Maybe this is a dumb question, but I did read the official posts and listen to the podcast and I still don’t understand athlete levels.
Assume I start at level 3 threshold (because we all do?), then my fitness improves over next 4 weeks, then my AI FTP increases. Won’t I start over at athlete level 3 threshold again? Or, if I don’t improve won’t I still be athlete level 3 threshold? How do I get to higher athlete levels? It seems like there is not enough time to progress through levels before AI FTP resets to new baseline.
I don’t care about athlete levels except that it is my understanding that they relate to the suitable workouts for me. So if I am always in the same narrow range won’t the workouts all be similar level (e.g. shorter intervals, more rest)?
Playing devil’s advocate here, because I’m not sure anyone but TR staff knows the answer just yet - do we know you get reset back to a 3 when your AI FTP detection hits? It was implied that the ORIGINAL new FTP detection targeted this, but we don’t know that subsequent ones will. To me that wouldn’t quite make sense. I’m expecting them to be scaled back relative to the progression made in each zone and the FTP change.
For example, assuming my FTP goes up and I’ve done a boatload of VO2 and no threshold, my threshold AL would barely change over the month, but my FTP goes so keeping my threshold AL at 3 wouldn’t make sense. It should probably go below 3. Equally, if I spend a month doing Threshold and ignore all my other zones taking my threshold level back to 3 would probably tank my other zones to a one or below to match the FTP increase which doesn’t sound productive.
I may be completely off the mark on this, as I said I don’t think anyone’s hit the 28 day mark since the new system rolled out to be sure yet, but I haven’t seen anything from TR confirming we’ll be reset to 3 every time and it wouldn’t make sense to my (admittedly maybe faulty) logic.
I think rather than the arbitrary 3 you mention, you get rated according to your abilities at your current FTP (a lot of folks are starting at quite high levels) and when there is an increase in FTP, the system lowers your PLs to maintain the difficulty/ progression (again not an arbitrary 3).
Thanks for that context. From the website it sounded like it would always be level 3 threshold, but maybe I am misinterpreting.
The updated AI FTP Detection you’re getting puts you around a level 3 threshold level. This will be consistent between detections, and we think this is a good insert point into your overall zone progressions to get faster.
About level 3 for this current/ first AIFTD with the new system I think. I doubt that say you theoretically progress to a level 9 Threshold PL and you get a 5w increase in AI FTP on a future detection that they’ll reset you all the way back to around level 3 to start off. AI will adapt. Workouts would be way too easy if it always reset to around 3. I don’t know TR’s actual numbers but to maintain difficulty and progression a PL of say 7 or 8 would be more likely.
Level 3 is too easy at old AI FTP if you were at high level, but at a high enough new AI FTP a level 3 workout could be challenging. Also, maybe you only get to athlete level 4 or 5 before the AI FTP detection recalibrates so it is not huge change. It is a different workout profile though.
But, maybe there isn’t much point in me speculating too much. Hopefully somebody on TR team can clarify how it will work.
I’ve not done any threshold workouts yet., but my first anerobic workout with the new system was initially a PL of 5.4, I had a wo which was just below the desired IF, I’ve had an AI FTPD now and a rest week and its fallen to 4.1.
Similarly, my VO2max started at 5.3, I again had a workout that was just below the target (but closer), I’ve had an AI FTPD now and a rest week and its fallen to 4.3.
I guess I’ll see in due course how it’ll workout with Threshold, the initial spade in the sand PL I have for Threshold FWIW is 3.3.
You have to bear in mind too that the AI doesn’t really care about the levels, just the power. Take a look at my recent threshold work for instance (no FTP change in this timespan):
Last week of build I did Cloudripper -1, which is a 4.4 and rated it moderate (predicted to be hard to very hard).
First week of specialty and it gives me Haeckel which is only a 2.6. I looked at this and thought, going by the levels, it would be too easy given the WL but it was bang on (somewhere between hard and moderate, as predicted by the AI)
That’s a good point and is probably part of the answer. For example, maybe you start around threshold level 3 and AI will prescribe workout levels 2-4 and these will be good. Maybe you work up to 3-5 range. But, I am still curious if you will ever get to a level 8-10 threshold workout.
More importantly maybe, if you don’t reach high athlete levels, how does that change the type of workouts you are doing? Does it matter? If workout levels are just approximations of difficulty, then maybe not. But, it also seems like it has some impact on the profile of workouts. Some workouts appear to have a clear progression like being able to sustain “FTP” power for longer durations with less breaks.
I think the other thing to keep in mind here is that when you get into your specialty phase you typically stop getting FTP increases unless you complete a level 9+ workout.
If you are doing a full length plan with an 8 week specialty you will likely get fairly far into the threshold progression during that time. If you came into it at a 5 I could see where you run out of appropriate workouts.
I don’t know if it will always reset to 3, or adapt and allow you to progress higher in build and specialty vs base, etc.
If you do more than the prescribed workout, it’ll give you credit. I added an extra 10 minutes to my last ss interval the other day, and my workout level increased by more than it would have had I not done extra.
That puts my ss up to 7.5, which is more than the 5.7 the ride would have given me.
It has me scheduled for Eclipse next, at 6.5. But I have a rest week between then and now so unsure if that’ll change or not.
I could write a LOT on this. To keep it short though: It seems reasonable to me to add a bit extra to the later intervals if RPE feels lower than what the AI predicted. That can be either increasing intensity on the later intervals, or extending the last interval.
I was wondering the same thing. My AI FTP decreased by 2% and I have the following threshold workouts since that detection
Threshold 3.4 Reinstein -2 - Hard
Threshold 3.6 Warlow - 2 - Hard
Threshold 4.0 Coe - Very Hard
My AI FTP detection is 7th of Feb with a +2.3% prediction and on that date the threshold workout is currently:
Threshold 3.4 Reinstein -2
So in a base / build plan which has over / unders weekly is this going to be my range of workouts. I’m not likely to progress beyond 1 level at my current FTP over 3 threshold workouts.
