That’s possible, but sort of defeats or at least sidesteps a large reason we use a training plan and AT in the first place. Everyone is different, but even with my knowledge and abilty to pick workouts, I still leverage AT and the plan to do the bulk of the dirty work for me.
I do end up using the Alternates option to either kick up or down the workout for a wide range of reasons. Available time, feel on the day, planned activities after the workout are just a few examples. As such, it’s good that AT does the initial work to get me in the ballpark with respect to the Workout Level and even type of workout & intervals that aim towards my plan goal.
Main point being we don’t need to throw the baby out with the bath water if we need some micro tweaks to an otherwise functional macro plan.
I’ve had AT give me progressions that feel too hard and too soft and have my own process for dealing with them.
My workflow is different than proposed here, and from a lot of the discussions I’m seeing in other recent posts.
I rate how I feel at the end of the workout. I don’t adjust my response to attempt to game ATs response. I’ve had endurance feel very hard, I’ve had threshold feel easy and everything in between. I accept all adaptations.
I workout in the mornings. The night before I look at the upcoming workout and set my expectations for the day. If I wake up and look at the workout and it looks too hard for me on that day I use alternates to adjust downward. Likewise if it looks too easy I use alternates to adjust upwards. I adjust downward far more often than I do upward.
This has worked well for me and I feel falls well within the confines of the current system. The way I understand their ML it relies on consistent data within an individual’s data set - so being consistent with your own responses is important.
Further, AT seems to deal well with adjusting to me doing an easier workout. For instance, if I downgrade a threshold workout by say, 0.5 PL, and rate this easier workout as ‘hard’ it will usually adjust future threshold workouts down accordingly.
I make the decision on my upward or downward adjustments based entirely on how I feel before the workout. If I slept poorly, my legs can barely carry me downstairs, or I’m just feeling anxiety about the workout I’ll adjust down. Requires, I guess, a decent level of familiarity with your body and an ability to listen to it, but very second nature to me.
Using the above methodology I’ve consistently seen progress in my fitness and power curve across the board
If I have said it once I have said it a million times (literally just said it in a different thread): the marketing of PLs are the root issue. Even calling them “progression” levels is a mistake.
Due to them being marketed as a way to measure progress, people are too fixated on increasing them. This is a major flaw, and in my view, the reason why people keep saying they are getting burnt out.
Even the idea that I should ever be above a 5.0 is inherently flawed. Indeed, PLs ought to reflect what we can do within a training plan. Being around 4.0 - 5.0 might be where I need to stay in perpetuity so I don’t get burnt out. Remember when Nate argued that he could improve by doing baxter over and over? Where is that logic now?
This can be said for just about ANY metric in our universe. CTL, FTP, VO2Max…
People chasing numbers will happen whenever we quantify any form of measurement. Perhaps TR considered this and chose to add these despite that common error on our part?
Either way, they tried to improve training in a broader sense by “filling in the blanks” that are present with the other common metrics already in use. Like all those other ones, PL’s aren’t inherently good or bad, it’s how we view and use them. In that sense, we seem them being used well and poorly, so not a blanket success or failure from what I have seen. My own personal experience with them is that PL (combined with WL) are a useful tool in workout selection and tracking progress to some degree.
I am not sure where this is stated as a goal like you imply. Perhaps TR did this, but considering the way they assigned Workout Levels in the first place, I question that assumption.
Yes, but if I improve FTP or vo2max, I have actually improved metrics that are likely tied to my success (all else equal). Chasing CTL would also be a mistake if not done with respect to a training plan. If TR marketed CTL as a way to measure one’s progression I would similarly call it out as a mistake.
Perhaps they did. The way they did it was a mistake, in my view. TR has long said their goal is to make us faster. Prior to PLs, there was no way to quantify getting faster outside of FTP. With PLs, they now have a way to say “well your FTP didn’t increase but your PLs went up”. This is fundamentally flawed. Indeed, if an increase in volume leads to a decrease in PLs, does that mean I am getting slower?
