Replying to OP: I’m not subscribed to trainerroad so I can’t check the calendar. Going by what others said, if the volume is about 4 hours a week, I think that is too low.
Would it be possible to find more time to train or do other sorts of physical activity? Sometimes a lifestyle change can free up hours of training. Things like watching training materials while doing z2 on the trainer, commuting or shopping with the bike, taking the chance and putting on the running shoes for a 30 minute run…
Maybe you live in a place where going downtown on the bike is not advisable, or maybe you can’t run because of a bad knee… But if there is a way that you can dedicate more time to physical activity/ training without it getting on the way of other things, that’s going to help a lot.
I have now completed another 6 weeks of Low Volume Sweet Spot. AI FTP detection should kick in tomorow? Let’s see what is the result. In the meantime I wanted to summurize what I think went well and what I’m focusing on improving.
[1] Really this part I’m not sure. We will see what AI FTP detection sasys. But I’m not very confident juding by intervals.icu.
Obviously this is only a graph and uses these zones that from what I understand are derived from TSS. So not sure how relevant it is. And tbh, I feel like I should do more reasearch on this.
But I expexted that now the new FTP test was done, during Trainerroad scheduled LVSS plan it would automatically set the effort to make me go into that green optimal zone. Like it did before in the earlier part of the season (in GREEN). That was not what happened, instead the YELLOW training block it’s very close in shape to the RED training block with led to very litle improvement.
The only take away here is to wait a bit, and also I will need more research to see how those numbers are actually calculated.
Right now I’m trying to focus on two other elements of training so I will dedicate efforts there: One is nutrition, and feeling super blown out after each workout having endless hunger every single time; Second is bike fit, I have done one last year but I don’t think it was good, been playing arround with it myself now.
So I got my AI FTP dectection results. Is it normal such HUGE drop in Threshold progression level?
This means the suggested Threshold workout adapatation went from a 98 TSS to a 61 TSS with for a 0.81 IF. Isn’t this too low?
Is there any reason for this, I’m very tempted into not accepting the adaptation.
How large was the delta between your before/after FTP?
- Raw watts and percentage are worth consideration. I’d expect larger PL reduction with larger FTP gains.
Very minimal. It went from 189W to 196W so arround 3ish%.
FWIW I’ve always had relatively large drops in threshold PLs, though I seem to struggle with threshold more than others. Maybe it knows? Lol
3% is a pretty decent jump, in my opinion, and certainly enough to affect threshold TTE.
I’d accept the adaptations and complete the suggested threshold workout.
If it’s too easy, tell AT in the survey. It should ramp you up more quickly. If the next workout still seems too easy, choose a harder alternate.
Better one slightly too easy workout than a block of too hard workouts.
Slightly OT, but I sort of marvel at the new criticism that TR is taking things too easy on us after so many years of “It’s too hard” as the most common refrain of TR workouts and plans (prior to AT in particular). 
“The food here is terrible.” “Yes, and such small portions!”
I know the details matter here and wasn’t trying to dive into this or other related specific issues. Just stating an observation (hence the ‘OT’ aspect).
Of course we can question the changes in PL and related workouts via AT. I’ve done it plenty especially in the dawn of AT when large PL drops were the norm. TR has made many tweaks over the years, so if people question them now, the best action is contacting support directly to see if things are going as intended or something is amiss.
This is the thing, threshold workouts were increasing in TSS/IF, and I felt like I was making progress there. It was hard, but it’s threshold it should be hard.
I’m with redlude, and shake my head at the idea of dropping interval durations as fitness increases. If your fitness really did increase from 189 to 196W, then in my experience the interval duration doesn’t really change when going from 180-198W to 186-206W (the 95-105% band of threshold). HOWEVER I do nearly all my workouts outside, naturally flex power targets as fitness increases, and follow more traditional cycling plans. So thats perhaps one reason I agree with redlude.
Regarding your CTL tracking, I tried this pre-AT with LV and 5-7 hours/week total. Ended up going nowhere, my thoughts at the time (4-5 years ago) were that TR had a set of assumptions: a) inside workouts, b) in Erg, c) relatively low volume, d) ability to recover quickly either due to age or experience, and e) plans that assumed you were doing base/build/speciality progression after a break. All very reasonable assumptions to bake into plans. And once you constrain a plan to 3-4 hours/week (LV), in my view ANY plan is forced to more aggressively pursue intensity. Is that compatible with outside riding? I had trouble making it work, so I ended up experimenting with MV and making changes. Again my own personal views.
Ok, so then AT came along and that improved things for some (like me), by reducing difficulty of some plans (MV and HV in particular), and allowing AT to adjust to your fitness level. Those changes were either welcome (like me), however some that had mastered MV/HV plans felt they were potentially holding them back. And if you are new, have very high fitness, trust AT instead of overriding workouts, it can take a long time for AT to catch up and you might complain its too easy. So to Chad’s point of course you are going to get mixed reviews on the plans+AT.
So here’s the thing - if you were doing 6-12 hours per week and say 2 interval workouts a week, personally I’m a fan of using CTL and training load ramp rates as guard rails to build a stronger engine. The key thing is that you learn about yourself and take that into consideration.
So now you are trying to layer:
- TR LV plans
- AT plus AI FTP
- additional outdoor riding
- CTL ramp rates
To my eyes, that seems like a lot of complexity.
Just thinking out loud.
That’s a insightful answer. Thank you.
In part I feel like the complexity comes from anxiety about the training and not feeling like there’s enough progress, plus not trusting TR to not screw up my planning.
Yes I sensed that and almost wrote you need to pick something to believe in and pursue that. FWIW my belief system is prioritize volume over structure. In the context of TR that means dropping the notion of failing workouts, and dropping the pursuit of PLs. Do what you can, if it’s not happening just keep riding for the time you have and don’t stress what AT “thinks” about you or the workout. Stay focused on making time to ride more, inside or out. That’s one way to simplify things.
The opposite is to just trust AT and drop the pursuit of volume if and when it interferes with the plan.
I think it’s better to do “slightly” easier workouts relative to your intended zone than too hard. And then ramp from there. And I think people WAY over analyze training programs and think there is some perfect plan that will be magic. The reality is you need to train consistently, don’t overtrain, and get enough rest. Oh and use you head to make minor modifications if necessary. Over time you will get faster.
Came here to say the same thing.
Do not underestimate the role of fatigue