TR AI update - I am failing my workouts

Training
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Hi all - I would really love your thoughts on this, and would massively welcome any help the TR team can offer too.

Also submitted to the podcast:

I am a huge fan of Trainerroad and have recommended the podcast or the product to countless friends and family. Thank you! However, the new AI training plans really aren’t working for me and I am failing almost every workout - help!!

I have been a serious amateur for a decade now - since 2015. I have competed in big European sportives (Etape du Tour, Marmotte etc) and raced all of the 5-7 day mountain Haute Route stage races (2019-2023). I have pretty placed well in those events (top 10% or so).

It varies season to season but I will typically hit approx 350w FTP @ 79kg. 4 rides per week. 3 structured indoors (90-120mins) and one unstructured weekend ride (maybe just a couple of hours on a “non event year” but the weekend ride will be up to 6h on years with major goals).

This is a question about failing workouts, so I think it is fair and probably relevant to say that I am mentally tough. I was a high level rower before cycling and can push myself to a pretty dark place! I would normally expect only to fail a couple of workouts in an entire season…!

I believe all of the statistics around the new TR AI / accuracy of session prescription and success rates / how successful it is, but it just isn’t working for me.

This year, I committed to a proper off season. I took 3 weeks entirely off the bike in October. I then (again unusually for me) did just zone 2 (4-6hr per week) for a couple of months until the new year to rekindle some mojo / shed mental fatigue. This period was capped off with a 2 week family holiday in January. So my return to training properly for 2026 season coincided with the TR AI launch. I was fairly fit but was relatively “detrained” hadn’t done proper intervals for a good couple of months.

Despite the weeks leading in, TR bumped my FTP immediately by 9w to 329w and set me a series of SS and Threshold workouts over the next 3 weeks - I failed almost all of them due to intensity. One of my first suggested sessions was a level 7 SS workout - I had no chance of completing it. I manually adjusted to a lower PL workout (which I still failed). TR was promising 357w by the end of that very first block. That would be a near career high (which seemed crazy) in the middle of just February (so early in the season) and after a substantial off season and a low key z2 period. It was obviously unrealistic. I downgraded my training approach to “conservative” after week 1 to see if that would buy me some leeway and achievability but the very hard workouts kept coming!!

I am managing most of them by turning down to 90-94% after the point of failure and gritting through from there. I mark them as very hard but TR often notes that I have failed and asks for the reason (intensity).

The TR team might notice I often extend cool downs with z2. Eg a 75 min workout but perhaps 30 mins of spinning at 200w afterwards. I know this isn’t strictly “sticking to the plan” and may raise alarm bells, but it is something I have done for many many years with success and therefore this approach is a “constant”. I have done this for many years whilst successfully ticking off the prescribed workouts and think it would be a red herring to focus on here.

What is going on - why am I bucking the trend of this new software? Unwarranted FTP bumps and unachievable workouts…. Help!

Will the software realise I don’t fit its formula, drop my FTP and slow my progression rate? I really hope so because this approach isn’t sustainable. It is so dispiriting and isn’t good training either…

calendar link here: Log In to TrainerRoad

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Make your calendar public and share a link. It is hard to address without seeing your calendar.

Quick question, how are you rating your failed workouts? And are the future workouts adapting?

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Thanks for sharing your calendar.

It looks like you are extending every workout by about 30mins and adding upper endurance to it. The cumulative effect of that will be really fatiguing. If you want to add time, great but make it 55% of ftp not 70-75%

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On my phone so hard to see the full picture. The easy observation is that you are doing hard days on yellow days. Doing hard intervals the day after a hard lift session is not recommended. So I’m not surprised that you failed. Did TR try to turn down those workouts and you went back to the original workout?

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Cycling at 200w when my FTP is 320+ is just 62%.

This is also a training approach I have taken for years and years whilst achieving 99% of my workouts in a season.

The radical change has been the launch of AI and the immediate start of failed and unachievable workouts. My extended cooldowns at 60-65% aren’t anything new and haven’t previously caused any issue with compliance. I do think that’s a red herring.

