Why my plan wants reduce my fitness?

I just must delate one of my race and then i replan my sessions.
I don’t understant why my plan reduce my fitness. Next weeks are all easy weeks.
What’s wromg?

Ehilà!!! Someone coukd help me? I really don’t understand how to work with the program. I have ansia each time i need to do a change.
Thank you

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Hi Prato, can you please explain a little more what you’re trying to do? Are you coming off of a race and at your peak or are you trying to build? And what plan are you on, mid-volume, high, low? Thank you, that will help get answers.

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Hi @kimberg . Yes of course!
In my calendar i have a ultramarathon for April 13th and a duathlon for June 8th.
Unfortunately i can’t go to the ultra and i cancelled it and regenerate the plan.
The result is above with fitness going down and coach says i am already at race condition so it reduce my load.
I am on a duathlon program and high volume. I set a minum of 8haurs and a maximum of 12hours but this plan never comes near the maximum.

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Hello @Prato
Sorry for a very delayed response.

It’s simple solution…When you chose high volume plan, it is simply asking you to train more than 15+hr per week. When you set your weekly hours, 8-12hrs, you are capping the load that the system is able to provide. The logic will not ignore your settings, so it cannot give you enough load to provide a plan that keeps growing the fitness. That is why it is saying you are already at your race fitness.

Does that make sense?
Now what?
So what you can do is either change to mid-volume (typically 7-15hrs) and give yourself more hours in the week if possible (we totally get it - family, work, they get into way of our training!)

Let me know if any more questions…
MJ

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Hi @Marjaana
Thank you for your answer and try to analyze the point
In real it does not make very sense to me. I try to explain:
First i don’t understand how it is possible that with till 12 hours is not possible to organize a plan that can’t improve fitness in a 3 months period. This is first time in almost 7 years of multisport training and several apps and coach that happen to me. Maybe it should be another gift of my age :sweat_smile:
Second it is reported at training page that the hours indicated are only as a guide and AI will choose the best amount of training by itself.
So i am still confused and i really don’t see the sense.
If i don’t understand wrong you would say that with my time availability should be better if i choose a medium range and this will give me a plan that will improve the fitness, right? I can try for sure.
Thank you @Marjaana for you support!

Dear @Prato
I am sure that we can make some tweaks so that with your 12 hours we can provide a schedule that can work. That said, at some point when an experienced athlete like yourself wants to improve, the next logical step is to increase either volume or intensity (and increasing intensity is much more risky especially as we age…).

I had a look at your profile, and you are already at a high level, so to make the next step forward, I would recommend adding volume. I noted you had chosen “competitive” as experience level, then I’ll chose my hours and defined them to 8-12 hours.


Please try the following:

Use recreational as your experience level, then “let Athletica decide” on the next option. Leave your custom scheduling as is for now.

Let’s try with a little tweak to make your plan work for you.

Here to help you, appreciate your patience :smiley:

MJ

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Ok @Marjaana i’ll try!!
In this moment by the way, AI coach says me that i should increse volume that seems the opposite but i can try your solution.
Just to know, what do you think if i increase the ramp under advancend tab? What could be the result?
I will write you tomorrow when i will see new plan

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That’s exactly what I am also saying. Increase volume if you can :heart:

Make one change at a time :partying_face:talk tomorrow

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good morning @Marjaana! here the update plan. i changed as you suggest my volume from competitive to recreational and leaved AI to set time. this is the result. better than before but i still don’t belive i haven’t margin to improve. to be clear with same amount of hours per week i prepared an ironman that i close in 10h 29’. there is something i can’t catch.
now i try to come back to the previous setting and change under advanced tab ramp togle to fast and see what happen.
if also in this way i don’t keep any variation i will increase volume but simply i have not all that time to train expecially during the week. in the past AI continued to fix me over 3 hours a day of training with swim, bike, run in the same day that it is not achievable for me
ciao @Marjaana

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Hey @Prato
thank you for being so patient.
marginal change happened with that change. If you add all your hours together, total is 13.5hrs. I would release the upper hour cap to 15hrs and see what the system gives you. My expectation is that you’ll only see weekly hours around 15 during the few peak build phases. And maybe you’ll be able to train a little more for couple of weeks (focusing on weekend hrs)?

