I believe what @Bbt67 is saying is that it doesn’t schedule you to do weight lifting on Tuesday, Saturday group ride, or some skills session on Thursday, for example. Working with a coach usually would have these literally planned out for you.
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I can agree with that to a point. It’s not explicitly added to the plans. But they have talked about adding strength routines to your training countless times and when to schedule such workouts. It’s just not explicitly added to the plans. Which could be a criticism for some and no issue for others.
They’ve said they focus on the cycling part, and that’s what they do. If I’m paying 10x the money for a coach, yea I’d expect a more tailored plan. But for the price I don’t think there’s any better value out there. Wahoo may have yoga and strength added, but their cycling plans aren’t that great. DJ has a coaching service that many people like, but you’re paying a lot more. TR has so much that is free from the podcast and forum and videos. There is so much you get for free that I just don’t get the argument that the plans don’t offer much. Because I consider them together.
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Someone posted up above the TR landing page. It says it’ll adapt to your goals, performance, etc. I think an important part that some people miss(?) is that with this sort of service, it’s up to us to figure out most of those other details. They’re adding new stuff, but as has been mentioned many, many times in this thread - it’s not a full service coaching company.
edit to add: it seems like there’s consensus that the TR plans don’t include a bunch of stuff. Where there’s disagreement, is if they should have strength training, extra videos/coaching, etc. included in the plans at the base costs. Some people feel strongly that they should. Some feel strongly that they shouldn’t for $20/month or whatever, and I imagine that most don’t really feel strongly either way…Those people are mostly not here posting on the forum!
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The Z2 rides in the TR polarised plans progress in pretty much exactly the same manner, IIRC.
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Agreed. PL2 is a prerequisite, but once that’s in pretty much all the plans should then be split into a SS-biased version and a Z2-biased version depending on user preference. Nice.
It’s just not what TR is tho. TR is a computer program meant for riding indoors and controlling a smart trainer. This is why it is relatively less expensive than a personal coach, because it can be mass produced. It works and it gets you fit. It is a competitor with zwift.
Adding a bike handling skills workout doesn’t make any sense on an indoor ride. Nor does adding a weight lifting session.
That’s why they suggest you do these things in the side, but they aren’t part of the primary product that they sell. It’s just a different product.
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Maybe but from a business perspective, I think they see themselves as an indoor smart trainer app company competing with the zwift and rouvys market rather than the individual coach market. They are very good at what they do. They would rather not be average at doing a bit of everything
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To be fair when AT was launched the claim was that coaches would no longer be needed.
I mean even I that have relied so much on TR in the past, and still do as I do not have any coach or use other platforms, can see how that is so far from the true that is not even fun.
Perhaps TR might work for the very time crunched with 6. hours per week available.
Surely those with a mid volume, where by mid volume I mean 12-14 hours per week are completely left in the dark and there is actually not much difference with a software like trainer day which just let you pick a workout (instead of filling surveys so that AT supposedly does it for you). The difference though is that TR offers a pseudo training plan, which again might work for beginners but those with more experienced have to change drastically to make it work for them.
And exactly for the slightly more experienced I see a lack of content and support. Plans should be more intelligent and flexible adapting to the needs and specificities of each person. This would create value and would allow to differentiate from other standard plans offered online.
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At least when I did polarized blocks (so far I have done 2), the max workout time was capped at 3 hours. In any case, TR does of course ramp up its endurance workouts, too, it in part adds intensity rather than length. I think one of the reasons is that the TR team knows that people rarely do and complete workouts longer than 3 hours. The longest indoor workout that I have done was 3:30 hours, I think.
I’m quite sure that TR made no such claim. When they introduced AT they said that they foresee a future where coaches were no longer needed to select individual workouts and that their jobs would morph so as to focus on the other aspects of coaching.
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Oh no! They must be the first company in the history of business to make a tongue in cheek comment when releasing a new product! Alert the media!
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I think you’re overestimating the proportion of the cycling population that have both a)access to regular “group rides” and b)the desire to join “group rides”.