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Thanks for your comment and for taking the time to reply. No, I am accepting all recommendations - not overriding anything. I take the point about strength training, but just like my extended workouts, I think pointing to cooldowns or strength training is missing the whole picture here. I have taken this approach (cooldowns and strength training) and successfully followed plans and made really big gains season after season without workout failures. Maybe 1 or 2 in a whole season. None of my training techniques are new and they haven’t caused compliance issues is past years (including on TR). I would absolutely take your comment on board if I had a long history of not achieving workouts, but I don’t. This approach has worked very well for me. What IS new is TR AI and now - overnight - failing all hard sessions

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I agree, until you get back to not failing workouts the extending time is not helping.

I too have added time to workouts but kept it at recovery or low endurance range and only a few minutes just the bring my heart rate down.

Why not start with the basics, just stick to the workout plan, meaning keep the power level at the prescribed rate at Start, Recovery and End.

Those extended cooldowns can add up. With this new system I feel like it push you a bit harder from my experience.

If that helps and you’re able to complete your workouts them maybe pick longer workouts, you’re already riding two hours, pick a Two hour SS workout or see what the Check Volume button recommends.

With the strength training it gets tricky, are you doing legs before your hard workouts? This may play apart.

But the first thing is getting you back to completing the workouts without fail. Before what you’ll been doing may not been an issues but you’re having issues with workout now that’s why not just start back at the basics.

Also Respect the Yellow and Red Days, This is what get you stronger so enjoy those easier rides or days off.

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Yes, but that doesn’t mean your previous training was the most efficient way of using your time.

Think of it this way, if you have 100% of your training fatigue capacity available - the previous plans used up 85% of this in your “planned hours”. You top this up by 10% to 95 % by extending cooldowns.

Now the AI is filling your training time with more optimal recommendations - so is maybe filling up 95% of your fatigue capacity. You add on top your extra 10% with extended cooldowns (that it’s not expecting) and suddenly you’re at 105% and overreaching, failing workouts etc.

If you’re set on the extra endurance work, I’d add it in as a separate planned workout rather than an extended cooldow, let the AI see it and adapt around it and see what difference that makes

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Thanks very much for this :+1:t2:

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There’s multiple things in your calendar that cause others to believe it may not be TR but rather what you’re doing.

  1. You’re not giving your body time to rest. On your off cycling days your doing strength training. This isn’t giving the body time to rest or recover it’s adding stress.
  2. There’s extending planned workouts and adding endurance. That isn’t free work it adds training fatigue and will compound on top of everything else.

Adjustments you could make

  1. move from 3 strength workouts to 2 a week AND stack them on top of your hard workout days. Make the hard days hard and easy days easy. This will give you off days and allow body to recover and reduce inflammation
  2. Limit workout extensions and intensity. Maybe only extend 15mins at 50%. You make the comment of “it’s only 200 watts” but there’s a real caloric burn at that intensity that shouldn’t be over looked.

Hope this helps get you back on track

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You seem to be nailing your hard sessions, on Thursdays, when you haven’t had a strength session the day before. That makes me also question the combined stress of the new TR approach and your strength sessions.

I also see that you’re due a reduction in AiFTP on Wednesday, combined with being scheduled Eichorn +1 which you nailed three weeks ago. This makes me believe that the Ai should have you back on the right track shortly.

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Thanks for this. In case it makes any difference to the observations (all gratefully received) I am only doing 2 strength (not 3). I might also mention that my approach is to drop this down to 1 strength per week from March (as cycling volume ticks up). I am also giving myself two full days per week where I have complete recovery (usually a Wednesday and a weekend day). So I do have 2 days of rest factored it, but nonetheless take your good points onboard!

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You can also drop the workouts down to two until March and make the ride after your strength day and endurance ride, that usually feels good on the legs.

Once March is here then back to three hard workouts, but we are so close to March that it may not make much of a difference but it’s something to keep in mind for next season.

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I just want to compliment OP for trying to keep an open mind here. I’m sure you have to be frustrated and tired! What worked before isn’t working with the new system, so it’s refreshing to see someone trying to figure out how to adapt without just coming in full of piss and vinegar! I hope you find a workable way forward that helps you meet all of your training goals quickly!

