I like them, in addition to all the excellent insights given already. When I see a PL at .2 above a workout I just completed, my mind goes. I think I can do that. Then I optimistically approach the ride rather than have a bit of dread.
7 Likes
I absolutely LOVE Progression levels. When they came out it was a game changer for me. Here’s why i love them.
- I use it to see i’m making progress within a certain energy system (Sweet spot, endurance etc).
- It builds confidence. Being able to see i’m progressing from level 1 to 2 to 3 etc etc keeps me confident that i’m improving
- It takes a lot of mental guess work out of it. Pre progression levels there was a lot of searching going on to see what other workouts i could do which was annoying. Now i just search within the level i’m at to find something similar. Workout alternates serves this role as well
- I worry less about FTP gains and focus more on the workout. i.e. helps manage my expectations
There are still some wonky edge cases progression levels. An example, Pioneer +1 is a 1hr Sweet Spot 3.9 which has you holding 85-90% of FTP for 45mins straight, no breaks. Whereas the 1hr SS 3.7-3.9 all have some sort of break within the interval.
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After my son was born, I tried to grab 30-60 mins a day to just try and keep my nose in the wind a little bit. To that end, without using a training program, I would train 1x endurance, 1x tempo, 1x vo2, 1x anaerobic and 1x sprint (or another endurance) a week, just trying to improve on my progression levels. It worked really well and I enjoyed it, if anything, much more than the specificity of the training programs that I usually run (criterium or climbing road race, depending… training for the Mallorca 312 at the moment so am on climbing road race, but not really adhering to it at all, just going by vibes)
My FTP went up actually from about 340 to about 350, although that may have been the 4 months of racing I did beforehand settling in in my body.
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