2 days ago I did a 2 hour sweet spot workout called Ball. After that my levels read:
Today I just did a 1.5 hour endurance ride called Fletcher. After that my levels read:
How do I “lose endurance” after doing a week of sweetspot followed by an endurance ride?
I know these numbers mean absolute beans. But I don’t wanna see em or think about em if they’re meaningless. Or am I missing something.
On the web, if you hover over the chart, it tells you what’s going on with each PL. Maybe that holds some clues?
You are correct. There is an explanation. It makes sense but also makes no sense.
Am I wrong or do progression levels still not account for non TR rides?
And how many times have I heard on the podcast that all the zones overlap? Train sweetspot and you’ll see improved endurance. This feature seems a bit undercooked.
I’m also falling victim to the “if the data has bad news it must be wrong” mentality. But clearly… it is… right?
In the current model only some workouts allow progression across multiple zones. I’ve seen it for tempo/SS and there was an example posted today (Basin?) that impacted multiple zones. But I don’t think any of the higher intensity workouts currently impact your endurance PL. I expect that may change with the V2 model that also takes unstructured rides into account.
But I personally don’t think it matters too much, if you focus on what this endurance level actually impacts. All it impacts is what kind of endurance workouts are considered achievable/productive/etc. And even if you have been doing harder SS workouts, in the context of your plan it probably does make sense that you don’t need over a 5.9+ endurance workout to be productive. 4.7+ will certainly be productive in the context of your plan that also includes the other workouts.
“Unstructured Rides” are still not counted in the current iteration of AT. Only inside or outside TR workouts count towards PLs.
How long has it been since you last did an Endurance wo of 5.9; my TR plan rarely prescribes anything that high during a rest week. A month or so I got bored and done Bays +1 (I think thats a 5.8) but since then TR has had me doing no more than a 4.8. In summary although I’ve done tons of Endurance rides, I have done nothing at the Bays+1 level to maintain the PL.
I personally don’t look at my Endurance PL very much - I do a lot of my longer endurance outside so the TR PL for endurance is fairly meaningless. What are you actually using it for?
The PLs I actually look at are the ones I am targeting in my current plan - that is SS, VO2 and Threshold at the moment. And I am mainly only looking at them to help select alternates because I am not about to add extra hard workouts on top of those 3.
Fletcher is level 4.1. So it will slow the degrade of your PL in endurance, but not keep it at 5.9.
As others have said, endurance PL is pretty much meaningless for most. And as said in post above this, you really only can look at seriously the zones you are actively targeting in your plan.
I would guess it depends on the feedback. E.g. based on sweetspot workout which was rated ‘moderate’ your levels will increase, but if you then do an endurance workout (which should be easy) and rate it moderate it would probably reduce your endurance level as the high RPE suggests you’re not at that level yet.
It’s an extreme example but hopefully makes sense regarding how the level of the workout and the post-ride ratings could result in this kind of situation.
It is not based on the feedback. Your feedback is used by AT to select/adapt new workouts but your actual progression level is based on what you have done.
If you successfully complete a workout at a given progression level, you are at that level regardless of what you rate it as.
I also find that the progression levels degrade a bit to quick. I have had the same thing with both Sweet spot and Threshold levels, where they degrade quite alot after about 1,5 weeks of other training zones. Creating adaptions to my training which makes rides that was supposed to be productive, very achievable.
Hoping that this will be adjusted over time.
Step 1: ignore Endurance progression levels. They are (imho) completely useless.
Well, unless you are trying to build an endurance progression within TR 
Which you could do if you were targeting that, using a combo of outdoor Z2 rides linked to TR workouts and TR workouts indoor. I am working on that at the moment but I haven’t bothered linking my outdoor steady Z2 rides with TR workouts because it’s a bit of faff for no benefit. It would be better when outdoor rides work with AT.
Similarly I am not looking at my Sprint PL because I am not doing any work on it (in TR).
interesting, thanks for clarifying
Are you in a training plan? If so, the only times you’ll do Endurance rides are on your recovery week. Okay, that may not be true for all plans but it’s definitely true for mine.
Anyway, so basically I would be more concerned about your Endurance rides being too hard rather than too easy. The plan will never have you burning all your matches in Endurance. It wants you to use the Endurance rides to recover for your next training block.
The pattern of events is usually 5 weeks of your End PL decreasing. Then 1 week of actually doing End workouts and your PL will increase. Then 5 more weeks of it decreasing.
But unless your goal is actually to be great at doing z2 for long durations (as a priority), just let it be whatever TR suggests it should be and make sure the zones you spend time on are getting better during your training blocks. Of course, those will also decrease cyclically when you up your FTP or after a long recovery period.
I wouldn’t go that far but everyone has to remember that these are “progression levels” not “ability levels” - anyone should be able to complete a level 10 endurance workout and bump their endurance level to 10 - doesn’t mean every workout in their plan should then be level 10.
Progression Levels are misnamed IMO - they should be called something like “Achievable Workout Levels” as they relate to WLs in the particular training zones and not to any particular ability outside TR’s system.
I associate outdoor rides with relevant TR workouts to provide some, if not completely accurate, input to AT. Not really a faff - a couple of clicks if there was a workout scheduled for that day, one or two more if there wasn’t
I think this is worthy of a feature request @IvyAudrain
Maybe… “Achievability Levels” so not to confuse with the easiest workouts labeled as “Achieveable” workouts, or maybe I am spliting hairs.
Im not sure what they should be called maybe just having ‘Relative Difficulty Level’ so as they are not confused with ‘Achievable, Productive, Stretch and Breakthrough’ workouts but I 100% agree Progression is wrong; folk are associating it with Absolute Progression and not Relative Progression.
