FTP detection down 8.8% - questions

TrainerRoad Software
1

Hi all,

Odd thing happened to me today. I logged in to get my updated FTP and figured it had stalled and would be maybe a couple watts down, but it was really down.

So, I focused this year on using the software and each of the months it had gone up. So, I thought I wasn’t going to have any of the drops that I’ve seen others with as those seemed (could be wrong) to happen when the new AI system was started. Since I was four months in, each with a gain, I figured I was clear.

I know my month hasn’t been perfect but this seems a bit extreme. Last week I was worn out, but like if I had taken the month off, don’t know if it would have dropped me this much. But all my gains from earlier months are erased and this is a drop of a few points since start of the year.

This makes me wonder if the gains it said I had were really valid or not.

I accepted the new number as I’ll be starting a new job in a couple weeks and know that’ll mean less time for a while, so figured it might go down anyhow - curious to see how far it drops me next month - 20-30% IDK.

But curious if others have seen this too? And if it drops you, does it bump you back up the following month or not necessarily?

Also, parallel question - if I hadn’t accepted the new FTP number, am I correct in saying if my workouts weren’t great, it’d just give me easier workouts but still based on the old number?

Thanks

Chris

2

You can take a look at your PDC to see where you might have improved even if aiFTP has not changed/gone down.

Or TR can take a look and hopefully give you more info.

3

Do you train outside?

4

This year, I’ve done 1 outside ride and it was in May. I’ve seen that outside rides can mess with the number, but hopefully it’d take more than once to go down this much.

During this month, I’d set multiple PRs, so again, seems odd that I can set a bunch of PRs but AI says my FTP needs to drop this much. Got to be a reason, just curious what.

thanks

Chris

5

AI knows that you’ll start a new job in a few weeks :joy::joy:

Joke aside I had perhaps same experience yesterday after detecting my new ftp (which was exactly the same as old though - still too high). It immediately after predicted a 20w decrease. But today this has changed to similar expectations like previous months now.

6

I’m looking at your calendar now, and I think I can see some things that point toward a drop in FTP.

Let me know if I can share those details here. Otherwise, I can DM you if you’d rather. :+1:

7

Whatever is easiest for you works for me.

Thanks,

Chris

eddie 8

Alright, so while an 8.8% decrese seems like a major swing, I think it would be hard to convince the model that your FTP should be higher right now.

You failed your last two workouts due to “training fatigue” before making it to the hard intervals. You did pass a VO2 workout at the end of April, but you were docked some credit for not hitting the power targets during the second set of intervals.

Prior to that, I’m seeing a fair amount of hard workouts that were marked as easy or moderate, but have a lot of pauses during the critical parts of the workout, as shown below.

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Other failed workouts are scattered about with survey responses ranging from equipment issue, injured, sick, etc., and I think this makes it really hard for the model to know what’s going on.

I think the key moving forward is going to be to first manage your training fatigue before getting back into training. Take this upcoming time off the bike to reset, and only get back into training when you’re recovered and ready. Changing jobs is stressful, so don’t start ramping up volume or taking on hard workouts until you feel really good. You’re already fatigued, so this is really important.

From there, make sure that you’re adjusting the intensity of your workouts on the fly to ensure you can get through them without pausing, and finally, answer the post-workout surveys honestly based on the work you actually did.

I think this will get your training into a place where what you’re doing is sustainable and able to give us solid data that we can use to get a good grip on your fitness and get you productive training to start improving again.

Let me know if this helps and if you have any questions.

Best of luck!

1 Like
9

OK, this might be a problem that there’s no workaround for me with TR. I have a medical condition (Crohn’s) and pauses will happen. Short workouts I can typically do pause free, but 90 mins or longer is a crapshoot - pun kind of intended. I had opened a support case on this and the impression I got was this was just how it will work now. In prior TR software, I didn’t get dinged, but now, I know I do.

Now, there are pauses in months earlier this year, though I didn’t do an outdoor ride and don’t think I had as many other issues, but still to me it seems odd that TR slowly bumped up the number only to drop it down quickly.

Now, you say that I failed my last two workouts - that’s not correct. Did you mean I failed two workouts in this month? Again, just want to make sure I understand why / what is happening.

I marked the scheduled workout on Monday as training fatigue but then did a 45 min easy workout thinking that getting an easy hour in would do less damage than not doing anything. But if the SW/AI thinks that I did two workouts and failed them both, even though that 45 min ride was completed as successful, then that’s maybe a bug?

Now, the other question - if I fill out a survey as easy and someone thinks it’s supposed to be hard and I get dinged for that, then why ask what I think? That tells me that it’s not a good thing for me to respond to them. But I think my rating is consistent, so I’d think that the system would trend this as Chris says this is easy, we think it’s moderate and that’s OK, but sounds like it gets tripped up if I say a number of workouts that are thought to be hard and I say are easy and then a week / two later I have training fatigue, the system doesn’t get it, but this is how I unfortunately roll (Crohn’s) and not much I can do about it. I don’t want to mess up the system with my data, but also don’t want to get dinged.

Again, to me, I just want to understand the rules of the game so I can play ball, that’s why I’m asking for details and understanding. And if the AI system just can’t work with my condition, that’s OK too, I’m a small sample size, I’d just want to know.

