Only a few posts up 
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For the progression, your level is essentially the hardest workout you’ve done recently. For example, I did Big Mountain on Saturday and that bumped my endurance score to 7.3, my VO2 is 5.5 and if I (hopefully) complete my planned workout today it’ll get to 6.4.
Serious, but odd question: In your usage so far have you ever wished you could manually adjust your progressions downward?
It’s early for me, but I assume the AI will always try to put me “at my limits” (roughly), so if I believe my FTP is overreaching and/or my levels are too high it’s going to hurt until I likely fail repeated workouts for it to adjust?
Example: My Threshold is supposedly 4.4 and I just did a 4.0, reducing intensity a few times (to 98% at halfway, then 96% at 3/4 or so). I answered the RPE as all-out. It rated as a success, didn’t bump my Threshold up or down, but wonder if I’m really at a 4.4.
Is there any way to hit the “reset” button? Maybe manually adjusting FTP (or re-testing)?
Perhaps I will manually edit my FTP and see what happens… In the name of science of course.
Nevermind… Before completing my post, I went to edit my FTP by 1% downwards and noticed the following pop-up:
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My feeling is that the first workouts may put people at their limits but the longer you use AT, the more it will actually tailor them to your abilities. So while it does have historic objective data to have an idea of your performance right now, it doesn’t have as much subjective data from the post workout surveys. My assumption is that the more of those you complete, the better the workout selection will get.
For that workout, did it rate it as achievable, productive, stretch or breakthrough? It could be that it thinks you have a higher tolerance for threshold than you currently do, but I’d say dropping the percent like you did isn’t a total failure for the workout. You’re still spending most of your time in that threshold zone. If you had stopped in the middle of an interval to catch your breath for a few minutes, that would be a different story.
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Thanks for the thoughts, I’m going to keep looking to see where it goes with future workouts.
It rated it Achievable. I think, maybe incorrectly, that the rating is merely a comparison between my level and the workout’s level. It was a Success in the end with +/- 0 on my level after (so the workout was 4.0, I was 4.4 and am still 4.4).
A side note, this workout is labelled as Threshold but much of the work is right at the bottom end of threshold, reducing it much at all seems to put the effort into SweetSpot. I get zones all flow together, but I still found the mental debate about it not helping/hurting my SweetSpot progression while spending nearly all time there with my adjustments I know we don’t want to say the zones have strict and firm boundaries, but the progressions and workout labels seem to make that assumption?
I agree the workout wasn’t a failure (or “Struggle” to be kind), but I would suspect a max level RPE (“all-out”) on a workout that is less than your ability may be implying a need to reduce your progression?
I will see where it goes though, honestly I do many workouts with varying fatigue (I run different amounts on off-bike days) and often ride with different levels of pre-fuel. This ride was 10 minutes after waking up, and I may have better ability midday.
I left my FTP and progressions where they were for now after seeing the warning, I’d rather see how it plays out for now.
I think that answers the RPE question then. Work like this has to be pretty well fueled in my experience. I would hate to do it first thing in the morning, and I would 100% be suffering and questioning life, as well.
As for the zones, threshold zone does dip down to as low as 91% and rises as high as 105% depending on the model. I think staying in that area means you did it right. Sweet spot zone is right on the line of the upper end of tempo and the lower end of threshold. It is a not a mutually exclusive zone, but rather one that lays over the top of those two other zones. So some threshold work may be sweet spot and some tempo work may also be in sweet spot from time to time.
It’s why on intervals.icu Sweet Spot is shown at the bottom outside the zone heirarchy. Below is a screenshot to show how sweet spot isn’t a distinct separate zone but rather a combo of tempo and threshold. Also note how my FTP is 251, but my threshold is as low as 221 and as high as 257.
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Thanks for that 
. I only dip in from time-to-time.
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I was under the impression that you get a short questionaire after every workout?
What would happen, if you described this “achievable” “successful” workout as really challenging and “just so doable”?
Would AT recognize this and downscale the progression by itself and rating this exact workout as “productive” or even “stretch” from this point on?
I think the questions may change if it deems the workout a Struggle or otherwise weird (i.e. to better understand the Struggle)
In this case it deemed it a Success and merely asked one question about my Perceived Exertion. I answered the maximum (“all-out”). The only adaption that showed up shortly after the workout was a threshold workout a month out and it suggested taking a planned 4.4 up to a 4.6 - both of which seemed weird to me (so far in the future and only getting harder).
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For those who are interested in some more info about Machine Learning:
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Those of you who are posting screenshots and reporting on your experiences are true heroes. History will remember you as such.
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So I did this workout today, was hoping that as potentially productive that I could get it, but it was a bridge too far going from 5.5 to 6.4 These were 3mins at 120%, tried to turn it down for the last one but the body was already angry from the earlier efforts! lol
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They mentioned on the podcast that you should view these things as a weather forecast. The closer it is, the more accurate the tailored work will be. For something a month out, I’d suspect there’ll be several more adaptations to it before you hop on the bike that day. I’m very interested in hearing how your progression changes as you do workouts given your experiences so far.
Also, to @Mowag, there are a couple post workout surveys that are served based on how AT classifies your performance. For a success, it’s a simple 1-5 survey from easy to all out. For a struggle pass or struggle fail, it will ask for your primary reason that you struggled. And for a fail it will do the same. Those responses will be fed into the model and it will learn more about you, specifically. So yeah, if you fail and note that intensity is too high or something like that, it would likely reduce your progression levels and serve you some adaptations to future workouts based on your experience and performance with that new information in mind.
No two people will likely have the same plan and progression once this is fully implemented and the AT is serving workouts on a very individualized basis.
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This is great to hear. I am so excited to see how AT will progress me. In my opinion, the entire “too much intensity” discussion can be largely solved by an appropriately set FTPs. I will continue to take the ramp test because like you, I want to have an objective measure of my fitness, but it probably overestimates my FTP.
Will AT use the assessed FTP (using on 75% of highest 1min power) and assign mostly low levels for each of the energy systems? Or will it recognize that I’m not in the meat of the ramp test bell curve and adjust my FTP down to a point where my average level is now in the middle?
Also, since users will almost never fail endurance rides, how does AT determine the appropriate level for that energy system. Solely based on the survey?
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It’s based on what workouts you complete and how long ago you complete them.
But…the next recommended rides are based on more factors.
So your score isn’t dependent on any other rider.
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Right now it’s 75% and lower levels, but once we have more data we’ll probably have unique percents (but no promises). We’ll see how the current system preforms.
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I hoped it would also do that if I succeeded, but had a harder time than I should have had. I guess this is hard to measure though …
I think it is kinda dangerous to “nail” every workout and yet dig quite a deep hole (even more so for an unexperienced rider who doesn’t know how “hard” a particular effort should feel)
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Just be consistent in how you answer the RPE questions. Remember, the “P” is “perceived” so it is relative to you.
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It’s probably been answered before but if the different levels are set for a certain FTP then how are they adjusted after a change in FTP?
e.g. will a 10% FTP increase lead to a 10% decrease across all power level progressions or how does it work?
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What does RPE stand for?
I always thought it stood for Rate of Perceived Exertion - so the P would be relative to you, not the R.
Sorry for being pedantic, but I’m legitimately curious what else it stands for
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