Unexpected result editing workout - what's the right way to edit?

[nathanchristenson]

For structured workouts, I’ve been exporting ERG files and riding in Rouvy, which has been really easy and working well. Any time I’ve needed to change the intensity of an interval, I simply adjust the power manually during the workout using Rouvy’s onscreen controls.

I had a vo2 bike workout with 30/30s, which have been feeling a bit easy for me, so I thought I would experiment (separately) with 1. increasing the “on” intensity and 2. switching to 40/20s.

I started with option 2, and was able to edit the workout and change the interval duration from 30/30 to 40/20. That is the only change that I made.

Unexpectedly, the load decreased dramatically (I thought it would go up slightly). Looking more closely at the description, the power targets for all the intervals - even warmup (which I did not touch), had all decreased substantially, and were presented confusingly, with ranges and then separate numbers in parentheses. I went back to further edit the workout intervals, but was not able to find a way to get the workout back to where it was. Then I ran out of time to fiddle and had to actually ride.

The practical upshot was that the target levels were so low that I was unable to get the interval levels high enough even using Rouvy’s controls (which are evidently maxed out at 150%).

Which leads me ask - did I miss a step or go about this in the wrong way? I would have expected that changing the duration of the intervals would do only that, not affect the power targets of the entire workout.

[nathanchristenson]

Bumping - this happened again.

I modified a 30/30 workout. The only change I made to the workout was to increase the number of sets / reps from 2 x 6 x1 to 3 x 6 x1. The power targets for each section of the workout were all changed (lowered).

I would expect that changing the number of sets or the number of reps would not change the power targets for warmup, main set or cool down, but the power targets for all of those workout sessions were changed by athletica.

[Prof]

Hi @nathanchristenson,
Sorry for delay. Was hoping someone else who uses Rouvy would know as I am unfamiliar with the platform and requests for integration have not be answered yet. Perhaps you can add screenshots to what you are doing and seeing?
Best,
Paul

[Marjaana]

Hey Nathan, I don’t use Rouvy either, but just a thought: Are your power settings the same on both platforms (Rouvy and Athletica)? Not sure it’s the same with Rouvy but Zwift allows one to adjust the target power based on “feel of the day”. If you are feeling a bit off, I can adjust the target down a little, and vice versa when feeling great, I can adjust up.

Hope you get this figured out.

[nathanchristenson]

Hey guys -

Thank you for the replies @Prof, @Marjaana!

The problem I’m looking for help with isn’t with Rouvy or with different settings. My “workout workflow” on the trainer is to export the workout from athletica and import it into Rouvy and go - it’s been working really well up until I started experimenting with changing the workouts in athletica before exporting them.

I understand the limitation with Rouvy - I cannot modify the watt target by more than 50%. That hasn’t been a problem previously, because when athletica exports an ERG file, each section or interval is exported as the average or middle of the zone, and being able to adjust up or down by 50% is more than enough to be high or low in a zone based on how I’m feeling.

Take, for example, a short HIIT bike workout 2x6x30/30s. Here is what it looks like:

If I hover over the power targets, here is what it looks like for the intervals:

And the warmup (which is the same range as the cool down):

So, what athletica does when it exports an ERG file is that each section (warmup, interval) is exported as the average, or middle, of the target zone. So, the warmup and cool down are exported as 116, and the interval would be 271.

In this case, I wanted to add an extra set, so make the workout 3x6x30/30. Here is the edit screen:

If I just close the edit screen, without changing anything, the workout is unchanged (perhaps to state the obvious). But, if I make the change to add a set, i.e., this (changing the number of sets from 2 to 3):

and then I save the workout, here is what happens to the intervals.

and the warmup and cooldown:

It’s strange that the power targets all change, and I’m not sure what the numbers are in parentheses. What gets exported is a warmup at 100 watts, and intervals at 240, and (for some reason) the cooldown at 132, so, in this case, it was really the warmup that was the issue (limited to 150 watts) and it wasn’t a very big one.

The first time I edited a workout, it was a similar workout that I changed from 30/30s to 40/20s - the only change I made on the edit screen was changing the duration of the intervals. The intervals power targets - in athletica, nothing to do with Rouvy - were changed from 271 to 176 (I didn’t catch it before exporting the workout, I was in a hurry), so I was only able to get the interval resistance to 264 in Rouvy (admittedly not a huge difference to 271, but I generally bump these up if I’m feeling good, and often these get to 300 or higher by the end, so that wasn’t an option for me).

Sorry for the long-winded message - but I wanted to make it clear that this isn’t an issue with Rouvy, it’s an issue with what happens to a workout in athletica when I modify it.

I’m not sure if power targets getting changed in athletica when editing the number of sets in a workout, or the duration of intervals is a) expected, b) if there’s something I can do to avoid this because it makes editing workouts much more complicated, confusing, and time-consuming, c) if this is unexpected behavior / a bug.

