New Feature - TrainNow

Its actually a misconception that the +/- naming structure is a reflection of the workout’s difficulty!
The + and - versions of a workout should simply be seen as different workout names. To get an idea of which workouts are harder or easier, Workout Levels give you a very clear measure of workout difficulty. Integrating Levels has revealed some unexpected insights for me, too, into which workouts are actually more challenging that aren’t always in line with what duration or intensity would suggest. :+1:

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Back on the bike for 2 days, and TrainNow still has me scaling El Capitan:

With this many climbing days in a row, I might be able to scale Mt Everest if TrainNow gave me an occasional Attacking workout!

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I have attacking again today (Thursday). Mon was rest day. Tue was Lola -2 (sweetspot 4.7). Wed was an easy hour. :man_shrugging:

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U :heart: sweet spot.

For me, it seems TrainNow will get interesting the day progression levels can be updated from outside structured workouts that my coach assigns in TrainingPeaks.

Best I can tell its not possible to use WorkoutCreator to make a custom workout, and then use RideSync to send it to my Garmin. Also not possible to use RideSync with workouts that come from my coach via TrainingPeaks.

Thats ok, would be nice for more direct information from TR on compatibility.

I :heart: the suffering of a good climb :+1:

Will report back when it offers up an attacking workout, as my attempts at injecting a little humor with climbing references is falling flat on the ground (:rofl: sorry couldn’t help myself!).

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I started using TrainNow this past Monday, prior to this my coach had me on super-threshold workouts (103%-109% FTP) and anaerobic/neuromuscular workouts (1 min intervals at 185%+ FTP). I took a week off before starting TrainNow, thus far it’s given me the following workouts:

  • Monday: Buttertubs +2 (threshold 1.6)
  • Tuesday: Bald Knob -2 (endurance 1.1)
  • Wednesday: Junction -3 (anaerobic 1.0)

It seems to be tracking what I had been doing with my coach, as the threshold work was on Monday and anaerobic work on Wednesday. That said, the levels were lower than what I expected; my RPE for Monday and Wednesday’s workouts were around 5/10, the RPE for my last workouts with my coach were 10/10 (I actually failed the threshold workout :sob:. Maybe it’s taking into account the week of recovery?

Either way, I’m expecting TrainNow will give me an endurance workout for tomorrow. I’m enjoying it thus far and hope it continues to improve!

The progression levels will go up as you complete the workouts. Another way to help TrainNow calibrate is to do a harder workout. For example, if it recommends a threshold 1.6, go do a higher value threshold workout that you feel is more appropriate for your fitness or mood. Once you complete that workout, TrainNow will update your progression level going forward.

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and more specifically, only if you complete the workouts in one of two ways:

  • using the TrainerRoad app on the trainer
  • if the workout has an outside option, use RideSync to send to Garmin (not Wahoo at the moment) and do a TR outside workout on your Garmin

Anything else will not update the progression levels, at this moment in time.

The TR team is busy working on improvements, and that is current snapshot as of last week based on what I learned on the forum and emailing support.

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I tried this a couple of days ago. In my case it’s a waste of time trying to follow most of the outdoor workouts. There are simply too many variables that impact the rigid WO structure.

IMO, as a very average cyclist, it’s successfully categorising unstructured outdoor WO’s, or bust.

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Definitely not my issue. Most of my outside workouts have clear structure.

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We can’t all live on a pancake.
Mmmm. Pancakes.

It’s not that my rides are totally unstructured. I typically ride a few different routes that dictate the structure.
I’ve tried plenty of times to use outdoor WO’s on my garmin HU. It’s pretty much impossible to find a route that lines up with the prescribed structure. Let alone matching up a new course with every new WO.
It’s probably something for a different thread though.

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I lowered my FTP. Yes, not a typo :joy: As a result, it appears my progression levels reset as well. All were 1.x for the workout types. I did not expect that to happen, but I think it makes sense that it did :thinking: Anyway, I did a 4.3 VO2 and the attacking recommendation has already readjusted back to 4-5. Endurance and climbing are still 1.x

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Looked through but it’s a long thread so might have missed it.

I’m off a plan and just using Train Now since it’s summer here, but only one of my bikes has a power meter. Would all the extra km out in on the gravel bike or MTB count towards suggested workouts? Or do only workouts with power count (so road or turbo in my case).

My experience is yes.

I had a rest day Friday, then did a >5hr hard outdoor ride yesterday (with only HR), which featured a 35 min all out climb at the end and lots of climbing throughout… My plan has a hard sweetspot workout in it today (Holt Hill +2, 90 mins with 70 mins at SS) which I’m not really up for as I am on 700 TSS for the week already - I may do it later in the week though. Went on TrainNow expecting it to throw up an Endurance recommendation, which it has done in the past in this type of case, but it was still recommending Climbing (what I would have expected if I didn’t ride yesterday basically). Was just coming here to post that it was weird behaviour, but I force quit the app, reopened it and it seemed to update the recommendations, and is now saying Endurance across all durations.

Yes, I’ve noticed that behavior. Sometimes the next day’s recommendation is available the night before. It can be a little confusing, as there is no date, at not on the Mac application.

Anyone have a handle on what kind of “plan” TN will end of offering as you take it up on its recomendations? Will it be pyramidal? If I force it to do polarized, will it adapt?

TN is not looking at any kind of plan - I think Ivy or someone from TR has specified upthread, but it basically just looks at what you’ve been doing recently and if it’s been hard it will recommend easy and vice versa.

Yes, but it’s got more than easy/hard. It’s got endurance on one end, VO2max on the other, and SS and threshold in the middle. Once you feed it with one workout, it goes on its own, makes a recommendation based on the previous workout, So…it leads, and you follow. My question is, where is it going? After a month of following the recommendation, what would the breakdown of the workouts be?

Based on my short experience of less than a month, it alternates mostly between “climbing” and “endurance” w/the occasional “attacking”. The recommendations all start with progression levels of 1-2. It only appears to increase them, if you select a higher progression level workout and complete it. I could be wrong, but I don’t think it will progress you up from 1-2 to 4-5 or whatever over a period of time. But if you pick and complete a 5-6 workout, then the next recommendation for that type of workout will be in the same range. Lastly, it doesn’t matter if you do the actual workout it gives you. The recommendations and levels are based on what you have previously done.

I just started it, and the #1 VO2max workouts are pretty easy. I finished one yesterday, and I see the one offered today, (not recommended though), is now a 1.8. So it did offer one higher. I’ll find out soon enough. I think I’ll do the 1.8 tomorrow, and see what it offers the following day,

I was going to propose the same but now I will only pump this, this would be nice feature.