Back at the beginning of January, I got an AI FTP detection of 253 after getting in the Trainer Road AI Beta. This was 1 lower than my old FTP which seemed totally correct after coming off a 2 week off season. As per discussion in the forum and the videos and podcasts, I played with my plan, changed my training approach from demanding to balanced, etc. etc. and had a plan setup with a predicted AI FTP of 260. This seemed a little high to me for a single training block but I figured it would stabilize over the block and it did. Yesterday was the last day before I was due to get a new AI FTP prediction and it was saying that my predicted FTP today would be 257. This seemed like a very good prediction to me as I had followed the plan pretty much to the tee. I was excited to wake up this morning and see my new AI FTP but low and behold when I opened the app this morning it said my detection was 253. No change from the last detection and not matching the prediction. This has got to be a bug right?
must admit I had also assumed that they were essentially one and the same thing - i thought the prediction just became the detection.
With regards to you feeling that you haven’t progressed - have your athlete levels increased since your last detection?
My sweet spot progression has gone from 4.6 → 5.1. My Threshold Progress has only gone from 3.1 → 3.5. Seems like the AI does not want to give me harder threshold workouts. I have not tried to pick harder ones myself. I am just trying to do what the podcasts say and let the AI decide the best workout.
That’s probably worth a couple of watts of FTP though 
Subjectively and objectively I know that I am getting faster because I am doing better at the courses I ride outside.
If you’re doing Threshold and Sweetspot in the same block then it’ll be the Threshold that moves the needle.
Have a look at your last 3 Threshold workouts. What level of difficulty were they? How did you rate them vs how did it expect you to rate them?
Remember, the AI will try to balance progressing you with making sure it doesn’t break you. 
I’d look at it the other way. You’re faster even though the number is unchanged. Imagine how awesome you’ll be when the number does change.
Progress isn’t linear. Marathon not a sprint. Etc etc etc.
For sure. I guess what I would appreciate at this point is some explanation of why the prediction would not match up with the detection from a TR staff person.
I think this is the heart of it. Yes, you are getting fitter, but if this is how it acts, it seems like a charade.
Mine is predicting a 21W (6.4%) increase in 8 days. I am conflicted. Do I want it to be true - Yes. Do I think my ftp has increased that much from 328W in 28 days - No. Will I still be a bit disappointed if it does something like your did and puts me at 328W? - Yes. Mostly cause it feels like it was a futile prediction in the first place, and maybe a feature that isn’t ready for prime time. But we will see.
Those are rookie numbers. AI predicts for me 11% increase after VO2max block, my goal even isn’t increasing FTP. As beginner, my biggest increase per 6 week block has been ~5-6%. Now, 6 years later, after off season 2% increase is more realistic.
Even if I don’t achieve promised 11% increase, I am in awe of myself that somebody or something thinks I am capable to achieve this 
If it helps here is a walk through of screenshots of my calendar. I didnt take a screenshot yesterday of what the predicted FTP was saying yesterday, so I guess you will just have to take my word for it. For the next cycle i’m definitely going to track and screenshot the behavior of the prediction and detection over time.
I ended my off season 28 Dec and started my Spring season 29 Dec. At this point I was not in the TR AI beta. I created a new demanding TR plan based off my A and B races for the spring. My FTP was set to 254 at this point which was my last AI FTP detection from the fall.
I followed this plan for about two weeks and then I was accepted into the TR AI beta around 11 Jan. Based on the advice of TR staff and the beta forums I adjusted to the plan to be a balanced approach. The newly generated AI plan had me take a endurance week for the next week as you can see here. Some changes that I made to the AI generated plan were to only have a max of 1 hr workouts during the work week, which is a unnegotiable life requirements schedule constraint for me, add my strength training workouts which I am not willing to give up and I believe make me a better cyclist. and add dynamic endurance rides for the weekend.
You can see here that on 19 Jan it is noting a AI Detection FTP of 253 that was detected on Jan 7. I should say that when I first entered the TR AI beta I did not accept the FTP it gave me I just left it at 254. Then later in the beta they said it would cause issues with the prediction to not accept the detection and they were also iterating and modifying the algorithm so when this AI detection popped up on 19 Jan I went ahead and accepted it.
The FTP prediction date was 4 Feb, today
FYI - you might be nerfing some of your cycling workouts by overestimating your strength workouts. When you do strength stuff, you’re only supposed to record the sets that you take to (near) failure. I doubt you’re doing that with 12 sets per workout, but you might just be hella stronger than me!
It seems to be steadily decreasing my threshold levels rather than increasing them! I overrode one to a 3, rated moderate, and it’s still giving my 2.5 this week and 2.4 next.
A usual lower body day for me would be
3 Sets, 8-12 Reps of barbell squats
3 Sets, 8-12 Reps Deadlifts
3 Sets, 1 minute Farmer Carry
3 Sets, 1 minute Unilateral Leg Work
All sets at a weight that would produce about 90% to failure by the end.
Based on my understanding of how TR says to rate strength work, this would be 12 working sets.
Alot of time I actually underestimate the sets because I do not include some of the non-compound movement supporting lifts like hip flexors and calves.
To reiterate, I’m less concerned about why my FTP / training number didn’t increase after 5 weeks of training and following my TR plan:
- Maybe because my Threshold progression level stayed in the 3s, again begging the question why didn’t the AI prescribe harder threshold workouts?answer is probably that I’m in the base phase of a training plan?
- Maybe the strength work, although I always plan my threshold workouts the day before my lower body strength day
- Maybe the volume or training approach, although when I increased the volume and/or training approach the predicted AI FTP was always a decrease from my current.
and more concerned about the delta between the AI FTP prediction and AI FTP Detection between yesterday and today.
This is very interesting…I also thought the FTP prediction is basically replacing the detection and they should match…My detection day is 2 days out. Current prediction is 285w–>295w. I have one VO2Max and one Z4 workout before the detection day. I will report back and see what I get.
Yeah, I had the same type of thing. I was 292 detection beginning of January, prediction was around 305 all month including the night prior, then the morning of prediction day my detection showed no change, still 292. I figured it was maybe due to the next 28 days covering a specialty phase of my plan prior to an A race, so that was fine, but definitely kind of weird and similar to what you had happen.
I also mentioned in another thread that it is now asking me to accept my FTP detection every single day before it will give me my next prediction, and every single day it is no change.
I like a lot of the things TR has done, my workouts have been really good, but definitely some bugs.
Glad to know I’m not the only one. I was reminded looking back on my career screen today that the prediction feature is still marked as Beta so i’m sure they are still working things out.
UPDATE: I just logged in again and was prompted to do a new AI FTP detection, which came back 257, matching the prediction.
@jtp03a, there’s a bug that made it so you weren’t prompted with today’s detection that was due. The bug also made it so the AI FTP Detection Career section showed your previous detection value.
We found the issue and we’ll have a fix out any minute now. 
In the meantime we reset your account state to make sure you were prompted with your FTP Detection that was due today.
@DavidYYC, I’m looking into your account now. I’ll report back in a few.
The fix is now live! 
@DavidYYC, you were being affected by this bug. You should be prompted with your new FTP Detection if you check now.