I took a break from structured training for 10 weeks but was still riding and staying fit. I prepared a new season with plan builder. The progression levels at the time of creating the plan looked somewhat reasonable. I completed the Ramp Test and my FTP went from around 330W to 320W which I expected.
I accepted the proposed adaptations without much checking and saw that all my progression levels reset to 1.0 and the newly proposed workouts look very easy. Is this correct? I do not want to waste valuable training time. The sweet spot sessions looks now more like easy endurance workouts. I am thinking to manually up the proposed workouts but something does not look correct.
This is expected, your Progression Levels are simply a reflection of your current fitness, not a gauge by which your workouts are being assigned.
That is based upon your FTP, which it sounds like is up to date. However, since youâve been training for 10 weeks (it sounds like doing base rides?), youâre probably ready for build!
Just plug in your start date for a previous time when you started doing base, and Plan Builder will adjust accordingly and likely put you into your build phase!
Again, just to reiterate, Progression Levels arent guiding the difficulty of a workout, just showing your current ability levels. Future support for AT will account for your previous unstructured workouts to show PL changes for those prior weeks, too!
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This is expected after 10 weeks of no TR worouts. More info under FAQ / Why did my Progression Levels change? / Time Off
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- Not true. If there is little to no recent TR related workouts on the calendar, dropping to 1.0 makes perfect sense and is intended.
I just went through the same since I came off about 6 weeks with hardly any âTRâ work. I just worked from there, manually selected a few slightly harder workouts with the Alternates function and let TR drive the buss. Worked great and I am not onto SSB2 with more up to date PLâs.
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YAY! It will be sick when the next iteration of AT that the team is working on can account for all those prior rides and show you where your levels are going into your training, but I think the team needs to keep reiterating that its just showing where your fitness is at currently, not the metric used to guide your training. We at TR should do a better job of that while thereâs still confusion, sorry!
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But why did the reset to 1.0 happen after the ramp test, which was actually better than expected? This is all confusing to me. I was not really in a true base phase during the 10 week. I was lifting weights and still riding. My CTL probably came down from the 90s to the mid 70s during that time. Plan builder asked for my fitness level and I answered. The proposed workouts before the Ramp test looked reasonable but the adaptations after ramp test changed all that. I wanted to let plan builder decide about my build up to A events and not go immediately into build phase. My plan was to create a bigger base this year.
Happy to clarify, youâre right that there is a TON of activity on your calendar over the past 10 weeks, the only problem is, none of them are TR workouts or associated with TR workouts, so you arent being âcreditedâ for Adaptive Training or your Progression Levels.
I have to reiterate again though that your PLs are not determining your workload or difficulty in your current plan. Your FTP is, which is up to date and DOES speak to all that work youâre doing behind the scenes.
If you want to add on more base and just start the new plan now, feel free to do so!
If youâre worried that it looks too easy initially, give it some time or go ahead and up your volume. Base phase and endurance workouts are, by nature, a bit easier at first glance, but you can always go to a higher volume if youâd like!
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Ivy, Thanks for all the hints! To give you an update - I have manually made the two first workouts harder by selecting harder alternates. The system is now adapting and proposed what I feel being the correct more matching workouts. I should have been more patient but that was unfortunately never my trait. BTW: I listened during my last workout to TR podcast: Great podcast yesterday and I liked your idea of favorite recovery drink.
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YAY so glad to hear youâre getting what you need out of Adaptive Training! That rules, weâre always happy to help out.
I need to find those beer + recovery research articles⌠
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I mean, I think the algorithm is still âshallowâ or âimmatureâ if unstructured rides arenât credited at all (Iâve posted that before, and Iâm not trying to be overly harsh), but I also have a bro-science/knowing-my-body-feeling that resetting my levels to 1.0 after todayâs recent ramp test is a pretty broad stroke.
Personal example: I peaked at 342 estimated FTP late last summer/early fall. I rode a bunch outside as part of work travel (when I would have preferred to be racing CX) , doing my best to associate rides with similar TSS/duration avg/power numbers. I have been quite lazy since the beginning of December, but took a ramp test (and really performed poorly 275+/- est FTP) in mid January.
PL levels dropped, in what I thought was a reasonable, but conservative fashion.
Yesterday I rode brass town, above the average, above the TSS and rated it moderate or easy (I canât remember) and had a pretty decent jump in endurance levels.
Today, on the back of yesterdayâs ride, I took a ramp and improved (304~) about 1/3 of the way back to my peak last fall. All my levels reset to 1.0. Iâm going to bro-science this one out, looking for +1s and Stretch workouts to accelerate the changes.
Is there any plan to add a individual personalization in AT/PL to take huge drops and quick recoveries into account?
Ie - adding a âthis guy got fat over Christmas, but usually bounces back pretty quicklyâ function? Iâm not a 1990s doper who bounces back unaturally well but Iâm pretty sure that 275 is pretty close to my floor for this decade, even with fluctuations in mass (Iâll always carry more mass than many around here).
This goes along with the additional saddle time questions - if I ride an âachievableâ level 3.5 threshold workout for 90 minutes and add 30 minutes of zone 2+, will this ride ever add to both threshold and endurance PL? 120 minutes in this type of workout is probably way tougher than any mid volume endurance workout Iâll ever do, but if Iâm at 1.0 for endurance when I complete that workout, thereâs a system flaw there.
Its the developerâs top priority. 
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