Hi there,
TR suggests adaptations, that is dialing down my training. Why does it do that during a recovery week?
All training up until recovery was perfect, not too much. Followed plan for recovery, and now today, before doing the last recovery ride of the week, it suggests that I dial down the next two weeks of training. Why?
It adapts now because this is the new timing for when the Ai adapts your upcoming week. Earlier it waited until week of before it adapted, but now it does it some days earlier.
It should adapt to workouts just above your current PL. Are you experiencing that the suggested workouts have lower levels than your current PLs?
Has your FTP gone up? That would likely result in difficulty level of upcoming workouts going down.
Yeah, it went up 3%. AI prompted it at the beginning of my recovery week.
Yeah, that’s normal behaviour.
If you get to the first workout feeling like you’d like/need something slightly more challenging, workout alternates are your friend.
Thank you.
But, why is this normal behaviour? Why lower the intensity, if your form/FTP is improving?
Those all all still in the same ballpark. But generally speaking if you are going faster / putting in more power, doing the first workout or two with one less rep (for example) can help you adapt to greater training stress.
A slightly exaggerated example by way of illustration:
Last loading week of a build block your threshold workout is 2 × 20 minutes at 100% FTP (250 watts)… You complete it at an RPE of 8. Perfect.
During your recovery week your FTP is re-assessed at 275 watts.
First week of your next block. Do you still want to do 2 × 20 minutes at 100% FTP (now 275 watts)? What will your RPE be? It really shouldn’t be higher than 8 for a sustainable threshold workout.
This is why the default when FTP goes up is for PLs to go down. As I said in my previous poat, you can always override it for individual workouts if you feel they’re leaving gains on the table. Or you can decline the new FTP and drive the PLs higher instead.
You have options. 
