I hate to bang on again about how “everyone is different” but everyone is different!
As hinted at above, sweet spot could very well increase your ‘effective’ FTP in a sense. Sweet Spot work makes me far more durable over long intervals and gets me used to enduring pain for extended periods of time and managing to clear lactate under load. This all translates to being better able to hold hard efforts without having to bail out which obviously helps something like an over-under. Your FTP isn’t just one thing, it is power, it is durability, it is muscular endurance, it is mental fortitude. You might have the raw power in your legs but not in your head. I’m might have the raw power in your legs AND your head but not have the muscular endurance dialed in. It’s not as simple as Threshold workouts = FTP increase.
I have my overall training approach set to Balanced with Sweet Spot and Endurance zones bumped up to Demanding so my plan is very Sweet Spot and Endurance+ focused. Wattages that were Threshold efforts back when the beta launched are just Sweet Spot for me now and the Threshold workouts I’m doing now were unimaginable back then. So, for me, a Sweet Spot heavy training approach HAS helped my FTP.
I think it depends on your perspective. The way I define and use FTP in my training, it is very much “one thing” and doesn’t equate to performance or fitness. For me, FTP is one of many things that determines fitness, but it’s a poor measure of race performance for me without the context of durability/repeatability/etc. I just started my build phase this week an I don’t expect my FTP to jump more than about 5 watts before I peak in a few months. As an older athlete, FTP just doesn’t swing that much throughout the year. But I will be dramatically fitter and I will be performing much better in races 2 months from now.
When every training system and youtube coach in the world is fixated on FTP, it’s hard to blame anyone for being hyper focused about about FTP. It’s a useful metric, but it’s just not the be-all-end-all measure of performance. I think the concept of FTP prediction is cool and I like to see TR pushing the envelope on this. But to think it’s going to be anywhere near accurate with an initial beta release is a bit optimistic. Predicting future training results is a really hard problem with all the individual variation and moving parts. And it’s not like weather forecasting tools where billions of R&D $’s have been thrown at the problem for decades (and they still get it wrong).
Out of interest, find the exact workout in “browse workouts” then send through the screenshot of the required NP power profile against your last 6 weeks of TR Indoor workouts.
The we can see how hard the failed workout was relative to your recent workouts.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. There’s a number of things you mentioned I hadn’t considered. I think my best course of action is to not get caught up n the disappointment of the predictor, and press on. I know I’m progressing, I guess it’s the ‘tism in me that gets alarmed at the number on the screen haha!
Good idea. I went ahead and did an outdoor group ride this evening, and was getting some power PR’s. I think I’m the kind of person that puts more power out outside All things considered, I should be able to do this workout, but I think it’s been too long since I’ve done structured VO2 workouts 3 min efforts are just newer to my body I guess
Throughout the month I’ve been really pleased with the workouts. They seemed challenging enough. Maybe it was an off day for me, who knows, the time change could be messing with me more than I thought. Thanks for giving me ideas to mull over.
Thanks for the feedback. I think you’re right about what I have in my head. I’m an anaerobic leaning rider, and I’ve spent the majority of my time the last year or 2 in Zone 2. Maybe I’ve neglected VO2 for too long and my body doesn’t know what to do with it yet!
Take a step back and view this from a 3rd person coaches perspective.
“The athlete has been completing the workouts for 3.5 weeks as prescribed. Next week I think I can bump up their FTP by 8-10% to make their workouts harder, but they have one more workout to go to prove they are ready…….
The athlete fails the last workout at the existing FTP………. Hmmmm.
Maybe lets bump him by 1~2% and build from there. Seems reasonable (even if it hurts)”
Regardless of the FTP bump or not, if you will no doubt have improved your fitness through the 4 weeks, the AI should have been progressing you through harder workout levels, even if it did not significantly bump your FTP number at the end of the block.
Compare your last sweet spot workout level to the first one 3 weeks ago, is the workout level higher? Is the average power higher? or is the same power being completed at a lower HR?
Thats why things like waxed chains, aero socks and well fit jerseys are important!!! lol
similar to once really fit, if you were to lose a 1 lb of fat in a month… that would also be great! However for some people that would ‘nothing’ if they were 60# over weight.
Really surprised in reading this that that was the vo2 workout they gave you to start a vo2 progression! lol mine is usually a cake walk of not very superhigh power(120%) 30/30s or 1min with short recovery.
It’s unlikely that you made no improvements in your aerobic fitness if you started riding regularly and consistently for a month after not doing so. I wouldn’t focus on a single number so much, especially if it conflicts with common sense.
Possibilities here are:
Your FTP did increase more than this suggests. Perhaps your starting estimate was inflated. Perhaps this ending number is an underestimate. AIFTP is not perfectly accurate. If you think this value is off enough that using it would lead to less than ideal training, do a formal FTP test and settle the matter.
AIFTP isn’t really measuring FTP per se. It keeping at a similar value may simply be because it thinks that value will continue to be the best value to prescribe you appropriate workouts based on.
You had no changes to your threshold, but likely improved on other aspects of your aerobic fitness that FTP doesn’t really measure at all.
At the end of the day do you feel faster? Are you hitting higher power targets for longer with it feeling easier?
If so, congrats you’ve improved! Who cares what value the random number generator landed on.
Yes I agree, just new to the TR platform, and was looking for any other insight as to the way the AI has been working for people. I know I’ve gotten fitter, and will be putting less stock into the predictor for sure. Cheers!
Disagree. Weather is a chaotic system. The human body is not easily predictable but we know there is a reasonably stable function that maps Training → Improvement. All of the highly nonlinear interactions of training variables and the broader environment make it difficult, but it’s much easier than weather forecasting.
Even then, weather forecasting is as accurate today for a four day horizon and as a one day horizon was 30 years ago. The granularity has also increased - the British Met office can forecast UK weather in 2.2km grids at various levels in the atmosphere. It is actually insane how good we are at forecasting the weather, and the models keep getting better.
