faith in TR, but have yet to see anything within my own training and adaptations that is anything other than simple math based on current PL, workout PL, adherence to the workout profile and survey answer. I
Like you, I’m not saying there isn’t more to it than that, I’m just yet to see it.
You can pick 3- Hard without (in your words) “negaitve” adaptations. In my experience with AT, you pick 3 and things basically stay as they were - there’s a progression built in already, you pick 3 and the next workout stays harder just like it already was.
I made the “positive adaptations” comment, slightly clumsy on my part - I meant adaptations that increased the relevant PL rather than reduced it.
I’ve a slightly different problem - I have to use the web interface and it doesn’t matter what my survey response is, AT has applied adaptations before I’ve answered it and doesn’t modify it afterwards. I did Sill on Thursday, AT gave me adaptations which I accepted. I then marked the workout as Moderate but there were no further adaptations. I’ve just edited my response and neither “Hard” nor “Very Hard” have any effect.
Exactly that. At some point in both the times I’ve tried it longer term, the system has become locked into trying to reduce the levels of my next sessions after marking workouts I’ve completed as hard / very hard. Usually in the realm of about 2 points downwards (which I ignored, and was capable of consistently adding ~0.5 of a point).
For me at least (I assume I just have a broken RPE meter), adaptive training is useless outside of the new workout levels and variants (which I must admit are very helpful).
For me what works is not paying attention to what label or level is displaying for the current workout.
I know it’s hard but if I try to not make any judgments before the ride, the workout survey is pretty straight forward for me.
It also makes sense that if you are doing a zone 1 or 2 ride without judging, or making any decisions before the ride on “how did it feel”? Well if it fell more than moderate. Something is probably wrong and I definitely shouldn’t get any progressions in my levels.
Same goes for threshold and Vo2max, even if you know it’s going to be hard and expect it to be hard. If it’s easy or moderate, I probably need a harder workout next time. If it’s hard and i select hard, then I assume I’m working towards a proper progression for the next workout.
The hard part is not judging the book by the cover as they say.
I just did a custom workout assigned by my coach, 60 minutes continuous at threshold. In my opinion, I failed the workout as I started cramping at 30 minutes. I had to take several 30-second backspins and was still cramping throughout the remainder of the workout.
At the end of the workout I chose “very hard” given that I had to backpedal several times. I was not expecting any adaptations but AT bumped by Threshold level from 7.4 to 8.5. And then it occurred to me, I have “pedal to start” enabled . given that the workout analysis does not show any coasting time, I’m guessing AT assumed I didn’t stop at all and so gave me the adaptations.
Note that Custom Workout Levels are NOT working properly. They often give elevated PL values that are likely to incorrectly skew your PL’s upon completion. This is a known issue that they seem intent on addressing, but it means that use of custom workouts presents a problem within AT if you are relying on the PL and adaptation suggestions.
That may not be an issue since you are working with a coach, but worth mentioning since you noted the impact to your PL based upon the results of this workout.
No matter what you see in your workout, Nate said they have ways to see those coasting and pausing breaks compared to the real workout time. So they should be seeing and evaluating the workout based upon the real work you did (or did not) do with respect to work and rest points through the workout.
Seems to me a “5 - All Out” would have been more appropriate considering the issues you had (cramping, several breaks, etc.) But that is based upon my take on the ratings info we got via Ivy.
Notably the “pull out every trick in the book to finish” aspect related to the breaks.
Choosing 5 leads to a follow up survey, where you answer why it was so hard. I don’t think we know the precise impact of this selection (since it may depend on the 2nd half of the survey), but it seems likely to stall and not apply PL changes in at least some cases.
That may or may not be appropriate to stall PL’s in this case due to the Custom issue above, but it’s likely important from a basic concept standpoint related to AT.
Thank you @mcneese.chad ! I did see somewhere that levels weren’t available for custom workouts yet, I just got added to the beta a week ago so I was surprised to see that my custom workouts were factoring into my progression. Thanks for clearing that up.
@TRusername custom workouts in TR are inspected by TR software and automatically assigned levels. My coach assigns workouts in TrainingPeaks, they sync to TR, and they all have auto-assigned PL levels. You can see ANY workout’s PL by looking at the workout on the TR calendar, or in the (TR) workout library.
As posted above, there are 2 official TR workouts that are 60 minutes at threshold. They have PLs of 9.7 and 9.8. From your post I’m assuming your custom workout was synced to TR, and TR’s software assigned a PL of 8.5. That auto-assigned PL is a reasonable value when compared to the 2 official TR 60-minute threshold workouts.
Chad was bringing up another point, that the TR software’s auto-assignment of PL may or may not be consistent with TR workouts. If I remember correctly, that is because TR employees audited the official TR workouts, and in some cases made manual adjustments to override the TR software’s auto-assignment. That auditing does not happen with custom workouts. I’ve looked at many of my custom workouts and many are reasonable and consistent with TR official workouts.
Sure, some may be reasonable and even right in some (many?). But we’ve all seen some crazy examples on the other side of the spectrum. So it’s far from a guarantee at this time.
I am taking what TR has said about them and don’t consider them trustworthy, so I offered a general caution to users about them.
Want a list of PLs that are too low? The example above is roughly 1.0 lower than TR official workout of same duration, IF, TSS, and calorie burn. There is nothing special about endurance / zone2 workouts.
I honestly don’t care one way or the other because I don’t use custom workouts.
Forward any issues with them to TR via support. But they already know about the issue and it’s anybody’s guess to when they will fix any related issues (high or low).
. given that the workout analysis does not show any coasting time, I’m guessing AT assumed I didn’t stop at all and so gave me the adaptations.
The example above is roughly 1.0 lower than TR official workout of same duration, IF, TSS, and calorie burn. There is nothing special about endurance / zone2 workouts.