Totally agree - I believe TR has marketed them in a way that has led to a poor view of them.
I am not saying this is a goal. I am saying if I complete a 5.0, AT will select a workout above 5.0 for my next ‘productive’ workout. The idea that I need a workout above a 5.0 is flawed.
Just want to clarify that this chart is not how Adaptive Training uses survey responses. It’s much more nuanced than this, and it will continue to evolve and improve over time. It’s definitely an area that we would consider “secret sauce”, so if you see anything declaring “this is how it works”, it’s not from us and not official .
I want to be clear that I don’t think @mcneese.chad is sharing the chart he created for any other reason than to help, and we always appreciate Chad’s massive contributions to the forum community. Thank you Chad!
That said, I think any sort of objective definition of an intentionally subjective question will just further complicate the issue and mislead people.
The post workout surveys are intentionally subjective and basic in nature.
Asking “How did this effort feel?” is aiming to get your answer of… how it felt!
If you find yourself asking, “well, how should I answer this to influence data in Adaptive Training so it can do what I want”, you’re nerfing the power of Adaptive Training.
Despite making it about 2 years ago (when all of this survey discussion began), this is the first time I shared it with anyone. I am happy to remove that chart if you think it’s problematic or misleading. I tried to preface it as my own guess and likely not what TR is doing, but perhaps it’s still best to remove it entirely?
One persons definition of Moderate is identical to another persons definition of Very Hard…but those responses dish out completely different adaptations from the AI.
I think you HAVE to have definitions of those words in order to score your workouts. Without any guidelines, we all have to create our own (and possibly very different) definitions; which means we all get a totally different experience. Is that really the intention?
Easy
This ride felt easy and non-taxing, requiring little effort or focus. You could repeat the ride and pass it without issue.
Moderate
This ride was somewhat comfortable but required some focus to complete. You felt a little challenged but had confidence that you could finish. If the ride had an additional set of intervals, you could complete it.
Hard
This ride required effort and focus and was challenging to complete. This will feel tough and you’ll look forward to this ride ending. If there was an additional interval, you could have done it with some focus.
Very Hard
This ride was very difficult to complete. This ride tested you. If there would have been one more interval, you wouldn’t have been able to do it.
All Out
This ride was extremely difficult. It pushed me well beyond my abilities and took a massive amount of energy and focus to complete. You’ll feel like you barely made it to the end of this ride, and that you had to pull out every mental trick in the book to finish.
TR should probably add the info that Jonathan shared in the recent podcast related to these. He mentioned “Bailouts” as a signal that it is definitely All Out. I’ve had that in my version of the chart because it is a clear “line crossed” that helps me see a difference at least.
ETA: Maybe @ZackeryWeimer can bug @Jonathan for what he thinks is a good text edit since I remember that being his trigger point for bumping form a Very Hard to All Out rating? That is if my memory from the podcast is right. I am searching to find it, but perhaps that’s not needed if Jon likes the edit suggestion.
For anyone who wants to see the foundation of my chart, this shows the text I got from Ivy along with my pre-existing ideas on the ratings. Ivy’s info is clearly linked and nearly identical to the current support article definitions. I mashed theirs & mine together and tried to keep it short/sweet with foggy brain at the end of workouts in mind
I’ve had to pull up this chart countless times at the end of workouts while not thinking clearly to figure out whether I was at “hard” or “very hard” or “all out.” I get it’s supposed to be subjective, but the objective parts of this (could do one more, could not do one more, had to bail out) make it so so so much easier to decide what to pick. It should be easy to access these hints from the menu at the end of a workout.
Broken record engaged: I have asked for this repeated times, from just about the beginning of the surveys and response references. TR actually had a version of “tool tips / help info” embedded into the survey at one point. But it was short lived due to some issues I don’t remember. I keep hoping that some form of it will return eventually.
I don’t refer to it much now but at the beginning it was pretty helpful. Before I found myself answering the survey one step “easier” than I should have been.
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