I will say my example might be a good example of why you’d want to have the AI estimation enabled as I wonder if it’d have shown that my ftp was tanking during the month and I could have maybe done something earlier to limit my loss?

Will see how the next block goes.

thanks
Chris

eddie 10

Thanks for all the extra info. It helps to know all of that when looking at your training. :+1:

What I meant to say when I said you “failed your last two workouts” was your last two hard workouts. Those hard workouts are key drivers of your fitness, and therefore, they’re important.

You aren’t getting dinged if you tell us that a workout we thought should be hard was easy. That’s not a problem and usually means that you just need harder workouts.

If we thought a workout should have been moderate, hard, or very hard, and you rated it as “Maximum Effort,” then that workout was harder than it should have been, and you likely need easier workouts, at least in that training zone.

If you’re unable to get through workouts without pausing, then don’t worry about it. That’s just how your training is going to go, and I think you can still get good training in. Don’t stress the things you can’t control! Just focus on what you can. :raising_hands:

Regardless, recovering, getting on a good training schedule, following the workouts as best as possible, and answering the workouts as honestly as possible is definitely the right way to go here. You’ve had some recent hiccups, but I think taking some time to recover so that you can get back into consistent training is the best way forward.

Let me know if this helps!

1 Like
11

Have you considered measures other than FTP, to mark progress or fitness?

12

Something like HRV or VO2 values, or something else?

I might be missing something, but to me, this is a limitation of indoor riding with TR. For example, when I was riding outdoors a long, long time ago, I had a set number of routes and I’d know, this section takes X time, that section takes Y time (pre-Strava). So, if it was more or less, I knew I was doing better or worse. But with TR, there’s not a great way to do this. Guess if you also had Zwift or similar, you’d know that a given route would take X time, but I just (currently) use TR, nothing else.

I’ve tried Zwift and other apps, but to me, the structure of TR is good for me. With the other apps, the plans were too general and I’d just do what I always want to do (go nuts) and not good. TR plans in the past had kept me on track (for the most part).

So, not really found other methods for comparison. If there’s a thread somewhere on the forum on alternative measures, I’d appreciate it if you’d pass it along and I’ll take a look.

I haven’t expected my FTP number to really go up much but also never thought it’d go down so much. Think it’s this that’s tripping me up so much. I turned off the option to show me the day to day guess as to what it might be (though now wonder if that wouldn’t have value), but really don’t want to focus on it - plan the work, work the plan sort of thing, and that’s what I thought I was doing….

To me, this is an example of “Your baby’s ugly” - no one wants to be told that their child is ugly, but statistically speaking, it can happen. TR AI told me my workouts or ftp was ugly and I didn’t like it. :slight_smile: Human nature I think.

Now you’ve got me thinking, wonder if there are other apps that pull in different metics from (example) Garmin Connect (sleep score / body battery / nutrition) and these would influence the workouts?

Again, will see how the next block or two goes as I think this upcoming block will be a mess just from a new job and stress, though to be honest, with the number as low as it is, workouts might be very easy.

Thanks,
Chris

13

HRV and VO2 are an additional step away from the (usual) goal of training. For example your goal is a certain race result, that is the best measure - did you podium or not. But along the way you could have goals that feed into that ie is FTP increasing? what about other power durations? maybe you want a big 1min power as a goal, that wouldn’t really show up in FTP. Another goal would be repeatability or durability. I can do 5x5 at 110% FTP, where before I could only do 3x5. Or I can do a 20min effort at 90% of FTP after riding 3hrs.

In my opinion power goals are only one step away from true goals (either fitness or race results). As we get farther away from that the metrics are interesting but maybe not as impactful we think.

14

A couple things - you mentiond if you mark it easy when it was prescribed to be hard… I would say I have never ever even considered marking a hard workout day “easy”… I would imagine that is going to throw AI into a fit with confusion. (as it would with a human coach). I would recommend if it was a sustainable hard effort… that would be considered at the very least “moderate” to limit AI recoil and cycling up/down in noise (or ignoring the result as an outlier)

  1. With bathroom breaks - not sure how that goes for you, but when I used to do a lot of treadmill key workouts in the AM, that would be a prob for me also – I would try to be very strategic in pausing workout …to try to maximize the work load portions. So if I new I would have a long break in the midst of a 4x8’ threshold work… maybe I would get to the bathroom early after the first rep so that it wouldn’t be in the middle maybe of the 2nd or 3rd rep. Also maybe ramp up intensity of the rep (or extending it to 9’ into the recovery) knowing you’d have more then a 3min recovery. Game the workout to get a similar training stimulous. Also as you warm back up in the ‘recovery’ when you return to bathrm, up power percentage to get your LT/vo2 systems firing closer to work level state…instead of sitting in bathroom levels zn0-zn1.
  2. If you know you are fatigued or Chrons is acting up, be your own advocate - “Tell your Coach” and select a Workout Alternative that is shorter or easier to ensure a successful workout. One that maybe has shorter intervals that allows for pauses during recoveries instead of being in the middle of a 10min block of work. Also can use -% to reduce intensity a couple percent and still be in the zone.