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Thanks all for giving up your time to have a look and share comments. They are all fair points. I think my difficulty with some of the feedback though is that they are generalised observations about my training approach. They don’t necessarily address the more acute point: what it is that has changed about TR overnight which has reduced my compliance so dramatically. They may be fair comments on training philosophy generally (we all have different approaches) but it bears repeating that my approach has worked for me successfully for many years with very high workout compliance. I have also reached a good level by amateur standards with a typical season peak of a 350w FTP or so, and performing well at some demanding events. So my approach can’t be too fatally flawed even if it isn’t perfect.

I have lifted weights on a Monday and smashed out VO2 on a Tuesday for almost a decade with steady gains. The comment above that it isn’t surprising I would fail a hard workout the day after strength training therefore isn’t quite meeting the point here. I have hit many many hard workouts the day after weights for many seasons. The failures I am seeing now aren’t because I lifted weights. The shift is dramatic and it is because of something new in TR.

Perhaps the middle ground is that there are some flaws in my approach which the new TR approach cannot tolerate. But that would still involve a recognition that the new AI is massively more demanding. Do we think it is?

I also don’t think I yet understand how TR could have thought the most appropriate thing to prescribe in January after detraining for 3 months and a z2 block could have been a 9w bump and a level 7 SS workout straight out of the gates. Or how it could have realistically thought I would hit 357w FTP (a punchy season peak) after just 10 workouts and by February.

It does feel to me that something is off

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Were you lifting during your zone 2 period prior to January, or did you add that after coming back to TR? Could be that you just started doing too much all at once?

And given that it has been a decade-ish since you started training… you’re going to respond to training stress differently as you age. I was able to do the same until this past year and had to change my approach quite a bit because my body just wasn’t responding how it used to. I know it’s frustrating so keep at it, but you’ll need to dial something back in the interim. Whether it’s TR’s fault or your own, the end result is the same, so something needs to change.

And re: post-workout surveys, I’ve been of the belief that if you have to dial down the intensity just to make it through a workout, you should rate it all-out, not “very hard”.

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Many thanks for the comment. Yep - lifting throughout. I may not always have put it into the calendar but it’s always there.

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We all have our unique situations, but I’ve been struggling with my AIFTP being what I perceive as too high. I don’t think I could hold mine for more than 10-12 minutes. Nobody has defined what AIFTP means in term of the threshold part. I’ve manually lowered mine.

How long do you realistically think you could hold your AIFTP? I assume there is a range for people, but maybe there are a few in the minority that can hold in on the shorter side.

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This was exactly where my mind went as well.

Time and gravity … the two things you can’t hide from.

Separate question for @waf89 … for the workouts that you’re having to bail out of, how do the interval lengths, recoveries and power targets stack up against what you were performing at a similar phase of training in previous seasons? If they’re in the same ballpark or lower, then it could be that the extended off-season means you detrained further than you’re used to, and so maybe needed an easier volume block to get back in shape before introducing intensity.

Or something.

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you guys aren’t wrong - but I don’t think it’s time catching up with me JUST yet - that change wouldn’t be literally overnight and coincide perfectly with the release of TR AI. Old man time is defo coming for me but hopefully not quite with such a dramatic sea change.

My personal hunch is your final comment - I suspect my new approach this year with an extended z2 season may have detrained me from interval work / muscular endurance much more than I hoped. I’ve never gone so long without any intensity. Maybe my rate of detraining has been more than most athletes would experience (which also brings me outside of TR’s assumptions).

My optimistic hope is that I will take a few kicks in the teeth, my body will fire back up, acclkmatise to harder efforts again and start keeping pace / TR will also adjust its expectations down to meet me halfway. The workouts aren’t crazy vs what I would expect at this time of year.

And to the earlier comment, I think I can usually hold a fairly high % of FTP for good durations in the real world - I don’t think this is the issue. I pushed 308w for 1hr28 (a lifetime effort) to TT a well known climb in September with a 340 FTP.

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