I’ve got no ego about my FTP and it being dropped by over 80 watts by the AI. What does worry me is then de training.
Please show screenshots of your calendar and recent weeks to help us analyze. And most of the people who got reduced FTP with another decrease of predicted FTP on top mostly had set their training approach to aggressive and changing that from aggressive to balanced would fix things.
You should just give it a try. Within just 1-2 workouts that you rate easier than the AI predicted difficulty expected (if the AI really was off and the workouts were too easy) you will get ramped up quickly and get the training and FTP you wish. The second alternative would be to just one or two times pick a harder workout from the alternatives and with your RPE rating the AI will quickly get dialed in.
EDIT: A rare edge case could be that you have used custom workouts instead of TR workouts which had some problems to get correctly rated by the AI (TrainerRoad AI FTP Prediction FAQs - #39 by Nate_Pearson)
Again.
in my case yesterday after workout gave me a drop from 264 to 247 but a future increment to 270
today that was gone the increment went from 270 to 248 or something. it makes no sense as nothing really changed.
another thing is, for the past couple of years, I’ve done ramps test AI detections that TR suggested as GOOD, and done basically all the same stuff every year (races, trainings) kinda boring I know.
Apart from losing weight performance has been maintaining or increasing, so it makes (again) no sense that suggestion to drop. So should I burn all my books about training with power? Erase all the podcasts and interviewers knowledge for the past 10 years? ;D
we had some science behind and studies, now we have a trust me bro kinda AI thing?
it gets super confusing.
If really absolutely nothing has changed then it’s a bug that needs attention from support @SeanHurley because @Nate_Pearson has mentioned that TR AI is deterministic.
I started a 3-month FTP Improvement Plan on TR in October of last year.
Started with a 324w FTP and followed every single workout as prescribed, accepting adaptations as they came along. After completing the plan to improve my FTP, following every single workout, I DROPPED it from 324 to 313w. Sleep was great. Nutrition was spot on. Stress levels managed.
I contacted support, and they said something along the lines of, “Sorry, that’s how fitness goes sometimes, and we can’t guarantee FTP improvements, even if you follow all the workouts of an FTP Improvement plan. Start a new plan and see how it goes.”
So, I started a new plan on Dec 29th, and after following every single workout on the plan (again) for three weeks, I was prompted to update my App to TR AI yesterday. Downloaded the update, and the first thing I got was an FTP Detection request, and guess what happened after I clicked on it? It dropped my FTP again from 313w to 299w, the lowest FTP I’ve had in three years.
For context, that 299w FTP is lower than what FTP Detection showed me after I broke my wrist in 2023 and stopped training for a couple of weeks. It’s also lower than what it detected after I came back from another accident that put me in bed for two weeks in 2024.
I checked again with support, and the conversation went something like this: “Are you guys sure that FTP calculation was accurate?” - “Yup, we’re positive your 299w FTP is right”.
They also gave me the link to the article and the cookie-cutter answer “Your ability to put out power has not decreased, your FTP doesn’t define you, the new estimate will give you better training, etc.”
What’s going on??? 4 months building FTP only to see it decrease almost 10%?
I’ve been with TR for around 7 or 8 years.
I was there during the “TR burned me out with SweetSpot HV Plans” years (got the T-Shirt).
I was there when they introduced Adaptive Training (much better than the previous phase).
And I’m still here. Confused. Frustrated. A bit tired. But still trusting them.
I love Coach John and Nate. It’s clear they have the best intentions.
But you know what they say about good intentions…
So, I’ll stick around, but I really need to see progress, or I’ll have to say goodbye 
Maybe you need to do an FTP test if your FTP is that important to you 
You haven’t said if you are slower or faster?
Maybe dumb from your perspective and how you use the system, but do you really claim to know the primary TR target user base (and TR’s goals) well enough to say it’s a bad decision for the overall user community and where TR is looking to take things? My initial impression of the change isn’t positive, but I’m only a couple days into seeing how it will play out and I can also accept that the way I use the system (and how I define and use FTP) probably doesn’t align with the typical TR user. A well designed system can be brilliant for some while unusable for others. Trying to be everything for everybody is almost always a path to failure (in my experience as a retired software/product/strategy guy).
