I push most of my workouts to my Garmin and perform them as “outdoor” workouts even though they are done indoors on a trainer. Doing this “dumbs down” the workouts sometimes. For example, an endurance ride with lots of variation for a given interval block is simplified to “ride between x and y watts for z amount of time”. If I had a smart trainer with erg mode, it might make sense to hit all the prescribed values. Since I have an old “dumb” trainer, I just lean on the upper end of the wattage range (or exceed it) and may vary my cadence a bit, because I’m honestly not going to hone in to all the very small power variations.
However, I wonder if I’m short changing my progressions and/or skewing other metrics of load, recovery, etc. I’m currently doing the HV SS Base 2 and frequently exceed the prescribed workout (watts/total kjs/tss/etc.) if the legs are feeling good. A sweetspot workout may look more like threshold, for instance. It doesn’t seem like the AI registers any of this. My levels seem to progress simply by what is “prescribed” and marked as “completed” and not necessarily what was “performed”. I realize for the software to register all that data for every workout for every individual opens an enormous can of worms but my question really is, which of these circumstances is indeed happening?
Is Adapted Training based on the workout level executed -OR- the ACTUAL work performed?
AT does look at actual work, but there are limits to what it does based on those deviations from a planned workout.
If you fall short of power targets, add pauses or back pedals, AT will recognize you may have been having trouble and serve you a Struggle survey as a result.
If you exceed the power targets, it will recognize that and consider it for future adaptions, but there are limits. First, no matter how much you exceed the power targets, you will only ever gain the Progression Level that is assigned to the default workout. Second, it’s important to recognize that when you exceed the intended training zone, it is kicking it out of the normal consideration. See the related support article for some background.
All that above is current case. They are actively working on what they are calling “Levels 2.0” in discussion around here. It is supposed to look at the work in new ways and likely handle these deviations more like we might expect. Until then, you need to recognize that over-performing is not likely to give the direct changes that some think should happen.
Yeah, that is likely true and I should have covered that more specifically. I hit it from a higher level and more towards the actual TR workouts, which was a partial mistake and missed the mark. (That’s what I get for rushing on my lunch break )
And more specific to that Pass/Fail side, there is no current chance of exceeding, so the “same value” aspect still is accurate in this instance.
And to hit on the other aspect, if anyone aims to exceed the planned workout, it’s best to use the Alternates tool to change the workout. This could still apply to those pushed to outside use function as well, if the end goal is higher PL’s in the end.
Both replies are helpful. My question was mostly out of curiosity, as all the new AI is really cool. FWIW- really digging the program thus far! and the podcast (been listening for a long time) as well. It all makes me wish I had a better setup from a tech standpoint but Spring is just around the corner. With all this in mind I’ll definitely consider upgrading next winter. Thanks guys!
Today I had Foerster, 50 second VO2 max efforts. The Atom v1 is a bit slow to catch up so I fall about 10 watts short on average per effort. To get around this, I set the workout to 105%. This means I hit the prescribed average, but the peak power is higher. Does that matter? What will AT do with that?
In short, “close counts” for hitting power targets. You will likely get “full credit” for the workout with Progression Levels assigned at the end if you were more or less hitting the target watts (even if that was by applying an intensity adjustment).
Make sure to rate it how it actually felt (not how you expected it or with any consideration of the intensity adjustment itself). To a degree, that is covered in the “Intensity” article I linked above (my 2nd link).
Could you elaborate further on this? I was doing a sprint workout (Silverthrone) on the indoor trainer in erg mode. I increased the intensity to 120% and still was beating the target power. After the workout, I was still at Sprint Level 1.0. I was surprised it did not give me a higher level. Thanks for your input.
As of now, TR does not give “extra credit” Progression Levels for exceeding power targets (be that by kicking up the Workout Intensity setting or exceeding the power targets in Res/Std modes).
All TR will give now is the actual Workout Level, so the 1.0 you got for Silverthrone was to be expected:
At whatever point we get Workout Levels Version 2.0, TR should do a more direct evaluation of the actual work performed, and if appropriate, adjust the PL awarded to match the alterations we apply.
Great, thanks for confirming. Conversely, it seems when you significantly reduce the intensity of an indoor workout (say down to 90% intensity), your progression level could potentially get reduced. Is that correct? I seem to remember this happening to me once. I was doing an “achievable” endurance workout and early into it I decided I needed to do a very light recovery ride, so reduced it by 10% - at the end of the ride there was a questionnaire asking why I failed the ride (or why it was too difficult) and my Endurance level was decreased. I wondered why there was so much focus by the app on why I failed a workout, and no focus by the app on why I absolutely crushed & exceeded a workout. No worries, at least I understand now how it works now. Thanks.
As of now, you may get “full credit” PL upon completion of any workout, even if you fall short of the power targets. This is the other side of the coin for the flaw mentioned above. I haven’t pushed the limits of this so I am speculating as to the results (along with some loose memory of what others reported in similar cases).
Once we get WOLV2, this will likely change and we will get appropriate PL assigned whether we nail a workout, exceed or fall short.
Moral of the story, for right now, if you think you will deviate from the planned workout, you are best to use the Alternates function or manually swap to some workout that is more like what you plan to do. Significantly altering a workout (harder or easier) is not great in the current software, and may yield unexpected results.
So, swap if you want to do something notably different than the assigned effort.
Got it, thanks for your help. Usually, though, I do not know until I am physically on the bike and warming up how I am going to feel. Sometimes if I know there will be a big deviation during warmup (up or down) I exit the ride without saving and pick a new one and start over.
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