I used workout alternate and did a slightly harder than scheduled Vo2 max workout this morning. Immediately after completing the workout, I got a slew of adaptations suggested for subsequent series of workouts, which is normal, all of which I accepted, so far so good.
This evening, when I open the app to look at some past workouts. I got recommended a new adaptation for a Vo2 workout two days from now, from progression 6.6 all the way to 9. Is this a glitch in TR or is the program functioning as intended and really suggesting I do such a significantly more difficult workout?
What was the VO2 workout you completed? What was it rated? How did you answer the end or workout survey? That might help determine the issue. Like if the workout you did was an 8 and you said it was Easy, itās going to jump. If it was a 6 and you said All Out, then itās probably a bug.
It was Gage, level 5.2. I answered moderate, because I felt like I could have done a couple more intervals. Even though I had to focus towards the end of each interval, the rest were sufficient long that I felt reasonably recovered. Jumping up to 6.6 seems reasonable. All the way to 9 is slightly terrifying haha.
Yea itās hard to say, but Iām guessing the moderate rating has something to do with it. VO2 (to me) should be Hard at the very minimum. If I rated a VO2 workout as Moderate, Iād jump 2 or 3 levels to try to get to Very Hard. Even a Hard rating Iām trying to going higher. Moderate is what I give my endurance rides.
Related, I just looked at Wilhelm +3 and I wouldnāt have given that a 9.0 rating. 8x6-minute intervals between 105-108% FTP is more suprathreshold than pure VO2. That doesnāt scream 9.0 VO2 to me.
Edit: To clarify, Iām not saying Wilhelm +3 is an easy workout. It looks pretty tough. I just donāt think itās a 9 tough. Iād probably look for something in the 7 to 8 range if the 5.2 was truly a moderate.
ITās rare for me to ever mark a Vo2max workout as āmoderateā. When I mark a workout moderate (particularly with threshold and above) it translates to āI want a lot more, that wasnāt enoughā. But yeah, even marking it moderate, that seems like and awfully big jump. Maybe touch base with support. Or just take a look at the workout and see if it seems doable and maybe give it a try. I usually know if Iām in way over my head on vo2max workouts early in in the intervals and Iāll dial it back if itās not going to happen.
One other thought, that I canāt tell because the little workout difficulty markers are gone, is that the original workout was an āachievableā or āproductiveā workout for you, and the new workout is a āstretchā for you.
As others have already noted, this might be because of how you rated the previous workout.
Yeah, me too, Itās rare for me to rate a VO2 workout as moderate. But the TR survey for moderate fit me to a T this morning:
"This ride was somewhat comfortable but required some focus to complete. You felt a little challenged but had confidence that you could finish. If the ride had an additional set of intervals, you could complete it. " I only had to focus for the last couple of minute of each interval, and I felt pretty in control throughout.
I guess I am coming off a rest week so I am fresh, and the preceding four week had no VO2 workouts, so my PL declined quite a bit, but maybe my body was carrying more residual VO2 ability than the PL indicates. But I donāt think I am at level 9, mid 6, maybe 7 seems more inline. I thought this forum is where TR support would chime in, but I see there is an email support tab on the App, I will try that.
Happened to me today. Had a 5.7 scheduled and was suggested to do a 6.7. That being the case I opted to do a sweet spot instead of the crazy ass +1.4 VO2.
This is actually intentional. Weāre continuing to release improvements to our workout recommender, similar to what you may have recently seen in TrainNow, and these higher-level VO2 workouts are what we currently think are the best options for you.
I know itās a bit strange to see these high-level workouts on your schedule, but weāre confident that theyāre right for you based on your recent performance in this zone. Give those workouts a try and let us know how they go!
Thereās a chance I would have done an assigned stretch if a) it hadnāt been a last minute adaptation, like literally I saw the update the afternoon I was supposed to do it. b) I was feeling great, which I very much was not.
So on an ideal day, feeling good, with more than a couple hours to mentally prepare? Probably. But not yesterday when what Iām really looking at is the taper coming into Sea Otter.
Thankfully I have no more VO2 Max workouts on my calendar until I reset it in June after Unbound. So weāll deal with it again in a couple of months.
Thanks for the responses @eddiegrinwald here and on email. And thanks for the input from everyone else. @Eddy_Twerckx Yeah, whether true Vo2max or suprathreshold, Wilhelm +3 looks intimidatingly hard, gulp. I guess I have a day to mentally prepare for it.
Will these subtle changes stay without official announcement (are you doing A B testing or is that active for everyoneā¦?) or will TR make some official announcement once there are enough changes accumulated or once TR is confident enough or has released for everyoneā¦?
Having some time to think about it, this is where TR fails vs a real coach. If I had a real coach they would have contacted me a head of time and said āHey youāre workouts have been awesome, so Iām going to assign this one. It might be a stretch, but Iām confidant that you can do it. If you canāt, just drop the intensity in those last intervals, and weāll talk about it after. Youāve got this. ā Whereas TR just drops a stretch workout into the schedule last minute with no rhyme or reason. Sure the intent might be the same, but the reality is itās very different.
Yep. Things were going along as usual until a couple of days ago when I suddenly got a slew recommended adaptations significantly increasing PLs of many upcoming workouts. Of major significance is that for the past two weeks I had been doing Solo rides instead my planās workouts, and these rides had significantly higher TSSs and IFs than any of the scheduled workouts. It seems the adaptations suddenly started taking into account these outdoor rides whereas in the past they def didnāt.
I got a nice bump to a 7.3 in anaerobic after an unstructured outdoor ride. My PL at the time was around 1, so the workout was marked āNot Recommended,ā but it ended up being spot-on. It even adjusted slightly right after I completed the RPE survey for that outdoor ride.
It was challenging, but felt like the perfect intensity for anaerobic.
Love that adaptive training is going for it, not just nudging things forward, but actually pushing toward the right level. Feels way smarter.
Weāre constantly analyzing data and working with new models to find ways to do an even better job of making people faster.
In some cases (like the ones that some of you are experiencing), we will take a change that has enough reliable data behind it to give us confidence and implement it in a scaled fashion with our athletes to get further data before rolling it out for everybody.
There will be an announcement on this in the future, but for now, this is just us shipping updates where we see it can have a positive impact for athletes right now instead of holding onto all of it so you miss out.
From my perspective, accounting for unstructured rides in plan adaptations is huge. Itās the main thing I was looking/hoping for when I started back up with TR after being on other platforms. I was disappointed to find that TR did not actually do that. Now, however, it seems that it is doing that. If this is true, users should be made aware because it really does affect things and needs to be considered in how they use TR to train.
If itās being rolled out on the sly, thatās really NG.
We havenāt changed how TrainerRoad incorporates unstructured outside workouts. Iām looking into your account just now. Iāll get back to you when I have more information @Saddlesaur.
Please do that as something distinctly different, sudden, and big happened to my plan after having done ~2 weeks of only outdoor rides. I havenāt yet accepted any of the adaptations because I wanted them to still be visible. FWIW: I think the way the plan is now responding to my outdoor workouts is a good and proper thing!
Over the past few days I had adaptations recommending substantial increase in my sweet spot and threshold workouts. I managed to complete both (+1.1 PL for SS and +0.7 for threshold). I rated both as very happy hard. Not quite sure whatās happening with TRā¦ I recently checked volume and TR suggested substantial increase in my volume (reaching to 10 hours).
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ā Whereas TR just drops a stretch workout into the schedule last minute with no rhyme or reason. Sure the intent might be the same, but the reality is itās very different.
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