Am I being over cautious here? Or am I (or AT) going insane?
So I accepted an Auto FTP detection mid block on Tuesday (I felt like I was super crushing workouts even just a couple of weeks into the block, FTP detection said 218 was now 230 and as it got it right to the watt for my last Ramp, I just accepted), my SS PL dropped from 4.5 to 2.1 as expected. So far, so good.
On comparing my Thursday workout (McGregor -6 FTP 230W, PL2.4) to my Tuesday (Ericsson +2 FTP 218W, PL4.5), it looked a bit easy so I took the PL2.7 alternative suggested (Glassy -1). After completing successfully, as expected I got a bunch of adaptations, which seemed to go the right way, given I’d successfully completed a harder workout than planned. Then I had a look at them, and they seem… inconsistent. The progression of the Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday workouts (to exclude recovery and Sunday easy rides) between now and recovery week is 2.7, 2.8, 3.7, 4.3, 3.5, 5.5, 3.7, 3.7 (screenshot below). This just feels odd. This week stays relatively sedate, two large jumps next week from 2.8 to 3.7, then the following week from 3.5 to 5.5!
I guess my main question, am I being over conservative and this would feel “normal” to everyone else? Is this odd enough to open a support ticket? I’ve had such good luck with AT to date (and where it’s failed, TR have been super helpful), I’m just kina conscious I’m not a coach or any sort of expert, so I don’t have total confidence in what sensible progression should look like.
Also, for some reason, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen Plummer +2 crop up in weird places, last time I just rejected the suggestion as obviously ludicrous. AT seems to have a thing for that
Looks good to me. Keep in mind it may adapt a little as well as you go. The inconsistent changes (sometimes lower workout level compared to same day week before) are good as they manage overall TSS over the week but still give you plenty of stimulus.
Agreed here, I wouldn’t even bother looking too closely at the coming weeks as they are likely to change. If they seem wrong once the week has started, then it’s worth raising.
Everything looks reasonable to me. You shouldn’t be progressing PL every week. Also, I suspect there is some back end modeling that predicts PL - could be totally wrong here. But, as said, you have to take things farther out with a grain of salt.
End of day, don’t worry about the workouts at lower level than your PL. and if there is one that comes up that is a big jump, you can either try it and see how it goes. Or just swap to an easier one if you think it is too much. System adapts from there.
If you try it, don’t feel bad about dropping intensity if it is too much. Sweet spot workouts should be hard, but you shouldn’t be completely spent making them. You should feel like you had more to give if you needed it, but be happy you are done. If you get to very hard/all out territory, drop intensity. You’ll get a struggle survey. Answer that and you’ll get the adaptations you need.
Thanks, upping the Thursday workout was more that I felt I had more to give and none of the workouts over the next 3 weeks (on that version of the plan) were even close to the Tuesday I’d just done, possibly thrown out by the FTP update, so hopefully prompt some adaptions (and it did).
My big worry was more that there were some jumps that seemed significantly more… bold… than I’d expect from AT, and would have made more sense with my old PLs rather than my new ones. I guess I’ll give it a go and let AT choose, if that means I have a little bit of “type 2 fun”, then so be it
I think the issue with Plummer +2 specifically is that that type of SS workout has very few alternates. This might result in AT not finding an alternate for you that is closer to your current PL and thus sticking with, what for now at least will be, a breakthrough workout.
I had a similar issue where I was served a much bigger jump than my training and survey response should result in because it was no other available workouts in that format.
I’m tempted to call it a bug in AT, but maybe @IvyAudrain can chime in and clarify if this is indeed an intended behavior by AT.
One of my favorite things about AT is that it takes the worry away from me. If I try a workout and it is too much, it accounts for that - I never worry about tapping out early and just doing z2 for the rest. Nor do I worry about switching to an easier workout in a completely different zone.
By far the most important thing is being consistent. AT helps to keep guardrails up. Sometimes it undershoots and sometimes it overshoots - that’s just how feedback systems work. But overall, if you check your ego and over thinking, the system works wonderfully. You’ll figure out over time how to refine things just by virtue of continuously seeking to learn.
Yeah, agree, I’ve been very happy to let it just do it’s thing up to this point, tweaking up and down, just as you’d expect it to with feedback. I’ve just never seen it go over jumps of 0.3-0.4, hence seeing two jumps of 0.9 and 2.0 respectively was a bit of a surprise, it’s always seemed more conservative than that.
To date (SSBHV1 & half of SSBHV2), I’ve progressed but never had to tap out, which probably means it’s been right so far, let’s see how it goes!
Sorry I dont have better feedback without the full scope of your workouts, training plan, adaptations, workout success rate, etc. The support team (support@trainerrooad.com) is really the best place to get a clear answer or fix if necessary!
I was attempting to make it more of a general question regarding workouts with limited amount of alternates.
The most obvious example is 2 hour VO2 workouts. If you are doing General Build High Volume and starting with a VO2 PL of 1.0 you are getting Perpendicular at PL of 4.1, because there aren’t any lower 2 hour workouts of that type.
In OP’s case he has been given the very specific type of workouts which is tempo workouts with very short recovery where the intensity has been pushed up into SS zone. He has been given Plummer +2 and at least when I’m looking no lower PL workouts are available which is why he gets that one even though PL level of workouts both before and after are considerably lower.
