Need Feedback on New Workout Scoring

[Nate_Pearson]

We’re updating our workout scoring so that you get more credit for what you actually did.

That includes:

• Extending warmup
• Extending cool down
• Turning workouts up/down
• Pausing

You’ll get credit in multiple zones and get credit for what you actually did.

Multi-zone Scoring

Here's an example of me getting threshold points during a sweet spot ride that I turned up. But I also got endurance and tempo points.

Scoring is not just a time-in zone thing. It’s a complex scoring system that takes the entire ride into account.

If I did 15 mins of threshold in a ride, I wouldn’t have scored a 5.9. But, since I had 90 minutes of sweet spot before it, that threshold I did count for more because of my tired legs.

Partial Scoring

Here's a ride that I ended early. Instead of the 7.0 sweet spot that I could have scored if I had done the whole thing, I only scored a 2.2 in the sweet spot. Before, I would have gotten zero points for it because I didn't complete the entire workout.

Pauses/Breaks in Workouts

Here's a ride where I took some breaks during the last intervals. That lowered my score from a potential 5.9 -> 4.9 in threshold.

Extending Workouts

Here's a ride that I extended by 30 minutes. Those extra 30 minutes counted towards my endurance points. I also earned sweet spot points even though I was doing threshold.

Question for the forum

We can accurately give you scores for zones in which you didn't have power.

For example, if you did 32 minutes at the threshold, you’re touching your VO2 max system, even though you didn’t have any power at VO2 max.

The example below scores you at 6.8 in VO2 max even though there’s no VO2 max in the workout. We think this is cool, but it also might be confusing.

What are your thoughts on this?

[OreoCookie]

@Nate_Pearson

We think this is cool, but it also might be confusing.

What are your thoughts on this?

I would separate two things:

• Is such a system better for the athlete?
• How do you present this information to the athlete?

Personally, I love the idea of taking the effect on other zones into account properly. It seems to me that this might make AT more capable.

If it were confusing to some, you could hide the complexity, but still use it under the hoods to e. g. determine the right workout for me at that time. The latter should the guiding star.

Please make sure to consider a few edge cases, though:

• There should be an explainer why your PL score is altered. Say, I do a PL 6.8 workout and I take a pee break. Then I get credit for a PL 5.8 workout “only” instead. If that isn’t explained properly, users will get confused and I am sure many will ask support.
• In the past, I typically did not extend workouts, but I tacked on a second endurance workout. How would that be taken into account?
• Is there a way to indicate e. g. “special breaks”? Sometimes I have to get off the bike to parent or, on very long workouts, to pee. Probably it makes sense to have some way to tell TR’s AI Overlord that no, I wasn’t tired, I just had to get my kid a snack.

[funkinslick]

This pleases me and is something I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. Question: I’m the type of schmuck that does sweet spot and above workouts on standard mode and aims for a power at or often slightly above target. This doesn’t involve adjusting the output (workout set to 100% while interval is completed at 102% or so). Will the workout know I completed the intervals at a higher level and adjust the PL accordingly or must it be done with the adjust-o-meter in order for credit for the higher output to be given?

[UWDawgs]

This is awesome! Is it live now?

[Nate_Pearson]

I haven’t really talked about this, but productive/stretch/breakthrough are going away.

We have an all-new machine learning system that pics workouts for you and takes into account indoor, outdoor, running, swimming, etc.

It can sometimes give you “break through” workouts, but the workout feels just right. Sometimes, I think it’s because of the above issue. Like if you can do 40 mins at the threshold, you can do a pretty hard VO2 max workout, too, even if you haven’t scored that high recently.

It also takes fatigue into account and will give you different workouts based on how far you are away from your other workouts. For me, I seem to peak about 3 days out from my last workout before I lose fitness.

[TravisM]

I certainly like the idea of taking credit for extra work I’ve done. Plus I’d imagine that’s how it would work when we get to scoring outside workouts.

[AldridgePrior]

@Nate_Pearson

The example below scores you at 6.8 in VO2 max even though there’s no VO2 max in the workout. We think this is cool, but it also might be confusing.

