The fitness curve subtracts 2 units the next day. So the next day you have to perform exercise that generates 2 units or you are in a decline. I think this is the part that is missing when creating a plan.
In the image below, you can see that the ramp is on the low side (0.8) despite having performed 5 runs and 2 bike rides in one week.
So I would think, if I create a plan that is exactly the same as what I’ve actually done then ramp should be the same. You can also see that the load of my actuals is 547 while in the plan it is 295 so it would not make sense that ramp is higher in the plan than versus the actuals. Unless I’m understanding ramp incorrectly.
However if I do understand ramp correctly then it looks like the plan does not include the decline in fitness day after day. This makes you create a plan that might be too light. In my current state, those 5 runs in the plan would actually create a negative ramp when executed.
For your first screenshot, you probably have similar workouts in the week before, resulting in a lower Ramp Rate.
For the second screenshot, you probably have very little planned in the week before, resulting in a high Ramp Rate.
That is correct, for my actuals I have a fairly similar week before that and for the planning there was nothing.
Does it mean that if I were to create a plan for next week, the ramp rate would be adjusted based on the actuals of my current week? I can give it a try and see.
I gave it a try and planned the running for next week but it doesn’t take into account the activities of my current week. The ramp rate stayed the same.
However I do see that if I plan activities 2 weeks in a row then the second week is affected by the first week and the first week even affects the 3rd week if I have one.
So actuals are not taken into account when the planning follows immediately on the current week it seems.
You can tell that the ramp rate is different across different weeks because your fitness is changing week over week.
The Training Plan tool is supposed to help you make reusable collections of workouts over a many weeks so by default it doesn’t make an assumption about your starting fitness level and starts you off at zero. In this case your fitness would be 6 after the first week.
However, the tool allows you to select a starting fitness (and fatigue) for your plan:
You can see that the Ramp rate is negative for all three weeks! That’s because a weekly load of 295 is not enough to sustain that level of fitness and its value is decreasing week over week (74 → 69 → 65 → 61).
I hope this helped you understand how to use the tool a little but better, but like @MedTechCD pointed out, it’s essential to understand how the Fitness, Fatigue, Form, and Ramp rate values work. The whole platform is sprinkled with links and references to how the different metrics work but probably the best way to learn is to spend 10 minutes reading the Fitness page guide:
