Progression level decrease

Don’t know if this is something I’ve missed when trading about PL’s.
I did an achievable endurance ride today at 4.1 when my current PL was 4.8, it’s been about a week since I did a similar TR ride. I expected my PL to not change as I rated it as easy, but it dropped down to that of the latest workout.
Is this normal behaviour? I expected that it would stay the same and only decay if not riding often (I’ve ridden outside as well, unstructured).

Unstructured rides don’t impact your PLs but I agree that sounds strange. Maybe check in with the excelent TR support team?

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My levels have been all over the place since AT “activated” on my account.
Granted, I’ve been away from my trainer since AT became active for me, and have only been riding outside.

Here’s my N=1:

When AT and PL “activated” in my account, I had some 6 point somethings in VO2 and Anaerobic (having just dropped out of CX specialty for this work trip) , but as soon as I started linking new outdoor rides to workouts, those numbers dropped into the 3s. I’ve done some “stretch” and “breakthrough” endurance and tempo workouts outside, because my self-awareness has a history far longer than TR/ML and there was no way I’m “just” a level 1 or 2 in endurance. For example, I did two 3+ hour rides at 61% FTP average and 65% normalized and 62/68. I haven’t ridden that far in years, but I knew I could. Just to see where they’d land, I looked for workouts that at least matched the goals I would look for, and linked them. Boom, my endurance jumped to 6 something and the higher intensity levels plummeted.

I have not looked behind their AT/AI/ML curtain, but I would imagine these drastic changes will decrease in frequency as more rides are added and surveys are taken in my ride history. That has to be the benefit of big data, big number crunching, right?

This mirrors my lack of pure enthusiasm for AT, until they can incorporate all of the 15 second stop light sprints, 15-45 second farm dog flights, and general accelerations of a group ride or solo fun-time real world ride, to at least prevent or slow my Regression Level in those areas, I’m just kinda, eh. They’ve said they’re working on it, and I believe them, its just not unadulterated enthusiasm for me, at this point.

As I type, I see Ivy’s about to chime in, I’ll take my answer off-air… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

This could be the decay rate of Progression Levels, but those are complicated depending upon the full scope of your training. 4.8 to 4.1 is totally normal.

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Yeah agreed it seems like a reasonable decay, but for it to happen after I’d completed a ride, rather than being up to date beforehand.

Technically then today’s workout would have been on the upper limit of achievable but I wouldn’t have been aware!

The decay doesn’t jibe with an Feb 2021 TR blog post on detraining:

:man_shrugging:

I had been thinking about that but hadn’t done the research to find the post. Does seem like inconsistent info from TR… Would be great for TR to address this directly as there may be subtleties that support what we’re experience in PL degradation rates.

Happy to clarify, that chart is a general guideline of how long significant declines (ie, detraining) can take after stopping training completely. That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t lose the equivalent of a few progression level points in the interim.

I would encourage anyone who thinks their levels are changing in unexpected ways to reach out to support. Level decay should generally match the principles outlined in that blog post and we definitely want to look closely at any instance where things seem amiss!

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On the other side of things, inside rides excludes all the micro-coasting for traffic, stop lights, cornering and descending, etc of outside rides. To say nothing of cafe stops. :grinning: :stuck_out_tongue: