Manual substituted workouts and AT

My upcoming vo2 and threshold workouts are just too hard for me. At the power requested the intervals are two long (4 minutes generally), alternative options don’t have any shorter interval replacements so I’ve been manually subbing it. Today I tried a 3 minute one and failed badly about halfway through. Filled out the survey as failure due to intensity, got the adaptions checking alert but no changes. I’ve failed a couple of hard intervals in the last week and none of the vo2 have adapted.

My question regarding AT is: do manually changed workouts (so ones not in a plan) have any bearing on planned workouts?

I’m on the polarised plan so it could be that there’s no option built-in into it yet. Could change over to sweet spot for this block if needed. Only on polarised as I’m trying to get the z2 done outside, and want good z2 for my ultra.

I’ve manually changed a few work outs and it seems to have adapted for me. Im on a LV plan of 3 HIIT a week but I like to do a lot of outside riding at the weekends so I nearly always swap the middle HIIT session for a LIT endurance session. I mostly do it by adding a time off annotation to remove the HIIT wo and add a TN endurance session. If your plan is not adapting correctly I would try contacting support support@trainerroad.com

Yeah, if it does for you I think I will. Just wanted to see if it was just me or as designed. Thanks for confirming.

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That seems odd. I’ve never filled the survey with fail. If I go so far as all out AT will make my future workouts easier. Is it only the vo2 workout you’re struggling with?

Yeah, V02 over two minutes. My plan hasn’t had many shorter ones since the last auto FTP update.
The z2 workouts suggested are fine (if a bit boring inside).

Potentially, but it was AI ftp and I feel I can do it for shorter intervals if the plan worked me up to them.

I thought the plan would adjust to get me to them.

As a workaround, you can always adjust (reduce) the intensity during the workout. I sometimes have to drop by 5% for the final couple of intervals during VO2 workouts when I’m feeling like I’m about to ‘pop’. It’s better than failing completely.

In the summer mine was around that or more (I think at one point 28w more than my current FTP (which I would still struggle to reach without being more upright in a TT)) so I manually dropped it too. I’m still using the manual figure but the last couple of times I’ve looked at AIFTP it has just been 6w above my manual FTP and within the margin of error.

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When I’ve subbed workouts, I’ve added the new one to my calendar and left the plan one there. Seems to have worked for me. Sometimes a toggle from productive to achievable in alternatives does the job.

All out normally gets me the struggle survey, and then “too intense” has always given me appropriate adaptations.

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Hey @firemunki!

Certain workouts are identified as “Polarised” so that the Plan complies with the exact intensity distribution defined by the Polarised Training theory. At the moment, we have a limited number of Polarised Workouts below a certain difficulty level. Therefore, Adaptive Training is actually finding you the least difficult Polarised Workout it can.

I suggest that you use our Workout Library and filters to find an alternative Workout in the same zone, to get your levels back on track. Completing a workout that is not on your Plan will prompt adaptations if it impacts your Progression Levels, so that’s not an issue at all.

Let me know if you have any questions about this!

Coolio, many thanks @SarahLaverty for the reply.

For times like this would you suggest moving from mv polarised to lv sweet spot and manually adding the extra z2?

Just an update in case anyone was following.

I think AI FTP was on point and I just needed a plan to work me up to 4 minutes intervals. Did Pope today which is 15 X 60s intervals at 235w or 250w (approx) and I didn’t struggle and completed it successfully.

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Hmmm, I’d like to understand what your goals are before making any recommendations. I will dm you!