Hey! Just following up on this thread to provide some clarification.
It does look like your ride from the 29th was associated with your scheduled TrainerRoad workout. We double checked your progression history to confirm, but this was the reason you saw those PL changes.
If you have a planned TrainerRoad workout on your calendar and upload any outdoor workout, TR will automatically associate that outdoor ride with your planned indoor TR workout. You can confirm this from the calendar view when hovering over that āTRā symbol, youāll see a popup that says āOutside TrainerRoad Workoutā.
We are still working hard on WLV2 that, when finished, will result in PL changes from all bike activities. Weāre not there yet, but Iāll provide updates here as soon as theyāre available.
If you ever want me to double check what workouts/rides resulted in Progression Level changes, let me know and Iāll be happy to do so via DM!
Any update on this matter? Last update dates back to August 22. Would love this feature as well since more and more riding will start to occur outside.
I am eagerly awaiting this feature too. But in the mean time, what works well for me, at least for long endurance rides, is to schedule a āproductiveā workout in the calendar, and then make sure I meet the workout goals during the ride. If I manage to do that, Iāll let TR associate my ride with the workout, and I will observe that my workout level increases. If I didnāt manage, I will disassociate the ride from the workout, and try again next weekend.
As outdoor rides would have to be extremely well structured to justify associating them to a workout, is adding a āCā race on the calendarās for group ride days beneficial at all for AT?
Iām curious about this too, because when Iāve wanted to just go outside and ride without focusing on any power or structure I just scheduled it as a B or C race. Always wondered how that affected my AT
If you are riding with some structure outside, but you have some interruptions due to traffic or downhills you could just create a custom workout after the ride that fits the intervals you had and associate it with the ride.
So letās say you do a tempo ride, but you you have some rest intervals in between because of e.g. traffic or terrain you can create a custom workout with an interval matching the average watt and duration for each interval/lap. TrainerRoad will assign a progression level to the workout.
It should be noted that a workout that on average is tempo might really be a combination of SST/Threshold/VO2Max and rest intervals. So if you are just riding as you feel then this approach will not work very well.
@dlawren85@UWDawgs At this time, unstructured rides and races do not impact AT. Only rides associated with TrainerRoad workouts will trigger AT to change your Progression Levels and propose adaptations to your plan.
This is something that Workout Levels V2 will improve by being capable of analyzing all of your rides with power ā be it a TR Outside Workout or not!
Thank you for the clear answer. I am curious how AT accommodates for correct recovery from races included in the adaptive training plan. For example take Leadville, or other 9+ hour race. That kind of stress likely necessitates a recovery period. If your (AT) plan targets an āAā race at the end of your build cycle it must, by default accommodate the race in planning since it is building to it. While it is not adapting future training off of a survey response or workout data, would adding a āCā race with duration and intensity level produce a more precise AT plan?
FWIW, many of us arenāt nearly as concerned with seeing our numbers increase in response to unstructured rides as we are in seeing the system accurately account for fatigue and training stress accrued during those rides.
Last fall, we were hearing this would be rolling out in December. Can we get an update on progress?
@dlawren85 For an A race, your plan will have a full taper leading into the race and then a recovery week built in afterwards. For a B race, youāll get a short taper into the event, but then continue training as normal without additional recovery. For a C race, you wonāt have any taper or recovery built in ā it will be treated by Plan Builder/AT as a training session. This TR Support article may help if youād like some additional clarification/reading:
Ideally, athletes wonāt have a whole bunch of B and C races that are 9+ hours, so the way Plan Builder and AT deals with A/B/C races works well in most cases for now. If youād like a full-on rest week, you could add a Time Off annotation to your TR Calendar and Plan Builder will structure your workouts around that. You could also manually change the structure of your recovery week after an A race as you see fit.
@Barry_Bean Definitely hear ya on that point! We donāt have a release date yet, but I can tell you that it is our top priority at the moment!
Apologies if Iāve missed any announcements on the forum or the podcast but Iām curious about what the status is regarding incorporation of unstructured outdoor rides in Adaptive Training.
I see posts from 2021 stating it was (is?) top priority for your dev team. However, Iām not aware that there have been any updates in this direction since then. Clearly it is a challenging feature to implement.