Could you please try increasing hours to 15 from 12 in the settings with that slider?

Best, MJ

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hi @Marjaana ! here below the effect to work on ramp. it increase a little bit more. AI coach continue to say that i am at race level at it wants to leave me there until may when will increase load r just 2 weeks than it will enter into tapering phase.

now i keep your suggest and set 15 hours. i shift back ramp togle to normal and in real i changed a little bit also my time constraints. let’s see what happen.
thank you!!

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hi @Marjaana
so i setted as we’ve spoken and here below the new fitness trend of my plan


so it seems pretty much the old one. perhaps worse than the one obtained working with ramp togle.
there is anyway something strange: by yesterday afternoon when i changed parameters, i received 4 or 5 email that say the schedulling was finished, but in my homepage there is still a message that says AI is still working to optimize my program.
other thing, but maybe to report in other topic, is that AI is not considering my time constraints: i would only run on saturday and AI give me always an important bike session in saturday except for the recovery week.
have you any other idea? maybe i can try to leave in this way hoping that at some point AI increse something if i overdue the sessions…
ciao @Marjaana

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Thanks for this @Prato

I looked at your plan forward, and the program has you working out nicely around 10hrs, following the constraints you have set, keeping weekday workouts within 1.5h-2hrs with combo of S&C, bikes and runs, with longer workouts on Sundays. If possible, give the system a little more training time per week.

As you follow the plan, I would do a couple of individual adjustments:
increase the duration of your Saturday and Sunday workouts if you can / when you can. The system will learn what you’ve done and adjust future workouts. However, if you give too many constraints, it will not violate those, and that’s why you see performance chart at the same level until June. Again, it is not about any single heroic effort, but logic is built around consistency.

Since your duathlon (or bike race) is hilly, remember to simulate this by heading out to hilly course and/or focusing on strength endurance rides.

Hope this helps,
let me know if there’s anything else I can do.
MJ

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Thank you @Marjaana
You were absolutely helpful and i thank you for all your patience and effort.
I am still have a lot of doubts on how the schedule is created: i see HIIT with over 90 as load on monday after the long session of sunday. I see a sunday with over 260 load with 2h of bike and 2h of run, i see weeks with 3 S&C of which 2 on day by day. I still not be able to set long run on wednesday and long ride on sunday. I haven’t also no more workout wizard in some activities. But of course i know all this things it is not up to you. I am an annual subscriber but in this moment i am a little bit frustrated because i don’t see an expected response to my commands.
Thank you again @Marjaana i’ll follow your indications and I’ll try to obtaine good path to my races!!

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Dear @Prato

I believe the lack of appropriate ramp is due to the constraints. We are still working on it and in the mean time the constraints feature is only available to the beta group you are part of. It’s not perfect and I apologize for that.

I’m happy to jump on a call with you to tweak your program. Might be most efficient that way.

MJ

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Yes of course @Marjaana if you want we can make a call . Maybe i will learn something more.
Which time zone are you in? I am on Rome, central Europe.
Ciao

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I’m in Central US time. Could we schedule for Wednesday March 26th 12 (noon) pm CT - your 7pm I believe ?
MJ

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Hi @Marjaana
Unfortunately on Wednesday i am busy. What about of Thursday 27th?

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Hey Davide,

Just looking at your plan again.
Screenshot 2025-03-21 at 7.33.14 AM
I believe the lack of progressive overload is related to the daily availability constraints. Let’s try to figure this one out together. How can we tweak so that you get a better plan
Best, MJ

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