I’ve seen a few posts on the new version already but I’m now getting more and more infuriated by it every day. For the record, I work in IT. The new version delegates far too much to AI at the expense of transparency and user control. TR seem to have moved to a world where “AI knows best”, whether intentional or not. Things that used to be obvious have either been removed or are hard to find. Specifically:
I can no longer investigate the actual workouts scheduled for the various plans. It’s all moved to generic workout types - presumably because AI fills it in later. (“Trust us - AI knows best, we don’t want you to see what’s up next, you don’t need to know”)
I don’t have a choice as to whether or not to accept an adaptation (“It’s not up to you, dear user, our AI knows best”)
I can’t even change the date of a workout (“Oh, you can’t do that as our algorithm scheduled your workout for that date and doesn’t care if you were late home from work and couldn’t do it”)
It’s no longer intuitive to find workouts in the “Workouts” section
It schedules Threshold workouts the day before an event!!!
Same here, i’m really enjoying the new version. It gives me a pretty close approximation of the upcoming workouts so i can plan my fuelling etc, so a slight tweak on the day to the most optimal version doesn’t bother me. Especially with the gains i’m seeing, just trust in the process. For me i find it’s liberated a fair amount of mental capacity too, it’s one less thing to plan and stress over.
The AI definitely doesn’t work for me. It way overstates threshold workouts and schedules tough workouts for the day before a B race. I’ve reverted to using Train Now.
I use the phone to review upcoming workouts, to my knowledge there’s no drag and drop feature. You used to be able to open the scheduled workout (not load the workout) and simply change the date. That seems to have disappeared
The key here is trusting the process - I’m not there yet and I feel I’m being forced to trust it where previously I had more control. For me that’s a little bit too 1984
There absolutely is drag and drop, just tested it despite knowing it works
You can also still open and change the date in a workout not just load it from both calendar or if it’s the next one from the career page. It did not disappear.
I ended up checking both too to make sure i’m not going mad
For information… drag and drop on mobile is achieved by pressing and holding the workout until you see it “lift” from the calendar… then you can move it.
You can definitely drag and drop workouts on the phone with the new update. That was a change you couldn’t do previously. It was only available on desktop.
I’ve been listening back to the old podcasts from episode 1. Episode 29 or 30 Coach Chad was talking about Threshold workouts, and he basically described what I’ve been feeling with the new threshold workouts. Completing them should feel like you are on the razors edge of being able to complete the work. I thought some been too hard, but it’s usually from something on my end, bad sleep, hydration, nutrition, etc. I definitely get that feeling in the last set of all my threshold work of can I complete this work and it can be a real struggle.
Thank you for the feedback as we’re always looking to improve! That said, let’s keep the feedback constructive per our forum guidelines.
Onto your feedback:
I can no longer investigate the actual workouts scheduled for the various plans. It’s all moved to generic workout types - presumably because AI fills it in later.
I think you mean being able to see the workout names and levels? Before the update, the workouts that were shown on the plan preview may have shown specific workouts, but these were not fixed as they would change anyway as you started completing the plan. What is showing now is the workout type like this instead of a workout name with a Workout Level:
Then within the AI Training Simulation window, once the plan is applied to the Calendar you’d see the exact workouts being prescribed, but even then, these can change. The logic as to how we recommend workout has been the same for many months now (even before the update) :
TrainerRoad looks beyond just Workout Levels, factoring in your fitness, recent training, and overall trends to pick the right workout for you that day.
When a workout looks different from what you might expect based on past recommendations, it’s reflecting a broader view of your current fitness and capabilities. This supports consistent, high-quality training, and that’s exactly what helps you get faster.
I don’t have a choice as to whether or not to accept an adaptation
The model’s goal in adjusting your current custom plan is to make sure you’re getting the right workouts based on your recent training and recovery. It’s looking at the work you’ve done recently on a data level - your power, heart rate, interval durations, etc. - and using that to determine where you should go next. Sometimes that may be a slightly more challenging, or slightly easier workout depending how your training is trending.
That said, you do have control over limiting those adjustments though, like disabling some auto-adjustment features in your settings and pinning workouts if you don’t want them to change.
I can’t even change the date of a workout
Can you expand on this? You can drag and drop workouts to other days and you’ll see the training schedule update to accommodate these changes to keep your training on track. This is one of my favorite features, as it’s very dynamic and you can see how shifting things around affect future fitness. The new system is meant to be played with and not fixed.
Now, if you mean you can’t change a workout that now falls in the past, then you can always manually reapply it.
It’s no longer intuitive to find workouts in the “Workouts” section
Are there any workouts in specific you are looking for that you can’t find? Maybe if you can post screenshots of what you mean that would be great for feedback.
It schedules Threshold workouts the day before an event!!!
For this one it would be helpful to see screenshots of what you are seeing as this does not sound correct.
If you are in a General Fitness plan and you are adding an Event to it, it won’t take it into account. Your plan needs to be an Event/Race based plan.
If your event is a C Event, then this could be the reason, as C Events are considered as a training day so they don’t have tapers or openers the day prior like B or A Events. This has been like this always.
If you give me permission to look into your account and post screenshots I can help further with this one per our new rules here, if not I will have to direct you to support@trainerroad.com
AI points still remain. This is my own personal preference. I like the AI stuff but prefer to have more options
Training Plans - My own personal preference as a long standing user. I like being able to see the progression against Workouts I recognise from previous years (Palisade for example). I no longer have that option
On the workout list, I would have kept the old way as the default rather than move it under a new section
My opinion is you didn’t do a great job rolling out this release or user testing it. I should be able to express that here and if people don’t agree then they are welcome to push back as some have
If you just want to do old workouts, you can still chose them and you can put them on your calendar, they will even auto pin and the ai won’t touch them.
While I understand the desire for benchmarks, getting the same workout this year and last year doesn’t mean there is an ai problem. That would likely in fact be a programming issue not giving you different things at different times when you need them.
You can also actually now use the new features to go to your benchmark workout and see how you would need to perform now and even set a time for your old workout to compare. You can benchmark without even turning a pedal if you use the tools you’ve been provided.
What you want has in fact improved.
This was in beta testing and open to many users for months before release.
