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Re: TrainerRoad adaptive training [Bonesbrigade] [ In reply to ]
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Bonesbrigade wrote:
I’m in the closed beta group. There are def bugs and issues as expected. One key missing piece that has not been implemented yet, is the recognition of outdoor unstructured rides - this completely skews my fitness level as 4 out of my 6 weekly rides are unstructured. When they do add this functionality, it will give me a better understanding and perspective on the product.

That’s the functionality I want. I follow a training plan over the winter but in the summer I mostly just like to ride. Weekly race series, rides with friends, group rides etc. On those days when I want to do a structured training ride, I want the system to help me fill in the training I need.
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Re: TrainerRoad adaptive training [Thom] [ In reply to ]
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I'm not sure if what you're envisioning is what's going to happen, at least at this stage of development. If I understand things, adaptive training isn't exactly going to tell you what types of energy systems to work based on an analysis of your rides. Rather, if you're doing, say, a short power build and you're struggling with a particular type of vo2 workout that is rated pretty highly, it'll find you some easier workout(s) in the vo2 family that may be more easily doable. So the adaptive training won't suddenly start recommending a bunch of sweet spot if you're not already doing sweet spot, it substitutes within the type of workouts you are currently doing.

I'll take myself here as an example. On Tuesday I did a pretty unstructured outdoor ride in lieu of the ramp test. Within that ride I did a nearly 36min loop and the IF on that segment ended up being 94%. In the future, TR may be able to take that ride and see that I did a solid 36min interval and equate that to maybe a 4.5 equivalent workout and rate me accordingly and recommend sweet spot workouts based on that if I'm following a sweet spot plan. But if I weren't following a plan, then I could pick a workout from the TrainNow feature to select from a series of workouts based on my recent workout history. So ultimately I think what you're looking for is almost there, you have access to TrainNow on days you aren't doing outdoor stuff, but someday those recommendations will take into account energy systems worked on during those unstructured rides. It'll give you a choice, but again they're not going to necessarily tell you what you need to work on outside of an actual plan.

Hope I'm not too far off the mark but that's kind of how I understand the current state of things!
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Re: TrainerRoad adaptive training [ In reply to ]
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Folks may have run across this through some other forums, but I’m going a bit more public with my vlogging about my own experience with the beta and my plan, this is one I made for the 2nd week. I hope to make this more of a thing so any likes/subscribes appreciated!


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Re: TrainerRoad adaptive training [ In reply to ]
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Sorry for the shameless self-promotion (although I've been updating other forums on a weekly basis with my vlog, so this place got it easy lol). I put up a summary video of TR's SSB1 HV and how my adaptive training version of SSB1 HV ended up over the course of 5 weeks. Of course this is just my experience and I can't imagine there will be too many identical experiences with this if it's as individualized as it's claiming to be but just wanted to share my experience so others can get a sense of how this works.


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Re: TrainerRoad adaptive training [Changpao] [ In reply to ]
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It's been about six months since TR launched its adaptive training program. I'm wondering if anyone has used it and, if so, what are your thoughts? I am a few weeks into the mid-volume full distance plan. I used the same plan the two previous years for races that ended up cancelled). The one I'm using is not adaptive-- it is a canned plan-- but still I've noticed changes, which I assume are a result of what TR learned in the process of creating the adaptive training. The cycling workouts are less intense than the previous version. Overall, I think it's an improvement because TR plans tended to bury me, especially the Olympic one.
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Re: TrainerRoad adaptive training [Changpao] [ In reply to ]
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Changpao wrote:
It's been about six months since TR launched its adaptive training program. I'm wondering if anyone has used it and, if so, what are your thoughts? I am a few weeks into the mid-volume full distance plan. I used the same plan the two previous years for races that ended up cancelled). The one I'm using is not adaptive-- it is a canned plan-- but still I've noticed changes, which I assume are a result of what TR learned in the process of creating the adaptive training. The cycling workouts are less intense than the previous version. Overall, I think it's an improvement because TR plans tended to bury me, especially the Olympic one.

I tried to use it, but had limited ability to evaluate. My problem was that mid-season I started doing about 2/3 outdoor rides, and TR, to my knowledge, doesn't yet incorporate outside rides into the adaptive part. I'm not yet ready, despite the Houston crash thread, to convert to pure indoor training.

Of those workouts I did, yes, they were easier to complete.

I didn't really get any sense of what TR might have changed as a consequence of learning something about me.

I also had a hard time "caring" about the Progression Levels. I cared a lot about my Ramp Test results (which improved).