Great stuff!

But, it’s not the scope for confusion that concerns me, but the calibration of this feature, which I believe you need to ensure is done conservatively…

Take me for example. I currently have the following PLs:

• Sweet Spot: 9.3
• Threshold: 4.2
• VO2max: 1.0

This mixture arose because my winter training program recently kicked off with a focused Sweet Spot block, raising my PL to 9.3; I’m following that with a Threshold min-block (just begun), after which I’ll switch to allowing AT to steer me through General Base & Build etc.

My upcoming Threshold w/o, Starr King, has a PL of 5.7 (3x15 @100% of FTP), but I intend doing it at 98% instead of 100%; on completion of that, I’d guesstimate I’d be assigned a Threshold PL in the mid-5s by this new workout scorer. Such a mid-5s scoring would be higher than the 5.1 PL of the Vezzana workout in your example, suggesting that under the “cross-scoring” scheme described I’d also be assigned a VO2max PL somewhere in the 6-or-6.5-to-7 range (cf. the 6.8 in your Vezzana example).

For me, having not touched a VO2max w/o for some time (hence my current 1.0 PL!), I really wouldn’t like being asked to do a mid-to-high 6s PL VO2max workout straight from the off. Looking at the workouts in that range, I don’t feel ready for that at all, and I’d immediately be choosing a much lower Alternate.

I think when crediting PLs for “energy systems” which a workout didn’t directly touch (such as in your example of Threshold crediting VO2 also), particularly if doing so for VO2 Max, Anaerobic or Sprint PLs, you should be doing so very conservatively such that there is no doubt that the athlete could complete a workout at that PL. Mapping the example you’ve described here with Vezzana to my own situation tells me that that is definitely not the case currently.

If assigned conservatively, the athlete (me!) could always choose a harder Alternate, but the system should not by default risk cross-scoring someone with a PL that results in serving up workouts that are off the scale too difficult, which to me it seems might currently be the case…

[FrankTuna]

@OreoCookie

Is there a way to indicate e. g. “special breaks”? Sometimes I have to get off the bike to parent or, on very long workouts, to pee. Probably it makes sense to have some way to tell TR’s AI Overlord that no, I wasn’t tired, I just had to get my kid a snack.

This is important I think. Would pauses only reduce the workout level if done during an interval vs the rest periods?

[toyman]

I love this and have been waiting for this change!
I have been a frequent user of significantly extending workouts and adjusting them to be more of what I want. Why search for a 92% SS workout of the times I want when I can just increase the target of this 88% one?

I firmly believe that this is the ‘right’ way to do it: The thing that should be scored is the actual work done, not the target workout. In well executed workouts these are close enough to the same thing to not matter, but it is the work that matters.
My view as that user confusion should be addressed with documentation/explanations. A popup or “explain why my scores changed” button can do this.

If the scoring system is meant to communicate the actual physiological load (or maybe expected response to the load), then I think is the actual work done that should be scored. Maybe have an override button for those times that people have to take a non effort related break but want to be credited for work they didn’t do.

I think that for a threshold workout increasing the VO2 score is trickier - if the model was 100% accurate this would be fine. I agree that this type of scoring should be conservative - the model isn’t 100% acrruate and also being able to complete VO2 workouts IMHO can be more mentally limited than say tempo or sweet spot. This type of non-physiological limit that may affect VO2 workouts more than others is very individual and can’t be modeled on a population level.

[roleypup]

Definitely seems a step in the right direction, very exciting! Is this WLv1.9? Or perhaps, scoring for native Zwift workouts imported to TR?

I also feel that if I pause mid-interval then I think the workout should be scored as though the workout had been built with those rests, not just whether I did or didn’t pass. Or alternatively if I scrub through a workout to cut out recovery time because I’m on a timeframe, it should probably be scored differently. As discussed on other threads I think it would be valuable to continue recording through manual pauses & to display this information. We’ve all seen the sudden mid-interval HR dropoffs indicating a paused workout.