[Fabs]

I also find it a bit confusing that exported workouts take the average and for those 30/30 the power-range is quite high. But they told me that I should use it like the average and on a good day I can increase it and on a bad day I can reduce it based on RPE feeling. That works quite good on Zwift.

I think what happend is, that the coach/program creates a specific load for your day, so your training-load fits your planned week.
If you know change from 30/30 40/20 the tool needs to lower the power on all to create the same load as before. >ou increase the time beeing on higher power → Programm reduces power that the load stays similar (i expect).

Here are some Ideas:

1. Why do you want to increase the load in the workout? May you pick the workout wizzard to find something which fits better? Or you just increase power in Rouvy for the 30/30 (you can go up +50% which should be alot, otherwise your numbers in athletica are completly wrong)
2. Is there another way to export your workout (no erg) - because as I think erg exports absolut watt-values right? For Zwift I use .zwo, that is % of ftp… By that you could easy set another FTP on rouvy to get the power you want.
   3.) If you want to change the workout to 40/20, may you just use a 40/20 workout on rouvy instead? I know, that is may just a short term solution for you if you want to do 40/20 instead of 30/30. But you could also delete the athletica subscribed workout and create a custom workout there instead.
   It would be may helpful that sooner or later athletica creates a workout database so you as a user could just pick a 40/20 instead of the prescribed workout. But then the quesiton is how much sense a coach makes
   Just my thoughts - best of luck with your training.

BTW: I find it crazy how much of a difference those 30/30er make with a ±10% adjustment

[Jesse]

+1.

This happened to me this week with my 4x7 short hiit. I can’t remember what I tweaked in Athletica before exporting zwo file for zwift, but when I opened up Zwift, the power levels were not at the right level.

See screen shot, rather then my z6 range, it’s giving me z3a → 1. I didn’t edit that.

Fortunately, Zwift has the ability to quick edit, so I fixed all my power targets before starting.

@Prof Potential bug here, I’m sorry I can’t be more detailed with the edit I did make (except to lock the day)

[nathanchristenson]

All good ideas @Fabs ! Agree that 10% can make a big difference for 30/30s.

1. I do use the workout wizard - it is absolutely brilliant when I am time-crunched (for example), but it creates a workout with the same load, and I’m hoping to bump the load up. I often feel that I need a bit more in vo2 workouts to feel that I’m really pushing during those “on” intervals.

2. That’s a benefit of using zwift / zwo I didn’t realize. Anything I export to Rouvy gets averaged out based on what athletica has in the intervals - whether it’s erg or mrc files (no zwo option for rouvy) - rouvy doesn’t ramp either, which is a bummer (but I can ramp manually).

3. Yes - there are 40/20 workouts on rouvy, but to match them up I’d have to modify them in rouvy, and for me, at least, rouvy’s interface is pretty clunky and navigation is not great. I actually signed myself up as a coach in athletica to see if it’s any easier to edit / modify workouts, but it wasn’t (or…I just couldn’t figure it out).

So - thanks for pointing out some workarounds - and another option is clearly to switch from rouvy to another platform (although I do really like having a wide variety of “real” courses to ride indoors).

I do think that editing the workouts sets / duration in athletica should not have unintended effects on power targets, though.

[Prof]

Thanks all for reporting in here. I’ll try to add this to a ticket to get considered for the future. Not sure how hard it will be to solve but worth looking into. I should also add that if you are a beta athlete as I know some of you are here that can contribute to unintended bugs such as this. Please DM me if you’d like to be removed from the beta program to see if that solves your issue.

[Prof]

@nathanchristenson sorry but we can’t replicate this bug internally. Please let me know the next time it happens, and what exactly was edited.

[Phil]

The number in parentheses will be indoor power. I have set my indoor and outdoor bike thresholds the same in my settings. I no longer get the parentheses as a result.

As an experiment I just saved one of my 2x7 x 30/30 short hiit scheduled for March 27th.

Originally it said 289-361W, now it just says at least 288W. Replicating what you saw. The tooltip changes to indicate just one below the original lower limit.

Note I did not change any of the numbers, just tapped save on what was already there. Thus changing reps isn’t even what’s causing it. Just saving is enough to replicate the change you see.

I haven’t got my latest Workout Reserve profile in front of me. But I do have a recent one and the lower power number is around the 3 min duration and the original upper number around my 40 second duration.

Don’t know if this helps @Prof, but can replicate as another beta user.

[Jesse]

Can replicate on my end.

I went to March 14th, short hiit, 4x7x1’. Interval power reads “between # and #”. (Z6-z7)

Opened it up and tapped close. No change to the session.

Opened it up again and this time tapped “save”, without changing anything and now the session reads “added by you” and interval power is “at least #” (z6+).

[Prof]

Thanks @Jesse … please try to use screenshots also when reporting in the future.

[Jesse]

I’ve done you one better… a video!