TrainerRoad’s Biggest Update Ever Is Coming 👀

[Nate_Pearson]

@zerowatts

I understand that having the CEO respond so directly to all the forum questions is impractical in the extreme but boy howdy does it feel REALLY good to have direct questions answered directly by somebody from the company. The quasi technical nature of your responses and willingness to speak to almost all aspects is a welcome change.

I’m looking forward to the podcast even more now.

Thank you! I need to do this more often.

[Rizzi]

@Nate_Pearson

It just understands what you’re actually doing, and then can tell you what you need to do to increase you watts

“Increase my watts” … but with what durability in mind? Faster for 20min is different from faster for 200min. Is it dependent on the plan / A race or based around one hour power?

[Nate_Pearson]

@Rizzi

Side aspect: Will I see when I have maxed out on FTP based on my plan / available hours? So no matter what I put in (within the limited time constraints of my specific schedule) I will not be able to gain more FTP?

Will the system then tell me something / give some advice like need more volume?

Your plan is going to update in volume in two ways:

1. Dynamic Endurance - this is where your long rides have a max duration (that we recommend or you can set) and that updates intelligently so you progress appropriately. It’s not just a standard 30-minute increase, and you can even go down one week if you do too much the week before.

2. Workout Extension - This is a new feature where, if you max out your PL for a zone, it adds up to 30 minutes to that zone.

If you put your plan on your calendar with these in place and your FTP still doesn’t go up in 4 weeks, you can hit the check volume button on your plan. If that STILL doesn’t go up, you can adjust workouts individually.

But there’s not an automatic notice. Based on our experience, I think this case is unlikely unless you’re pretty high level and have really low volume.

[Nate_Pearson]

@zerowatts

Dear AI overlord, tell me how to achieve the 380FTP I keep hearing about

1. How many people will use this? 99.9% of the userbase who don’t already have said 380FTP
2. How often will they se it? They will use it every week after their group ride.
3. Is this something we want to encourage? Uhhh….

[Nate_Pearson]

@Rizzi

“Increase my watts” … but with what durability in mind? Fasted for 20min is different from fasted for 200min. Is it dependent on the plan / A race or based around one hour power?

Yes, durability is part of watts.

If you’re doing fasted training the AI should adapt as you won’t be able to do as much power on your intense workouts. I also suggest maybe picking an easier workout alternative.

And your training is to be successful for you plan goal or A Race.

[Rizzi]

@Nate_Pearson

The AI looks at way more. And there’s a chance where at one time a workout level 4.5 threshold is easier for you one day vs a 4.7 threshold. But in the future, the 4.7 is easier for you than the 4.5.

Ok. This sounds a bit unintuitive but would explain why you cannot rank / score the workouts with the new system. But nevertheless the new system somehow picks from the library…very interesting…

and the immediate question I have would be if you thought about generating totally new and individual workouts on the fly? (Maybe it’s kind of like that under the hood and then you pick the most similar workout from the library)

[Nate_Pearson]

@Rizzi

Ok. This sounds a bit unintuitive but would explain why you cannot rank / score the workouts with the new system. But nevertheless the new system somehow picks from the library…very interesting…

and the immediate question I have would be if you thought about generating totally new and individual workouts on the fly? (Maybe it’s kind of like that under the hood and then you pick the most similar workout from the library)

Yah it’s hard, but basically a 4.7 vo2 max over under won’t feel the same as a 4.8 vo2 max over under for everyone in all circumstances.

Yah, I think we’ll generate individual workouts on the fly in the future.

[Rizzi]

@Nate_Pearson

You’re not getting a score, but the AI understands it and updates your next workout accordingly.

Does that mean that: the more the next workouts are adapted the less good my outdoor ride was, and the less the following workouts are adapted the better the outdoor ride was for my plan / prediction?

So if the predicted FTP stays the same after the outdoor ride, the outdoor ride served my goal and if predicted FTP goes down, the outdoor ride was too hard or too easy?

[patrickhill]

Somehow, I am very excited for this release but also confident that the AI is going to tell me that I have no chance at further raising my FTP given my current number of hours available.

[wik04]

Who gave Nate all the extra coffee today? If he had an app for his fingers, tomorrow would be a red day.

[Joe]

@Nate_Pearson

@JustinLavish

I don’t trust my Garmin watch’s sleep and HRV data enough to put it into TrainerRoad’s algorithms

We plan on bringing these in and then validating it. The AI will tell us if it gets us better predictions or not.