I’ve thought a few times of the edge case of someone doing a threshold block, completing Galena +1, then seeing that Tray Mountain is classified as a stretch workout, & perhaps the secondary sweetspot PL of Galena +1 should equal or exceed the primary sweetspot PL of Tray Mountain.

@toyman

Why search for a 92% SS workout of the times I want when I can just increase the target of this 88% one?

I like what this implies for custom workouts, whose PLs can be a bit off in comparison to the standard workout library. But also significantly, appropriate scoring of variations to workouts could breathe some life back into the Group Workouts feature, which I fear has lost some relevance now that plans are not fixed but rather guided by AT. Say you & your mates decide to suffer together (not on Zwift!), you schedule a group workout on the calendar that has a particular structure: say it’s the above example of 3×20’ with 5’ off between intervals. One of the participants just got into structured training a few weeks ago with TR so it prescribes 86%. But you’re in a polarized build block, your threshold PL is already at 7, so for you it prescribes ~97%. Someone else is 90% (Tray Mountain), someone else is at 95% (Galena +1), two start with 90, 94, 92: one gets through it (Galena) & the other quits the third interval a couple of minutes in for a family emergency (Galena -2). Boom, right workout for everyone, & AT can appropriately plan the following workouts. Or say someone’s still feeling fresh at the end, recovery week is coming up, & they extend the workout with this in mind…

I can see that being abused though, by that I mean getting PLs to the point that every workout looks intimidating & is probably unsustainable.

[Rizzi]

This is only logical and long awaited and very welcome and not confusing at all!

(Moreover it’s the actual system that is confusing to not give me any endurance credit if I do level 9 sweet spot for example. That would then be fixed finally ! )

Two questions:

• Why did you not get VO2max level in the first example picture of the over performed Galena+3 (as you did in the third example)?

• I assume this scoring needs a TR workout as a base? (So no WLv2 but a step in that direction.) What if I did an outside ride with some free intervals and associate a TR workout after the fact that kind of matches what I did…will the outside ride get these new scorings?

[martinslot]

The pause thing is nice! I have kinda waited for it

[Luka]

Yes, this is excellent. I’ve been waiting for this! Not confusing and makes a lot of sense. It always felt weird to have the levels vary so much when you knew it should be a bit higher, you just hadn’t done that specific type of workout in a while. The extra parts with warmup, cooldown etc are also great additions.

[firemunki]

Sounds good to me, I agree with other posters that it would be beneficial to explain why it changed from expected values.

[unstoppable]

I think all these changes sound logical but I suspect I am not alone in not taking all that much notice of the scores in the first place. The numbers would become more relevant as I focus more on specific performance attributes rather than how I have looked at things in the past - i.e. using FTP changes as a measure of strength/fitness

[Teddy_Focaccia]

These changes make sense and I like ‘em.

While we’re at it, could we add an “extend current interval” button similar to the “extend warmup/cooldown”? Occasionally I’d love to have just a tad more recovery time between intervals (e.g. long threshold blocks) and would love to be able to easily add a bit more time at recovery watts rather than just pausing.

[Buckethead]

@Nate_Pearson

productive/stretch/breakthrough are going away.

Just curious on how we would select alternative workouts then? Would the list just populate seeing some above and some below our current PLs? Seems like the list of alternative workouts could get quite long. Picturing trying to select an endurance alternative workout that is in the recovery or achievable drop down now.

[Jack_Russell_Racing]

productive/stretch/breakthrough is a little crutch I’ve come to rely upon when picking workouts. I mostly use the workout filter to choose my daily pain, and work the PL game myself (not in a training plan).

Tell us more about the sun-setting of “productive/stretch/breakthrough” I’ll keep on jamming with TR whatever you implement.

[Chewie]

This is a great new feature set! As always, I would love to see this come to outside workouts, maybe by doing the same analysis on laps, but I know that work is complex.

I do not think that it is confusing to earn credit “outside of the training zone” for tenured TR users. New users might have more questions.

[Jesse_Vernon1]

Stop being so awesome.

Changing the scoring for the reasons you mentioned, including getting close to other zones and pausing, all makes sense to me, and would be a great improvement.