That would be my guess! Might be the best of both worlds for you there.
Someone with more free time than me should scrape all the # of users posts and make a chart
(context)
Stay tuned
I’d suggest not overthinking it. Let the AT algorithm do its thing and you’ll see workout levels start to stabilize as time goes on.
Just to cover a comment that I see as incorrect. Stating something like “Sweet Spot = Moderate” with respect to survey responses and rider experience is a mistake.
Sweet Spot workouts are classified in the new Levels from 1.0 at the bottom to 12.9 at the top. There is absolutely no way that you can expect everyone, or even a majority of people to rate any or all of those the same. The workout Level, compared against our current Progression Level is what really matters. Since there is likely a very wide range in rider Progression Levels, the experiences with any specific workout, not to mention the range of them in the catalog, will absolutely vary from rider to rider.
If you are doing a workout with a Workout Level that is:
- Below your Progression Level: Successful completion should likely be a 1-2 rating.
- Around your Progression Level: Successful completion should likely be a 2-4 rating.
- Above your Progression Level: Successful completion should likely be a 4-5 rating.
This also relates to the Achievable, Productive, Stretch, Breakthrough, and Not Recommended labels we get when looking at any workout in the catalog or on our calendar. They are a basic expectation of how easy or hard any given workout is likely to be in light of the Workout Level and our Progression Level.
Even with all that, I recognize this concept is not all inclusive, but I think it is likely somewhat of an expectation that lies under the Progression Level and Workout Level relationship.
My primary point is, that we can’t make blanket claims to any Training Zone / Progression Level (Endurance, SS, Thresh, etc.) and the predicted survey result. We MUST look at the related Levels to really have any chance of guessing a result, and that also gets applied in the evaluation of it in the end by AT.
- Sure, Endurance is “easy”… until you stretch it to double the time the rider has done previously (like bumping from 1.5 hours to 3.0 hours).
- Similarly, Anaerobic may be “hard”… but if I have a PL of 9.0 and do an Anaerobic workout with a Level of 1.0, it may well be “1 - easy” when I’m done.
All the above is looking at “normal” performance and not looking at problematic results from bad recovery, nutrition, stress, etc. Those all can and do impact the results and make some workouts different than expected by the predicted comparison of Workout Levels and our current Progression Levels.
Same here. My career page loads fine, but I’m no longer able to adjust the date range. It’s static at 1 year now, before I could update it to the past 1, 2, 3, or 4 years.
I’m not completely mad then. VO2max aside this is basically exactly how it’s been working for me.
Thanks.
But a workout above progression level can still feel easy… That’s the whole idea of this system right. If your making progress, then higher rated workout should feel easier. You should not try to look at it from a progression system perspective…just rate it as it feels. And not how it should feel like.
Right, everything is variable. I placed LOTS of qualifiers and statements about my presumptions above to cover that my info is essentially for “normal” cases. I did not want to muddy the water with better or worse case scenarios.
Your example would be something of an exception, where either the current rider Progression Level is incorrect for some reason, or something else is leading to what might be a Stretch or Breakthrough completion, but felt easier than that for some reason.
That is totally valid, and should be rated by the rider as they see fit based on their typical use of the ratings, regardless of the basic “normal” info I shared above.
I mainly wanted to dispel what I saw as a mistake, thinking that we can associate a survey rating with a training zone / progression level. We simply can’t do that with the broad range of workouts on offer, and varied rider abilities.
Yay. New plans are coming.
I’m no athlete- I’m very much looking forward to a slightly easier ramp up version of SSB1/2 & Build.
@IvyAudrain mentioned they are “actively working on them” in a separate post!

video showing how my SSB1 plan ended up vs how it’s designed and it’s really quite different.
I’d rather just see the before and after. Thinking you might have already posted a screenshot of your calendar, pulled up your forum activity and quickly scanned but couldn’t easily locate it. If you haven’t posted a screenshot, I’d be grateful if you did.
I have been in the AT Beta for over a month now and it seems that adaptation recommendations are behaving differently. I am coming to the end of SS Base MV 1, and in the past week I have successfully completed 1 SS workout (+.1), 2 Threshold workouts (+1.6), and 1 Endurance workout (+1.1) with no adaptation recommendations. Looking at my plan, I can’t say definitively that I should have received recommendations, but it is different than a few weeks ago, when I was receiving adaptation suggestions pretty regularly. Has anyone else noticed this?
Also, a related feature recommendation for the TR folks… I think it would be good for AT to provide some acknowledgement of process after each ride. Something like you completed "XXXX with a rating of XXX - "your recommendations are… " or “no changes are recommended”. I think this kind of “show your work prompt” would help make situations like this clearer.
Thanks for the consideration
Updates on Adaptive Training known issues and fixes for today, 4.29.21.
Number of Athletes in the Beta: 945
Newly Identified Issues:
Ride Details Page
- FTP tests shouldn’t display an outcome classification
Surveys
- In mobile, the “I didn’t struggle with this workout” option isn’t working properly
- The “Missed Survey” modal isn’t re-sizing properly
- Post Workout Surveys aren’t delivering the relevant education resources
Newly Resolved Issues:
Career Page
- Career crashes if certain “hidden” workouts are added
Calendar Page
- Difficulty level (achievable, productive, stretch, breakthrough) isn’t appearing on workout cards in the Calendar modal to add a workout
Ride Details Page
- The Ride Details drawer displays “Missed Survey” on workouts with a completed survey until you refresh or close/reopen the app.
Workout Cards
- Progression Level footer isn’t appearing for Custom Workouts workout cards
Known Issues updated in OP and still viewable on the ‘Adaptive Training Known Issues’ 15 Support Article). If you’re still experiencing an issue from the list above (or in the updated original post) that should be resolved, please contact support@trainerroad.com.
@IvyAudrain Hi, when you say survey are you referring to the 1 to 5 grading or should I be seeing something else?
Correct! Post-workout surveys.

This is my main issue too. I’m pretty sure that I won’t be able to take recommendations from an AI seriously unless it can also explain why those recommendations were made. Especially for the first few years.
Yet you otherwise used to follow a template plan no questions asked about how those workouts were chosen…
I say the above tongue in cheek, but people have a terrible unconscious bias
How often are you guys getting suggested adaptations? I’ve only been in the beta for three workouts - but I’ve received zero adaptations thus far - rated the workouts 1, 1, and 4.
Yes, I am on a TR plan
I get adaptations after nearly every workout.
For your ratings, what were the “labels” of expected effort for your workouts?