Sure, there is plan builder and building to events, but I think TR is mostly a complementary addition to those riders looking to race at the pointy end, and is mostly for the fitness gains which are the low hanging fruit for the masses. Most riders I think are not that fussed or able to fit in stuff like the local drop ride.
TR first incorporated Outdoor Workouts and have recommended it a lot. They clearly know that the vast majority of workouts are still performed indoors so that guides their priorities. They haven’t gone as far as scheduling a day as outdoors, or saying ride for x-tss. I think a lot of the time-crunched athletes can’t commit to a plan like a FasCat plan where the long ride gets longer and longer.
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IIRC, they were talking about a timeline of something like 5 years….they weren’t saying that they had already achieved the claim.
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At the current 19.95 per month, we are talking about less than a dollar a day (USD). What do we really expect? For most, that either don’t have access to coaching or no desire. TR offers a great value. I know I am making my way to the UCI Worldcup races next year and the Tour the following year.
My 65 cents a day gets me the guidance and motivation to improve my fitness. I am not here to win any bike race. I clearly am more fit than I was last year and have found great value in the service and podcasts, forum, and blogs.
I know many of my friends that spent much more on personal coaching for an Ironman Plan and also paid for Zwift to use with their trainer. Seems some have very high expectations or have grown to a place were they need more than TR can offer.
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I totally understand what you are saying here. BUT with the amount of podcasts on strength training and stretching and whatever else… Just design the workouts for them and give them to us. The information is all there. I should not have to go through 400 podcasts to try and piece a workout together. I don’t understand at all why the research is done, described, examples given… Just take the next step and put it on paper and give it to us. It makes no sense to not give it to us.
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It’s not the money, it’s the time. We all only have so much time to train and ability to recover, so we want to make the most of it.
That’s fair. I think it comes down to the thought that they’re focused on the cycling portion. They’ve given examples and guidelines for adding strength workouts, but their focus has been on the cycling workouts. For better or worse. We could probably all benefit from strength workouts, but it may be a small portion of their users that would actually use them, so they focus more on other things. Maybe if enough people would push for it, @chad would write some into the plans. I’m guilty for sure of not doing strength workouts and probably wouldn’t be super consistent with it even if it was part of the plans. So maybe that’s their thought?
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I can agree that it is not the “cost”. The point I was trying to make is that for the low cost, TR deliveries a huge value. No one plan is going to fit all. Many of the posts that I see in this tread seem to be complaints that the plans don’t fit their needs. There is an option to add or remove as needed. I personally don’t think any one plan fits all. This comes from experience from running training plans for different disciplines. Also as a speed skater. As a skater I worked with our coach to tweak my efforts and goals. As a runner my coach suggested extra efforts. These changes were to align with events. Could be hilly race. Another change was to help build a plan to finish stronger. Point is I don’t think you can select a plan and expect it to fit everyone 100%. That is what I like about being able to modify my plan. Also that there is a suggested workout and I can choose to except it or not. So far TR is working well for me. Now that could change in the years to come.
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They did, and then clarified that it wasn’t their claim that coaches would be obsolete but that AI could do the heavy lifting of workout selection.
Coaches would always be advantageous for certain people for accountability, motivation, feedback, skills, etc etc.
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I think the crux here is, does intensity management fall into the “workout selection” part or the coaching part. I’d argue that “workout selection” is intended to cover this based on the intent of the feature, so I think this is an issue they seemingly committed to “solve.” However, I’m not naive to think I don’t play a bigger role than some tool in determining my own readiness to do the work, but the claim TR made was a bit more marketing than realistic.
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You may be right. To be honest I don’t think personal coaches will ever be made redundant for those with more money, or more specific requirements. Something like AT could very easily take up a part of the work though.
I think there will be more work on plans one day when TR becomes a complete coaching solution. It’s got some great features already for those of us who don’t want to/can’t justify individual coaching. There’s nuance with everything of course.
My point was more about context. Let’s not do that most frustrating of journalistic traits of taking one statement and presenting it as the whole story.
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