Give it more than a few minutes, as it sounds like you might find the new FTP prediction particularly useful.
If you are frustrated with following a plan and not seeing the results, I’ve been finding it really useful to understand if I’ve loaded the right plan, how many days per week work for me, how much intensity, am I getting enough rest, etc.
I’m about 2 weeks into having these feature and it’s giving me the right nudges. Time will tell.
Guys, stop complaining about the new FTP value. Mine dropped by 4.5%, but after completing my first “ai workout” it was as usual spot on … literally SPOT ON!
Mine went up, by 9 watts in the new model.
As long as the workouts being prescribed creates the proper amount of training stress, I don’t see the issue. Everything is relative.
I think the bulk of the “complaints” are not whether the new value is helping determine the right TR workout, but the broader usage of FTP outside the TR system. FTP is broadly used in cycling for many purposes outside the TR system, so it’s not unreasonable to see some complaints if people are seeing numbers that no longer align with how they use the metric in other places.
You’re lucky. It’s attempted to drop my ftp from 235 to 205. I was 241 2 weeks ago and accepted a 6 watt drop but that’s 36 watts down…wtf?
I experienced the same thing: a massive drop in FTP for no apparent reason. This is just a guess, but something came to mind when looking at my friends’ data.
I always start my workouts in Zwift with 15 minutes of low-intensity riding, and I do the same after the workout. This extra half hour isn’t part of the actual workout, but it’s still recorded as one single training session.
As mentioned here in the forum, FTP is now calculated retrospectively based on your training data. Could this additional half hour be included in the calculation? Has anyone else experienced something similar?
My FTP dropped by 6% with the new AI detection. I had been doing - for example - level 7.8, 0.90 IF, VO2max workouts at my older, higher, FTP.
TR now shows the following progression levels at my new lower FTP
So (for me) it has not gotten things quite right in the initial “reset” to this new model.
Possible it did this as my threshold progression level with my “old” FTP was quite low, as I purposefully avoided threshold workouts.
I’m curious to see how the AI model will adapt my training as I complete more workouts. So I’ll give it a few weeks and see how things go.
I emailed support about this but I am still confused. I started at the end of Dec with a 250 FTP, right before this update TR sent me an update saying it was now *240!* and as soon as this update went out it was 220. Fine i can see the logic to the zones. But i just went out and i forced the AI to give me an 8.8 SS instead of a 5.0 because I knew it’d be too easy. The workout was ‘fine’ but the thing is the zone I was in was clearly tempo, not SS, which i know based on RPE from years of training.
Am I supposed to just ignore the zones of the type of workout and just pay attention to watts now? That doesn’t make sense to me to look at it that way because if i ask it for threshold it’ll just be giving me SS etc. I love the idea of asking the new workout selector for a type of workout and it’ll pick what it thinks is appropriate, but if my zones are completely shifted that changes it totally.
Yes, how this worked changed during the beta period, so if you were a beta tester you could have seen predictions without accepting the initial detection.
I think the best way to see the new TrAIner Road ftp especially if it’s lower than previously is like the difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius. 25C isn’t lower than 77f, they’re just different numbers forth same temp. As the new ftp is a different number for the same level of fitness. The system runs off different scales
My FTP also dropped 20 watts (258 to 238) after a few months of work over the winter.
Few thoughts on this -
The new FTP actually feels correct. Previously, I wasn’t able to complete a threashold workout beyond level 3.5 without serious mental anguish, whilst SST was limited to shorter durations in order to complete (probably more like threashold workouts).
I think there was a vast library of workouts which I was constantly not getting access to by increasing my ftp and lowering my PLs. I actually think these workouts I was missing were the key to me getting faster and stronger. One solution would have been to lower my ftp and extend progression levels, which is what it feels the new system has done.
Fingers crossed, training at this new level and pushing TTE through higher PLs will be the thing that pushes me forward. Previously, there would be a peak, followed by a collapse. This new AI feels more like a steady raise of aerobic systems.
My ftp dropped 40 watts. I’ll continue to use TR because of it’s breadth of workouts, but I would take the AI with a grain, er, a truckload of salt.