Is there a good summary of what should happen and when with PL adaptations?
I have two currently observed behaviors which seem slightly odd to me.
I’ll have a workout scheduled as part of my plan, and just as I go to do it, it’ll get subbed out, usually with a big drop in progression level. As an example, last Wednesday I was about to do the, IIRC 4.1 (or maybe 4.2, but in that ballpark) Endurance workout as the last thing before going on a trip, and somewhere between clicking into the day and loading the workout, it got swapped out for a 2.1. This isn’t the only time this happened, and not always adjacent to an annotation, but it did seem extra weird to cut from a really normal Endurance workout to one that was more or less active recovery immediately before a Time Off annotation that meant I was going to miss the next two workouts. I’d had a day off since my previous harder workout and the day that was adjusted wasn’t marked for fatigue worries.
I’ve got “always accept adaptations” set to on, but it always asks (though it doesn’t happen often). Which I think I prefer anyhow so I can see the adaptations, but I do always accept them. It just seems like an odd behavior. What does “always accept” do if it’s always going to ask anyway?
And then there’s the question that links these two: Why is it that there are adaptations that it asks me about even when I’ve got “always accept” selected, while other times it quietly swaps the workout just as I’m about to do it with no indication of why or question of whether I want to. It’s really just “I’ve seen it’s showing me ‘workout type X at PL Y’ and then as I go to actually do it it just shows the day as ‘workout type X at PL Z’” where Z is usually way below Y. It feels like there’s a bug here, and I’m worried that it’s affecting my progression.
Okay, I’ve looked harder and maybe found a partial answer.
It did the “quiet adjustment” today, dropping my 4.1 Threshold workout to 2.8 between loading the app and loading the workout. I went and looked at my career, and it gave me an actual explanation (right where you’d expect), noting two weeks without a workout in that category making for a drop. Which may be totally accurate, even if I’m surprised TR’s plan didn’t include enough work to maintain that during specialization, but that may just be my lack of understanding.
Anyway, I was half wondering whether it was because I had “always accept adaptations” selected that it wasn’t giving me any explanation and just adjusting at the time of workout. So I set about trying to turn that off, and couldn’t find where to do it (I’ve only seen the checkbox when it’s actively asking me about pending adaptations). I just pulled up the web app while writing this to remind myself of the value of today’s adaptation, and it then gave me a “pending adaptations” preview. I’ve taken that opportunity to turn off “always accept,” so I guess we’ll see whether it starts giving me that preview before making changes.
(as an aside, the previewed adaptations were mostly small drops: Endurance 3.7 to 3.6, Sweet Spot 5.9 to 5.7, though next week’s Threshold was dropped from 3.8 to 3; it’s a little disappointing after being up at Threshold 4.1 a couple of weeks ago with a fixed FTP for specialty phase)
Okay, this is getting way too long, but one more historical note; it may have been two weeks that let my Threshold drop, but I’m not sure why I was given a Threshold 3.6 which went fine, then I had a rest week (endurance rides) then the next Threshold ride was a 2.6, then I had this ride dropped from 4.1 to 2.8… All during Specialty, so it wasn’t previously a higher PL at a lower FTP.
Im noticing some of the same behavior. I’m coming off a deload week, starting build. Much to my surprise its prescribing a VO2 with a PL of 5.5 workout while my actual level is 7.5. For sweetspot it adapted to a 6.6 workout while my PL is 7.8 (and i can do those easily). So for me it also produced some seemingly low PL workouts, which is strange particularly as im entering a build phase.
I’m getting the opposite behavior. I’m starting Base Phase tonight after a couple weeks of just messing around and I’m getting a SS 7.9 but my current level is 4.2. Needless to say I’m not looking forward to it, but will probably give it a try.
I did have an unexpectedly large bump in some category a few weeks ago, but I hadn’t noticed the behavior I’m seeing, so I don’t know whether it was subbed in at the last second or “premeditated” or whatever you’d call a normally planned item.
Really curious about whether I’m just missing something in terms of when and how adaptations are done, and distinctions about when you’re informed about them. The last-second changes with no notification are unsettling, especially without knowing whether it’s the expected behavior.
