TR does not seem to reflect changes in my fitness and I’m not sure what’s going on.
As background, I’ve been coaching myself for years but decided to start TR after taking a break from riding in late 2024. I have years of power data and my 20min numbers have typically been between 290 - 325. My first TR test on the trainer gave me an FTP of 243 in February, which wasn’t too surprising. Then it did an automatic detection of 270 in march.
The problem is nothing has really changed since then.
I typically do the 2 prescribed interval workouts/week, then I just ride zone 2 for a total of around 10hrs/week. All outside. The intervals usually end up being easy (and I try to report that), my FTP is still at 270 and the progression levels haven’t moved that much since February with the highest now being at 4.5.
Yet in spite of all that, I am getting objectively faster. I’ve done 20min efforts in races this season between 320- 325W, which you’d think would come out to an FTP around 305 or so.
To be clear, this is not a “why am I not getting faster” thread!! Rather, I want to understand why TR is not seeming to recognize that? Is this typical?Maybe something is set incorrectly?
If they are routinely doing efforts at 320+ for 20 minutes what else do you need to know their ftp is off? If your ftp is 270 you won’t be able to do a 20m effort at 120%.
Only TR can tell them why their ai ftp is not being updated to reflect the efforts they are doing.
Are you choosing your own intervals, or is TR choosing them for you?
I follow a near identical training structure, but choose all my own workouts. The biggest two items I’ve found to increase AI FTP are:
Choosing workouts that increase progression levels (that I can fully complete)
Rating them as moderate or easy (still need to be honest, but if I can complete it and feel I could hold the last interval a little longer or do another, it’s moderate at most)
Seeing a screenshot of your calendar would be helpful.
Have you gone into power records and checked to see if TR is in fact seeing that information for 2025? Just hover over 20 min and see what it says.
Since you are doing everything outside it seems maybe something isn’t getting imported correctly. If you are doing outside workouts are you then making sure they are associated with the inside workouts prescribed? Not doing that could definitely stall progression levels.
I took a look at your TR account, and since all your workouts are performed outside, they are not prompting AI FTP Detection. Instead, you need to run it manually under Account>>Detect My FTP.
I think inside vs outside could be part of it. But the session are all recorded in TR. Below is a screenshot from a race on May 31 showing over FTP efforts. I tried AI detection after that and I’m still at 273. I thought I had more 20min race efforts, but when I looked, they were all bursty and there was nothing else that steady. So maybe there isn’t enough steady type effort data and I need to do more 20min+ efforts to get accurate FTP detection?
Another screenshot shows a typical week where you can see the prescribed workouts in the background that are undone and where I substituted rides that are ‘similar’.
Substitutions could be the problem I guess. There are a lot of short effort sessions in my CX program. When I see an over/under or VO2, I sometimes substitute it for a group ride because it has a bunch of 1-2min pull/hold-on over-under efforts. I still load the TR prescribed session and get a checkmark, but technically it’s not the same. So maybe TR is not giving me credit for hard workouts that are off script? That is a bit disappointing since it is AI and it should be able to parse it, but ok.
Let’s forget all that for a moment though. TR is actually telling me that in spite of training 8-10hrs a week with 2 interval sessions since March, I am still at exactly the same FTP? That seems unlikely, so I must be screwing this up somewhere.
No I’ve tried it since then. Although there does seem to be a timer on it as you have to accumulate enough workouts until it allows you do it again. Maybe files like the one above aren’t considered because it only looks at TR prescribed sessions?
@Tweaked I did a little digging on the backend, and it looks like AI FTP Detection had you at 280 on June 1st, so those big efforts you did on the 31st were definitely being considered..
Part of this could be a reflection of your decreased training load since May as well. Your six-week average TSS figure was at 444 at the time of that big ride, and is now 341, so that’s almost a 25% reduction in training stimulus.
Additionally, it doesn’t look like you’re following much of a plan, which could be part of why you’ve dropped down slightly. Regardless, 9 watts isn’t much!
Thanks Eddie. I dropped the volume because I increased intensity (as per the plan). I’m old, so I also need to be careful!! But also realize that my volume is still almost always over what TR prescribes. To further increase volume, I’ll need to limit the prescribed interval sessions. I do like those sessions because they are so doable and rewarding, but if the FTP detection is accurate, then they are objectively kind of useless for me it would seem.
I already knew I respond better to volume than intensity, so at least TR confirmed that.
In terms of the plan I am always doing the Tuesday session (unless I need rest) but usually substitute the other session for a hard group ride. It is similar to over/unders but I guess TR doesn’t look at it that way?
I’m learning about how your algorithm works from this thread and maybe age constraints and the fact that I just like to freestyle too much isn’t really optimal for your current version of AI.
