Hey @Chawski!
RLGL looks at all of your training data, not just TSS. As you mention, we look at your training distribution across power zones, and compare this to your training history, to understand the optimal rate of progression in each power zone and as a whole.
While Aerobic Endurance training doesn’t always immediately feel like it’s taking a toll on your body, large training volumes will catch up with you even if the individual workouts themselves feel manageable. I’ve certainly been guilty of shooting myself in the foot by increasing volume quickly with lots of lower intensity riding.
During the week that you describe above, you were doing a much larger volume than you had in the prior 3 weeks. It appreciate that it feels manageable in the present moment, but RLGL is there to stop you getting to the point where that quickly increasing volume comes back to bite you, and instead ensures you’re progressing at a rate that your body can adapt and respond to.
We look at the work you have done accross different power zones, and use the principle of Progressive Overload to find the optimal rate of progression to advance your fitness.
I will always encourage you to listen to your body! The only problem is that most of us are actually quite bad at listening to the subtle cues and messages we get from our bodies. By the time our body is screaming at us to slow down, we are often in a hole that takes time to dig ourselves out of. RLGL prevents your from getting into the hole in the first place.
The good news is that with time, RLGL will help you understand and listen to your body. The results you will see with RLGL will build trust in your relationship with your body and the subtle cues you recieve from it. I suggest that you accept the Adaptations suggested by RLGL so that you can experience how effective it is. As I mentioned earlier, you can adjust how aggressive your progression is in your Account Settings if you feel that you can handle a more aggressive Progressive Overload.
There is one thing in the interface that would benefit from improvement however. It would be nice if we could see that tomorrow will turn red or yellow when we plan a workout and not only after we’ve completed it. This is what really annoyed me and that prompted me to post. I did a planned TR workout and before the workout I had no alert whatsoever that my tomorrow would become red if I did it.
@SarahLaverty
I just realized one thing. During the period I couldn’t walk or cycle, I did a daily hand-cycling session for one to one hour and a half, estimated TSS of 30 - 45 per day in order to avoid losing too much fitness. I can’t remember how I estimated TSS, whether it was strava or whether I did it based on heart rate.
In any case, TrainerRoad seems to have ignored all of this in its import from Strava, probably because they’re all classified as generic workouts on Strava.
Could this be the reason why it’s recommending a super flat ramp?
