I don’t think variable colors for over vs under target are terribly worthwhile. Bright green is good, and I usually know where I am relative to the target even in the medium greens with just a peek. YMMV.
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So I’m getting a sense of how AT is working for me in for Sweet Spot (thats pretty much all I have done since getting the beta on Monday) but above and below that is still a bit of a mystery.
I’m doing SSBHV at the moment, and it seems like if I complete a 6.5 rated SS workout, the recommended adaptation is to change the next SS workout to a 6.6. It’s not clear to me how much its taking current fatigue and the overall plan into consideration. It’s also a bit odd that quite often the suggested workout is up to 30 minutes and 25TSS more or less than the originally scheduled workout. So far I have declined all of the proposed changes.
I’ll have to wait to find out, but I assume endurance works the same way, but this makes me wonder if AT will keep pushing harder and harder “easy” rides which will end up messing up the hard rides. I can always go a bit harder on an easy day, buts that not really the point is it?
Sprint is where I am really puzzled. Before today, I have never done a TR sprint workout, but I have done plenty of sprinting on TR with custom workouts and free rides. I have always charted my “pure sprint” by looking at max power at 5/10/20 seconds. I did Haku tonight and pushed my sprint progression from 1.0 → 2.1, which still sounds a bit low, so I started shopping for a new sprint workout to do next week.
Looking at the whole catalog of sprint workouts, the most, longest sprints with the shortest rests get the highest progression scores. If the AT progression pushes you towards longer sprints and shorter rests, thats not really maximizing your sprint, thats maximizing something else. To me that sounds like a strength coach saying “to increase your 1RM on squat, we’ll work up to 10 sets of 20 reps and keep decreasing rest between sets” - it just doesn’t make any sense. I realize only about 1% of TR users actually care about maximizing sprint power, but this just seems odd to me. Maybe I’m thinking too much about the progression levels as slices of the P-D curve, but if thats not what they are, then what are they?
I also think this would be a nice touch. I had emailed support about it as a bug and they indicated to me that the workout difficulties (achievable, productive, etc.) not showing it on the calendar view for future is as intended. I didn’t probe as to why, but I assume it is because that difficulty rating would change with every adaptation and would be confusing for users.
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I made the same request in the early beta.
They said projection more than the current day ahead can and may well change. I get that and can understand, but I feel at least showing the rating for the very next planned workout is worthwhile and more likely to be stable.
The only change would occur if you added a sickness or other time off, which is also understandable. But getting the next workout listed seems more than reasonable and I know I would appreciate it right up front.
You can see the info by simply loading the workout, so it’s not as if the info is unknown. They are just choosing to hide / not include it as of now.
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I’m in 100% agreement on that. I like to know what my next workout is so I can prepare my headspace, plan meals accordingly, gauge my fatigue as I head into it, etc. So whether on the calendar or the workout page, I’ll be checking those difficulty rating for each workout ahead of time. It tends to calm my nerves on the day of when I know I’ve checked all the boxes I wanted to check leading into the workout.
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I would accept it and give the workout a try. The survey you take after the workout will make it adjust even further and is the buffer to always pushing you harder and harder. Without the subjective knowledge, it’ll never really understand how you track and trend. The more you feed it the smarter it will get. Failing to feed it will keep it mediocre for you.
As for the TSS thing, this is going to be a major sticking point for people and we’re going to have to get over it. Not all TSS is the same. A 1x40-min threshold workout is the same TSS as 4x10-minute threshold workout, but they feel completely different when completed.
Nate said in the announcement podcast that while the TSS may rise or decrease in ways you wouldn’t expect, AT is still creating progressions in the targeted system. He specifically said this has screwed with everyone’s minds because they are seeing improvements in their abilities across the board.
I’m personally really interested to see how TSS changes for me with AT over the course of a year, and to plot my season start and endpoints to compare power numbers and the like.
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Maybe pastel colours for the circles rather than solid colours, to indicate future uncertainty?
Did my first workout since starting the adaptive training Beta.
I was doing Remmel which I had already chosen prior to starting the beta. This was marked as a stretch workout as the AI didnt pick up some of my threshold work that wasnt a TR workout in my history so I was confident that I could achieve it.
I completed the workout and rated it as a 9/10 as it was close to my limit at this FTP. This gave a 1.3 bump to my threshold progression bar. No changes to any workouts as I have a plan builder with SSB LV as my current plan.
Question: how far ahead does it look? My plan builder goes out to an event 114 days away. Some of the workouts i.e. Mary Austin at the moment would be a productive workout for me at Threshold but isnt scheduled until the end of April so it would be too soon to say how my levels may be before then and therefore it might not adjust them yet?
No, not at the moment. Nate has said that that is their goal to be able to adjust plan volume and rest days in the future, but for now it will just adjust the difficulty of future workouts to match your progression and how well you managed your past workouts on the plan.
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Hi all,
Excited about AT; just wondering if you can get any of the features before you are accepted onto the beta version? E.g. train now and progression levels? I’ve had a look on my account but it isn’t immediately obvious to me and I thought they said on the podcast that it was possible?
Sorry, I’m sure this has been asked loads of times already. Thanks
TrainNow is available on the beta version of the TR mobile apps (regularversion of Win/Mac), which are open to anyone.
Level info for workouts is planned for sometime next week for everyone.
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It looks pretty far out, but like @ambermalika said during the Adaptive Training announcement podcast, you have to view it like a weather forecast. The further out it is, the more inaccurate those difficulty markers will be. Think of it like you’re planning around rain in a 10-day forecast.
As it gets closer it may recognize you’ve progressed and the workout is no longer productive, in which case it would probably choose a new one more relevant to you at that time.
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Thanks Chad. I only have an iPad and iPhone so guess this is why I haven’t seen trainnow?
TrainNow is available on the beta version of the new IOS app, you should be able to get access to the beta app (this is a different beta to the AT beta) through the TrainerRoad website.
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As of Monday (15th) I think the TR podcast said they were rolling out something else too 
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Probably the polarized training plan.
There are a lot of unanswered questions on there and my experience is that it oscillated between off the couch suggestions and very appropriate suggestions - but can’t figure out why. Some other people have seen crazy hard stuff too. I think maybe a ftp change throws it way off, but it alsodoes not seem to reset or adapt to completed outdoor TR workouts after that. Not sure what the convergence rate is - e.g. how many workouts does it need to break out of off the couch mode because we know nothing about you?
It would be nice if TR could have a committed support rep active on an official trainnow Q&A thread that fed a reference FAQ.
Remember, this is the only thing out of the announcement a few weeks ago that most of us can even use, and some of us are still trying to be engaged customers, take the right steps to enable the algorithms and frankly muddling in the dark a bit on it.
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Oh yeh get that - just wondered how far ahead it does look!
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Upped my progression level to 7.8 today, I’ve noted it elsewhere but in order to get level 10 on endurance you have to do Bandeira for 6hrs. I’m repeating this one tomorrow to wrap up. I should note that doing these two days in a row won’t increase my progression level, although if someone can do 2 days in a row of 7.8, it’s certainly likely they can do a single day of a level 10 ride. Perhaps the algorithm may evolve to recognize this
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Will this be released today? 
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