I love this. My money is on “or not” but I trust the ai to tell us

Joe

[TooManyDogs]

@patrickhill

Somehow, I am very excited for this release but also confident that the AI is going to tell me that I have no chance at further raising my FTP given my current number of hours available.

Remember 7 minute abs? Raise your FTP in 7 minutes a day. You just have to hold 2000 watts for 7 minutes. Easy

[Nate_Pearson]

@Rizzi

Does that mean that: the more the next workouts are adapted the less good my outdoor ride was, and the less the following workouts are adapted the better the outdoor ride was for my plan / prediction?

So if the predicted FTP stays the same after the outdoor ride, the outdoor ride served my goal and if predicted FTP goes down, the outdoor ride was too hard or too easy?

If nothing changed, you did the ride as we predicted you did the ride; but that’s neither good nor bad.

That might have made you end up with higher PLs/FTP in the future, or maybe you need extra recovery and end a little lower at first? It’s hard to say

[Nate_Pearson]

@patrickhill

Somehow, I am very excited for this release but also confident that the AI is going to tell me that I have no chance at further raising my FTP given my current number of hours available.

For today, it has you at a 330→351. That’s mostly from our high Sweet spot and VO2 max PLs.

It would then start you out at a workout like one of these:

Cloud Ripper -4
Tweed +1
Red Kaweah -2
Kaweah -2

You’ve recently done:

• 3x22 @ 310 with 3:30 rest between intervals without problem.
• 5x5 @ 356 with 4:30 rest between intervals, without problem, and even extended the endurance after it.

At the new FTP of 351, Kaweah -2 would be:

• 3x10 @ 333 watts with 5:00 rest between intervals.

So even though it seems like a huge jump, we’re still making incremental steps in your wattage via progression levels.

What I’m seeing on your calendar is you’re sorta maxing out what you can do in the available time you have to train at the 330 FTP, which is what you said at the beginning.

But by raising your FTP like this, we give you plenty of room to grow at 351 and GET FASTER!

[Nate_Pearson]

@wik04

Who gave Nate all the extra coffee today? If he had an app for his fingers, tomorrow would be a red day.

I’ve got that launch fever!

[patrickhill]

Ha! Thanks for the sneak preview and the renewed motivation, Nate! In the past few years I’ve taken a more conservative approach to FTP rounding it down to the nearest 10 watts, only moving it up when it’s clearly set too low. The intent has been to get more time in zone.

It sounds like the new AI wants to move me back to more aspirational FTPs like in my early days with TR. This should result in shorter, more intense intervals given the same zone. Perhaps that’s exactly what I need to break through, and I’m excited to give it a try.

Also, please don’t include a feature that can predict how much stronger I’d be if I had more hours to train. It would either make me depressed or be really bad for my career and family time.

[Nate_Pearson]

Don’t add more hours to your calendar then….

But really it might lower your FTP. I actually get slower if I ride 4 times a week right now.

We’re excited to see what people discover! We’re still learning things from it ourselves!

[roleypup]

@Nate_Pearson

three years

About the same as how long WLv2 had been getting mentions.
Okay I’ll put a coin in the swear jar…

I remember some talk on the podcast about how the FTP detection button got changed to be activated only once every 28 days, because people were pressing the button after each workout, sometimes after each interval, wondering “how much faster did this make me?”. This FTP forecasting function sounds like now the button is never not being pressed!

In all seriousness, I’m looking forward to trying it out, & especially seeing for example, the expected consequences of that 600km 8000m audax ride I’m looking at in 8½ weeks, & whether it truly is with complete impunity that I’ll be torching myself at the end of a loading cycle (nod to Alex Wild on the podcast the other week), or whether the required recovery leaks into the first few days of the next loading cycle.

Upon the launch of RLGL, Nate you were admitting that really big days needed to be handled a bit better, especially when they span multiple days. What I’m seeing is that since the launch of RLGL all the TSS accumulated by an activity is treated as having been accumulated at the start time, which probably works for events of a few hours or less but is glaringly wrong for multi-day or overnighters. Are you able to share anything about that? Perhaps niche for most of your target audience but certainly makes a difference for ultra racers & randonneurs!

[NelsonBretts]

Super thank you, massive fan of Trainerroad and all you guys are doing it has made my cycling interesting and fun again !!! Cant wait to see new AI

[bmcd]

@Nate_Pearson is in the house!