Why is Plan Builder Giving Me Stretch Workouts?

TrainerRoad Software
1

I started a new plan with Plan Builder on August 1st of this year and just finished Base 2. I start the first week of my Build Phase tomorrow at a 4.3 sweet spot progression level yet Plan Builder has given me a 6.0 workout and Adaptive Training has not kicked in to adapt my workout to something in the Productive range.

I swear I once heard @Jonathan say on the podcast that Adaptive Training will never give you a Stretch or Breakthrough workout, or that it would adapt the Plan Builder workouts to match your Progression Level prior to the scheduled date

Am I missing something here?

2

There is no ramp test first? If you do that or use ftp detection the plan will update.

3

My plan had all breakthrough workouts for my first 5 weeks of the season from day one. I went in and manually chose alternates at lower levels as this was the start of “base phase.” Week 5 has “not recommended” workouts which won’t let me choose any alternates.

This is my first time using TR and I’m going to see how adaptable training “adapts” as an experiment. I too am curious if plans are supposed to start off like this.

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4

Which workouts are those and what is your progression level for that energy system?
It can sometimes happen when you have a very low score to start with and target something new.

To review your specific case probably best to quickly shoot support team a message, they can look if everything is as it should.

5

A couple weeks ago I was injured, so I canceled my A race (Oct 22nd), which was at the end of my Base 2 block, and added an annotation for time off to recover. Plan Builder adapted my plan and gave me a ramp test last Monday, and I opted for FTP Detection. But just a couple days ago, prior to the start of my current Build block, which started today, I changed my plan volume from low to medium, and it didn’t give me a ramp test this time, probably because I just did FTP Detection last Monday.

Regardless, I’m still not sure why it never adapted my first workout of the new phase.

6

For this particular workout, there was only one alternative available, which was 15 minutes and one interval shorter, but still a stretch workout. I did the alternative but had to scale back the intensity to 90%. I would have just assumed do the appropriate level workout but if I had selected my own from the library, the results would not have adapted my plan.

7

I had an issue one time where AT stopped adapting. Deleting my plan and recreating resolved it (used the same plan start date in the past). Never did understand what happened, but also never bothered to contact support either.

8

Has the next phase of the plan already started? AT won’t adapt until the next block actually starts. If it has already started I’d suggest you contact support so they can have a look add what went wrong. It’s not supposed to give you these workouts, unless you’ve rated all previous workouts as easy (I guess).

9

Thanks. That is very helpful. I’ll give it a try.

10

Hey @joelc! I am going to look into this for you. I will circle back around when I have more information!

11

Hey guys!

Thought I’d circle back around to clear things up.

Through DM’s, @Jolyzara and I were able to clear up some confusion. For Training Plans scheduled far in advance, the Difficulty Levels indicated for specific workouts will change as your fitness (FTP) and Progression Levels change. As you approach the start of the Training Plan, those Workouts will likely adapt in response to changes in your FTP and/or Progression Levels.

For more information, check out these articles:

@joelc and I are looking into this further. Using admin tools, we can see that the correct adaptation was suggested but we are looking into why @joelc wasn’t presented with the Adaptation/ didn’t see it prior to the Workout.

A couple of others things to clear up:

Scheduled Breakthrough and Stretch Workouts

I swear I once heard @Jonathan say on the podcast that Adaptive Training will never give you a Stretch or Breakthrough workout, or that it would adapt the Plan Builder workouts to match your Progression Level prior to the scheduled date

Stretch workouts are frequently built into Plans. Likewise, in some cases, you can be scheduled breakthrough Workouts. On the other hand, you shouldn’t be scheduled “Not Recommended” workouts. When you are unsure about whether the difficulty of your Workouts are correct, you can always reach out to us, and we’ll look into it for you.

Frequency of Ramp test

it didn’t give me a ramp test this time, probably because I just did FTP Detection last Monday.

Yup, exactly! We won’t schedule a Ramp test again if you have completed one as recently as a week ago. Scheduling Ramp tests too often is counterproductive to making progress.

Rebuilding your Plan

Deleting my plan and recreating resolved it (used the same plan start date in the past).

Thanks for the suggestion, @matthewgreer! This can be a helpful trick.

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