The only thing I can think of is that it modifies the intensifies to arrive at a desired tss rating based on the rolling average etc, if you are trending a bit high it starts to back off. That could be the explanation for me, I have been extending my weekend z2 rides a bit and my tss is therefore a bit high. The weird part is that it gave me a massive z2 ride in between the hard sessions which both seems to be turned down in intensity, it seems to go a bit against the keep the easy days easy and the hard days hard philosophy
I can only think that they have silently introduced some of the updates that have been flagged for the last few months. I have noticed some odd things recently too. Some workouts are being changed without any prompting and some require me to accept changes.
Other things don’t make sense, for instance, I am on a recovery week and had an endurance ride scheduled yesterday. I added my completed gym workout to the calendar and adaptive training responded by giving me a harder endurance workout.
I survived! It was hard, but definitely doable. I’m very impressed that TrainerRoad picked that workout because I’m sure in the past it would have just been a 4.5 or something
Okay, starting to think I should ping support and point them at this thread.
So, on Wednesday I sat down on the bike and it was on the Career page of the app, which includes Today’s Workout. I hit “Load Workout” and did the workout: Black.
Then when I was done I looked at the calendar and had this:
So… it looks like it wanted to downgrade me from Black to Echo -5, but for whatever reason it didn’t get the workout swapped out in the UI, but then it did it anyway, leaving me having completed the original workout (which I think TR now regards as some wacky thing I went off and did on my own) and having “skipped” the “planned” workout that didn’t exist when I kicked off my ride.
@napoleon1981 In your case it looks like your levels dropped slightly due to the FTP increase on November 26th.
You’re already almost back up to the PLs you were at before the bump. This week you’ve got a 6.0 VO2 workout and a 7.7 Sweet Spot workout. Based on your recent training, I’d say those are probably good choices for you right now.
@UWDawgs We always recommend giving those workouts a shot. We’re confident in our recommendations and it sounds like it worked out for you!
@jesseransom I forgot to ask in your support ticket – are you looking at things on the web, the app (desktop or mobile), or both? The web is always the source of truth, and if you’re seeing things that look different on the app, that could be a syncing issue.
For everyone else, just know that we’re confident that at the end of the day (or the day of each workout I should say) you’re getting the right workout for you at that given moment. We know that sometimes workouts adapt more than once, especially as you approach them during the week and we’re looking to improve this experience very soon.
Keep in mind that while most of the time your Workout Levels will increase over time, that doesn’t mean that every single workout should get harder one after another. Sometimes you need that bump to see solid stimulus progression, and other times less is more. What’s really important is sustainable growth over the long haul (weeks, months, years, etc.).
If anyone has a workout on their calendar that’s scheduled within three days or so that looks out of place, feel free to reach out, but I would’t worry about things a week out from now since it’s likely that they will adapt before that day comes.
Another question. On Saturday I got a tough Threshold workout. Previous Level was 2.2 and was assigned a 6.1. I got through it and rated it Very Hard. Not surprisingly Sunday was a Yellow day, but instead of a pretty easy Endurance ride I was assigned a 4.7. My current level is 5.1. I got through it, but it seemed much more difficult than a normal Yellow day assignment and now today is Red which is totally fine because Monday is always an off day. Is it the TrainerRoad philosophy now to push a bit like that on a Yellow day? Or did something fail to adapt?
I was mostly using the app because that’s how I do my rides. I do occasionally peep the web when I’m checking something, but that’s secondary for me. I virtually never check the web before a ride.
I have looked at the web during this go-round, as I do occasionally, but that was really triggered this time because, as noted, the application would say one thing while I was getting ready to ride, and then another by the time I was starting the ride.
I made reference to this in my last ticket reply, but even if we set aside for a moment concerns about whether the changes are correct, it’s still really weird that there are both big, “here are your pending adaptations” announcements with previews, and then there are these last-second swaps, including, again, the one above that didn’t happen in time to change my ride before riding, but still swapped it out while I was doing my now-outdated ride. I’m sure it was still beneficial and near the mark, but this is kinda funky.