I last posted on this topic in this thread in 2021
Would be great to hear if there is any news or clear timeline? (Or if I have missed something )
A summary of my understanding of what types of workout or ride are incorporated into AIFTP, Train now or Adaptive Training is:
AI FTP detection takes into account all rides, indoors, outdoors, structured and unstructured.
Train Now also takes into account all rides, indoors, outdoors, structured and unstructured.
Completing TrainNow workouts will not cause Adaptive Training to adapt the schedule of your Plan Builder training plan. However, completing TrainNow workouts will contribute to your Progression Levels, which could lead to adaptations of workouts in your training plan.
Adaptive Training
Outside workouts that are part of the training plan are supported by adaptive training. This includes if:
When the outside ride is automatically associated with the planned workout
When the outside ride is manually associated with the workout afterwards
If the outside ride is a different length or intensity, then probably best to use workout alternates to find a comparable ride then associate that ride
Is this summary more or less correct?
I have tried finding a workout alternate to more closely match my Sunday 4 hour rideās but this does not seem to be an ideal workaround.
Even if nothing is on the horizon for incorporation of unstructured rides, maybe it could be an option to develop a better work around?
Hey there! Itās a complicated feature for sure, but I promise our devs are still hard at work on it!
As for your points:
Yes, AI FTP Detection takes into account all of your riding!
TrainNow does the same ā it will recommend a specific workout from three workout types (Endurance/Climbing/Attacking) based on your recent TrainerRoad workouts and non-structured indoor/outdoor riding. It will also impact your Progression Levels, which, as you said, may affect future adaptations.
Your AT & Outside Workouts summary is correct in that your Progression Levels will be affected by Outside Workouts automatically or manually associated with your ride, but we wouldnāt recommend trying to match unstructured rides to workouts. It can be a messy workaround that may lead to inaccurate adaptations.
At this time, weād recommend matching an outdoor ride to an Outside Workout only if you were to load up a workout and follow along as intended. Youāll still be able to keep track of TSS and volume from your unstructured rides, and you can lean on TrainNow and Workout Alternates to modify your plan should you happen to run into excess fatigue from unstructured riding.
Hope this helps, and feel free to let me know if you have any other questions!
Hi there,
Many thanks for the clarification.
A real shame that there seems to be no good way to incorporate unstructured riding into Adaptive Training
Keeping fingers crossed that there will be a breakthrough soon!
If there is a list for Beta testers - please put me on it
A follow up question from my posts from back in April:
This Sunday I completed a B event, which was included within my current AT plan.
Today (Tuesday) my AT training plan gave me a VO2 max productive workout of 6 x 5min @ 108% FTP.
When feeling fresh I would have thought that doable but this morning I was, I guess still not quite recovered from Sunday and it became clear early on that today wasnāt a good day for such a workout. Even the warm up was feeling much harder than anticipated and my HR was elevated even at low work intensities. So, I abandoned the workout. I switched to train now , which gave me a more doable endurance workout.
After this experience it occurred to me that even though races can be scheduled into the plan and a predicted intensity and TSS can be given, AT does not seem to take them into account with the subsequent prescribed workouts.
Could you clarify please?
Despite this on going issue with the effect of unstructured rides not being considered in the AT plan and despite you having at least one competitor who found a solution for this years ago (granted this software is also not without weaknesses) I am still a fan of TR.
At this time, AT does not adapt workouts based on non-TrainerRoad rides ā such as races, group rides, or generally unstructured rides.
The predicted intensity and TSS is generated on your TR Calendar so you can predict how much TSS you will produce for the week from a race or ride like that. You are correct that AT does not change your plan based on those rides, though.
If you do feel fatigued after a race or unstructured ride, we would advise using TrainNow (like you did) or Workout Alternates to find a more Achievable workout for that day.
Feel free to let me know if you have any other clarifying questions!
What type of activity does TrainNow consider when making a recommendation, and how far does it look back?
TrainNow will recommend workouts based on your recent TrainerRoad workouts and non-structured indoor/outdoor riding. Itās important to note that while TrainNow will look at your most recent workouts when making a recommendation, it does not consider periodization, fatigue, or other factors. For instance, it will not recognise if you need a recovery week. If you are looking for that type of structure and periodization, we recommend using a training plan. TrainNow is primarily intended for athletes who arenāt on a training plan, or for those who like to supplement unstructured riding with occasional structured workouts.
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