So my personal evaluation is still never much a work in progress. This fall/winter I'm attempting like 3x week indoor plan to mix in with 3-4 outdoor rides. I just don't know how well the underlying learning process is going to learn about me if it doesn't "know" about the massive amount of stress I'm accumulating outdoors.
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Re: TrainerRoad adaptive training [trail] [ In reply to ]
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I don't think that extra stress of outdoor rides is too relevant for AT. As far as I experienced it, every workout just gives you + or - points for your progression level (each energy system separately).
AT does not evaluate your overall stress level and calculates a plan from there. It just gives you workouts at your progression level (VO2max on VO2max day). If you can't get through due to your high overall stress, it will just make your future (i.e. VO2max) workouts easier. It will not change a VO2max day into a Z2 day.
That means, the underlying structure of your chosen plan will always stay the same. Only the workout levels will adapt, based on your feedback.
If you add a ton of Z2 work, this will only increase your z2 progression level but will not influence your chosen plan in any way.
If you add a ton of z2 work during the cool down of other workouts, it won't have any effect on the plan or your progression levels.
Last edited by: Amnesty: Oct 2, 21 12:48
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Re: TrainerRoad adaptive training [Amnesty] [ In reply to ]
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It will "give you credit" if you associate it with an appropriate workout. I had issues early on where I would do my long rides outside, but the rest of the week inside. Because it didn't count my long ride and it was acting as if I was skipping them, it started to prescribe shorter and shorter long rides. Not really ideal for IM specialty phase. That said, they did fix it where it's much much much easier to make your outdoor rides count throughout the course of the beta.
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Re: TrainerRoad adaptive training [Changpao] [ In reply to ]
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It is promising, but needs work. Played with it a few weeks.

It does what it promises to do, but probably requires a lot of recent data to set your progression levels right. On paper, you can be at 4.0 for threshold and 1.0 for VO2max (because you haven't done VO2max work recently), even though in reality that's hardly possible?

The algo is also very sensitive to your self-assessment of workout RPE. I'm still not sure how hard is "moderate" vs. how hard is "hard". I think Trainerroad expects you to mark a threshold workout "easy" its stated difficulty is way below your progression level. But to me, no threshold workout is ever easy (maybe a pre-race warm-up would be).
Similarly, I did a 45 TT recently (outside), it was imported (correctly) as a completed scheduled workout. My normalized power was 98% of FTP for the 1:08 riding time. I marked the TT "all out" (which it had to be!) and then Trainerroad asked me why the workout had been too hard for me. I wouldn't say that riding at a 98% intensity factor for 1:08 shouldn't be "all out". They need to get this dialled.

Right, the service is in beta, early access. Fine. I won't knock Trainerroad. Adaptive training is definitely an improvement of the program even in its current work-in-progress state.

"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden
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Re: TrainerRoad adaptive training [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail wrote:
JasoninHalifax wrote:

It's supposed to be able to also adjust based on your relative strengths and weaknesses (are you a sprinter or a threshold type, or somewhere in between), as well as grading their library of workouts based on where you are as a rider.


SUF (Sufferfest) also does something very similar. After a 4DP test the set of 4 metrics are used to scale each subsequent workout according to that profile . E.g. if you kick ass at sprinting, but suck at FTP, it'll scale down FTP intervals while scaling up sprint intervals. It'll also pick workouts to address weaknesses/strengths.

The differences appear to be that TR plans to dynamically adjust these relative scores continually, even on the basis of workout results. While SUF, I think, just updates them as the result of explicit testing. (though you can always manually adjust the 4 scaling factors) So same intent, but SUF is the crude version compared to Xert/VeloPro, and now TR. (though crude isn't necessarily bad).

I picked the sufferfest back up a couple weeks ago after not using it for a long while. I really like the new system for setting the trainer. When I used it before, my ftp was solid, but my top end was mediocre, so many of the videos were just too hard when they cranked up, but now I can ride straight through and get a good workout. My 4dp proclaimed I was mediocre at everything, but in a way that was supposed to make me feel special.

True adaptive trainer control seems like something that would be possible in the near future and probably very worthwhile
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Re: TrainerRoad adaptive training [Changpao] [ In reply to ]
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I just completed an IM after relying on TR build-a-plan high volume full distance with AT for the last 14 weeks of bike and (most of) run training. While this amount of time was not enough to really make FTP or target race power gains, I was prepared to race and ran pretty well after a 70% ftp ride with some stretches where I was able to push. Probably the change to easier baseline workouts that TR made was the most significant change for me. Even with that, I still failed one workout pretty badly and AT adjusted my weekend long ride from the planned 4:30 to 2:45, which was great. There were some other adaptations after a mid-plan power test but nothing crazy. I also really like the "Alternates" feature for times with my personal schedule did not agree with the training plan. I'm sure the alternate workouts were better than what I would have picked in the old days and far less time spent browsing the workout catalog.
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