As said before, I don’t trust the resulting signature numbers a lot. If you ask Xert to recalculate your progression, the result heavily depends on what you enter as an intial state. But anyways, if its 35 or 25Kj is maybe also not that important. Alone from my general experience, being life long good at strength sports and bad at endurance sports, I think there is at least some truth in these. Bringing us back to that ramp tests might tend to overestimate me.
Related to the question of my usual volume, that has been between 10…15h a week. But thats hard to compare as that was a) all outside and b) I live an an area there its either up or down. To find a flat ride I would need to go by car. Means there is a lot of descending in that number. With the MTB less, on the gravel more. So not much to conclude from it I think. Let’s say by today my lower body feels anything else than being underchallenged.
If you just started using TrainerRoad you will have a proficiency level of 1.0 in all areas. It could be that the first workout for threshold will be at a higher level, and therefore a stretch. Also note that you will have different levels for sweet spot and threshold.
We’d second what @HLaB is saying in this thread. If you’re new to TR/structured training, you’ll probably have an adjustment period to get used to things as you get started.
Your Ramp Test should be a good starting point to estimate where your FTP is at the moment. Sweet Spot sessions should feel like you’re working hard, but not enduring an unbearable amount of discomfort (like you might feel doing long Threshold intervals or tough VO2 Max workouts).
If Sweet Spot feels a bit harder than you think it should, don’t be afraid to manually adjust your FTP down a little bit. As you get more workouts done and feed Adaptive Training more data, your plan will adjust with workouts that are appropriately challenging for your current fitness levels. You’ll also be able to use AI FTP Detection (which, to be clear, does indeed work differently than Xert’s model) in place of FTP tests!
I took a look at your account and also noticed that it looks like you may have several different power meters – is that the case?
If so, that could also explain why some of your rides are feeling harder than others. Discrepancies between different power meters may mean that they don’t perfectly match up with each other, so your power readings may differ for a given output depending on which device you happen to be using.
Let me know if that is the case, and we can come up with some tips for training with different power meters on different bikes. And in any case, rest assured that Adaptive Training and AI FTP Detection will get you dialed in as you continue to train.
Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions!
Correct me if I am wrong, but a proper HIE would result from repeated peak and recovery intervals correct?
So a ramp test or riding until you fail would give a poor example of AWC and W’ (HIE) or as I understand it how well you recover and reproduce work above threshold power.
I was always told a good workout to dial in a HIE would look like this;
Thanks @ZackeryWeimer for looking into it. I am looking forward to see the adaptive training and AI detection dialing me in. I just appreciate very much to start from “too soft & dialing up” than “too hard & dialing down”. Its just more healthy and practical for me who has more things going on than to recover in bed from over optimistical planned workouts
So I think lowering my FTP was a good decision and making me look a dip more brightly towards tomorrows threshold workout.
Please don’t worry about my PMs. Saxonar and P2M Diverge is the same. I assume one is the name it announces via ANT+ and the other is what I set in its BT config. The “Specialized” and even some others I use to carry my kids around etc, not for training and definitely not for testing of any kind.
I honestly have no clue out of what exactly Xert pulls this HIE number. But just to clarify, the ramp test did not push my HIE up, only my TP. My HIE was a constant for long and during many BTs.
Dropping from 10-15h a week, down to 3-5h a week, is a huge drop. And risk in fitness. I’m not sure what your endurance rides look like if its either up or down, but mine would have some intensity on the up parts. For myself, dropping hours from 8-12/week down to 3-5h/week will result in a loss of fitness (I’ve done it multiple times). Again thats for myself, and with the 3-5 hours a week being almost all high intensity work. But everyone is different. Good luck and hope you get things dialed in soon!
In the end, that volume experiment is exactly the self-expereince I am looking forward to make.
For now, these hours are the time I am willing to spend. So trying out something with more intensity doesn’t sound like weirdest idea to me.
But also I put my TR days to Mo/We/Fr to have the weekends free for long outdoor endurance rides whenever I have spare time or are willing to take the kids on the bike trailer.
If it all turns out to destroy my fitness I guess I just swing back to another approach and start over.
I don’t think it is a requirement in Xert, but they do recommend other tests than the ramp test. One problem with the ramp test is that multiple combinations of HIE and TP will be valid (increase HIE and reduce TP). If you have multiple drain cycles (intervals) I think Xert will have better data to work with. They also do not recommend ERG mode for breakthroughs as they would like to have data showing what power you are able to produce after HIE is drained. With ERG that power will go to zero very fast.
After lowering FTP to 260w I just did the first threshold workout and it went well. I rated it as hard, feeling between hard/moderate. My legs feel ok (i.e. not fried)
You see in the 2nd interval I played with the resistance setting to see how it feels with 105% (273w) compared. I tried to look where I have the clearer differentiation in my sensation regarding burn vs. no-burn during the over/unders. Not super easy as I miss the experience with that kind of training. I concluded that with 100% (260w) I am settled for now.
The weridest moments where always somewhere 30…60s into the recovery intervals, where my quads felt like very tensed or kind of swollen for a min, turning back to normal afterwards.
I always get the strongest urge to just stop pedalling and get off the damn bike about 45 seconds (plus or minus 10 seconds) into the under. No idea what the precise mechanism is and why it hits at that point.
The feeling usually lasts about 5 or 10 seconds and then I’m out the other side. It’s a combination of local (quad) and systemic fatigue, I think.
Intervals are fun! Over/unders in particular! Wait until the day you do some all-out or full gas intervals under a minute! Lots of new feelings in your future Have fun!
Low Volume
Yes
High protein, plant based, no kcal restriction. Garmin says I sleep mostly well. Having small kids there are unavoidable exceptions to this, though
I understand you right suggesting that overestimating FTP on ramp tests is not a real thing for anybody?
I wonder if there is any objective data on this phenomena. I just heard the claim at times, not only here.
Apart from that, that was my first ever theshold trainer workout yesterday. It went fine so far. But I absolutely feel it in my legs and body this morning, having 0 ambition to bike today. Whatever FTP is the correct one, I don’t feel at all that I should have done even one bit more yesterday.
In my opinion, that’s not how you should feel at the start of a training plan, “shock to the system” or not. Given that the plan is probably looking to progress your threshold riding for 2 or 3 months at least, feeling so close to maximal is possibly not close to sustainable. Threshold RPE should mostly be 7 or 8.
When I’ve gotten back into training after just riding for a while, the first few threshold workouts have been straight up painful, similar to what you’ve been describing. But I’ve found that after a week or two (with my FTP being correctly dialed in by AIFTP) that I’m able to mentally prepare for the work and I actually feel really good afterwards, even though my PLs haven’t got up all that much.
Objectively I know that every single thread posted by newbies is responded to by posters who automatically tell a complete stranger who has just followed the TR protocol that their FTP is too high.
There are all sorts of reasons for early struggles, and if we work through them calmly and rationally I think you are more likely to enjoy the training and succeed over time.
In your place I would email TrainerRoad support, and if the next work out feels too hard, turn the intensity down a bit. In seven years training with TR I have literally never needed to manually adjust my FTP, despite many challenges.
You didn’t mention fans I don’t think, so make sure you’re getting loads of ventilation too.
Over/unders in particular! Wait until the day you do some all-out or full gas intervals under a minute! Lots of new feelings in your future 
Have fun!