I have been a longtime TrainerRoad user and have never had a FTP drop when completing 90% of workouts. My last two AI FTP predictions have had my FTP drop. Last month it dropped by 1 so I left it as it was. This month I completed 95% of workouts and it dropped 12 watts even though my FTP was set higher then recommended and I completed workouts. Is there something I’m missing here as I feel as though it should be going up not down.
If you don’t trust it, test. If you don’t want to test, ignore it, carry on and see how you go.
3 Likes
What other factors might be influencing the drop? Has volume or TSS decreased? Did you miss a block of training or go on vacation recently? You mention 95% compliance…. But have your PL’s dropped? Has the frequency of you high intensity workouts decreased? Have you been focusing more on sweet spot over VO2? What phase of training are you in? Have you lost weight? Have you been marking survey’s hard or all-out more frequently? Are you aging up into the next age group?
Lots to consider here…
2 Likes
Hey there,
Awesome job with the consistency – I checked out your TR account and it’s looking great!
As @Jolyzara mentioned, there are a lot of variables that can impact your FTP. We also like to remind athletes that your fitness is more than your FTP alone. For example, have you been feeling stronger overall? Have you been able to increase the amount of time you can spend in a given zone? Do you feel like your repeatability of hard efforts is improving? All of those points are important to consider when gauging your fitness.
It looks like you’re heading into Build II, which has increasingly difficult VO2 Max and Threshold workouts in store for you. Those workouts will probably bump your fitness up during this next phase of training… If not your FTP, then almost certainly your repeatability and time to exhaustion.
As a final thought, does your FTP feel correct to you? If your efforts feel like they are about where they should be, then it’s possible that your FTP is actually dialed in for you right now. FTP and fitness take time to change, so if it feels accurate to you right now, you may not need to worry about adjusting it. Your next block of workouts will be challenging already as you push your Progression Levels higher and get into more difficult training sessions – if your FTP is set correctly, those workouts should feel tough, but doable.
Hope these points help – feel free to let us know if you have additional questions on this!
2 Likes
Same for me for some reason, increased my levels on both threshold and vo2, completed stretch workouts, only thing is one of the weeks i skipped the threshold w/o and swapped it for a group ride i think, otherwise, volume increased and progression levels increased every week.
AI Ftp wanted to lower my ftp by 2, i didnt accept it. Still a bit sad though.
My calender should be open, feel free to check for anything logical causing my ftp drop.
1 Like
Hey @f1shbOwl,
I’ve just taken a quick look at your career, and things are looking pretty good…
The things that I’ve noticed so far are that:
- You’re not consistently getting in a ton of structured training. Oftentimes you’re only following one workout/week.
- You seem to be attempting to make up for this by using Workout Alternates to find different (sometimes higher level) workouts to replace what’s being recommended by Adaptive Training.
You are really consistent about riding 4 to 5 days a week though which is great! 
What I’d recommend in your situation is to figure out how much structure and intensity you can sustainably handle and do your best to adhere to a plan for as much of your training time as you feel comfortable.
Right now you’re on a low-volume masters plan which prescribes three workouts a week, with two being hard workouts. Are you able to do a regular non-masters plan? Since you’re typically riding 4 to 5 days/week you might be able to handle a bit more intensity – something like 3 hard days on those weeks where you’re getting out 5 days and 2 to 3 on the others.
As far as structure, I think you’d probably respond better if you were to follow along with the prescribed workouts. That means going harder on those hard days, going easy on easy days, and still following the structure on those days that land somewhere in the middle.
The second side of this involves rest weeks which we typically schedule every fourth training week or ~ once a month. It’s really important to make sure that these weeks stay easy so that you can recover and prepare for more hard training down the road.
I’ve found that when I’m not following a training plan, I tend to miss rest weeks because I never reeaalllly feel like I need them. A couple of months later though, I’ll start to get tired. However, when I’m following a training plan I’m often looking forward to my next rest week halfway through that third hard week, and It’s nice to take a break from all of those hard workouts to recover and bounce back refreshed and ready to take on some more hard work. 
Basically, by following the plan I’m overall getting a lot more solid training stimulus that’s specifically targeted at certain adaptations, which is usually just achievable enough for me to get to my next rest week before repeating. These are the basic fundamentals of periodization. 
Ultimately, you need to find what is going to be the most productive for you while remaining sustainable. It looks like you usually follow Red Light Green Light’s recommendations which is awesome because this tool is really good at noticing when you might be ramping things up too quickly for your own good.
If I were you, I’d take a moment during this rest week to analyze how you’re feeling. Do you feel fatigued? Are you looking forward to this rest week, or does it almost feel unnecessary? From there I’d make a plan as to how to utilize your time on your bike as best as possible moving forward. It doesn’t always have to be focused hard work – it’s supposed to be fun! Those focused sessions are often the building blocks to getting faster though, so it might need to be a balance. 
Let me know if this helps. I’d be happy to chat some more if you’d like! Just shout! 
2 Likes
Awesome answer, thanks!
It’s true there are weeks lately where I only do 1, sometimes 2 structured workouts and have swapped in for a stretch version instead of productive. I should probably adress that.
I think i can handle much more intensity then low volume, i have a rest week now and i dont feel tired at all, rather the opposite, even though i increased volume and tss. So i should maybe go from low to mid volume or change to regular from masters. Now with the new feature to replace days with unstructured rides i could use that.
Im going to take your advice and analyze how to move forward.
1 Like
That’s pretty much what I expected you to say. 
I think switching to a non-masters plan to start and then bumping up to mid-volume could be a good idea. Don’t forget that even if there are 5 workouts scheduled each week, it’s okay if you can only do 4 sometimes. Just pick the ones that feel the best for however you’re feeling at the time.
Let me know if I can help out with anything down the road!
1 Like