Along those same lines, you used to be able to hover with the cursor over any point of a workout you were active in doing, and it would display the target power. This was handy for knowing what was coming next and like you mentioned, picking the right gear. That went away a long time ago, and is one of the features I’d like to see back. It’s especially handy when you are viewing your workout in a “minimal” window, where the “Y” axis is so condensed vertically.
Dare I mention that I do like the list of durations and power targets that Zwift gives you when doing a workout down the left hand side of the screen. Not sure how this would work if your’re using a phone for your workouts but on a computer screen it works well.
Been thinking about this one too. +1!
I’ve missed that for a long time as well (I think when they made the change from Adobe Air?) - - never really understood why it went away. I commented to the support group at the time and it was made note of, I think, but I haven’t brought it up recently. I make it a point on the website or in the desktop app before a ride to hover over the intervals to get an idea of what they’ll be, but that functionality is lost once the ride starts.
it would be nice, especially for workouts where you’re going from rest to sprint, I’m always guessing and usually way off…
Unfortunately nothing has happened since Oct 18.
I use a dumb trainer and, respectfully, such a feature wouldn’t be of much use to me. A given workout almost always hits the same power target in each work interval, or something very close. The warmup also usually has you hit those targets, and I use those early efforts to figure out my gearing. Knowing a specific wattage wouldn’t actually mean much to me in that regard. I’m also not sure how you’d implement it for intervals that ramp up or down. From my perspective, the current workout interface is pretty much dialed, and more information would detract rather than enhance the experience.
This is where I would like to have some forewarning.
That’s easily translated…
Warm up
Slight lift in intensity
Bit of break
Bit more intensity
Bit of break
Hammer it!
Have a break
Hammer it harder!
Have a break
What does it matter? Pedal hard dammit! You hit the target, you just miss the target, the smart trainer is slow to respond…
How is knowing the number 30sec in advance going to help you? It might psych you out…
The bigger sprint there is roughly three times harder than the break wattage…do some math in your head…or…just pick up that cadance and pedal dammit!
Its all psychological…… I just want to know
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No Smart trainer, dumb rollers!
My biggest concern with the VO2 spikes are the duration. I’d like to know if they are 20, 30 , 60 seconds! Big difference knowing ahead of time how long you will be nailing it for.
For the ramps, if you know the power level for the start of the next interval, that tells you the power for the end of the current ramped interval. Here is an example of how they could display the upcoming interval.
If you take a few minutes prior to doing the workout, you can click on the workout
- Read the text that gives you a basic summary about the work and rest intervals. The percentage of FTP and time are listed.
- On mobile, use your finger to trace over the workout graph. You will see the precise wattage and time for each interval. This also works on the PC app with sliding the mouse over the graph.
- You can do the same on the web, as #2 above.
I know its not automatic or in the workout, but you can easily go in with more info on hand.
The workout screen in the zwift companion app is actually quite good. Has the intervals and you can swipe to skip (can’t repeat intervals) and shows the upcoming power target and duration of the next inerval. The colour coding for zones is very useful. Not sure why others don’t use this colour coding. Would like the ability to easily (not pause and manually move the workout maker) skip/repeat an interval. However, where I do like the TR app is the additional metrics…avg power, accumulated TSS, calories.
also the extend cooldown/warmup is a very welcome addition. Just needs to be slightly easier to navigate, adjust the workout on the fly.
I do that, but once the blood start flowing to my legs, it doesn’t want to share any with my brain.
I too would like to see this to avoid unecessary spikes, and though the target wattage could flash red with the new target for a couple of times in the last 5 seconds before the next interval.
That’s what I do, as mentioned above, but it would be nice if you could do that while in the ride like you used to be able to do “back in the day”.
Don’t follow this wheel in a race!
Just wondering if anyone at TR has taken this request on board? It is very frustrating when you you’ve got workouts where the %ftp constantly changes and you have no idea beforehand how hard you need to go. Zwift trumps TR with this. You know exactly what is coming up ahead of time.
For those without Erg mode or smart trainers can I request the interval wattage number gets updated say 3 seconds before the change in a different colour . This is to anticipate what effort is required to start the next interval. Without this those with basic trainers have to either apply more power that is prescribed or stay and wait for the change to occur and then adapt to suit. Either way the transition is very clunky and misses the start of the interval.
This may be more useful for those who do TR workouts in resistance mode or have non-electronic trainers.
During a workout, it would be nice to be able to see what’s coming up next. For example, in the last 10 seconds of an interval, I get notified that I’m about to greatly increase my effort to 305w for 10 seconds. In ERG mode, this isn’t too much of an issue since the user would just anticipate it. For those in resistance mode, the user would have to process that they will be increasing their power by a lot in the next interval, but there isn’t any good indication as to how much. Visually, the graph does give some context, but usually, it’s best interpreted to understand big jumps in power is coming up but not necessarily communicate where (whether it’s indicated by a watt number or power zone number) unless the upcoming effort is right at FTP since it is visually marked.
Additional Background
From using the Peloton platform (I use Peloton, TR, and Zwift currently), doing power zone workouts on that platform can only be done using resistance, however, how the workout instructions are relayed and how the user perceives where they are at facilitate the flow of executing the workout nicely. In this case, instructions are typically told in 7 power zones and visually the user sees their current output in relation to these 7 zones. Understandably, the tradeoff is that the user is not working at or around a specific power but rather within a zone which may throw off intended training stimuli (e.g. tempo and sweet spot are both to be found in zone 3). For the most part, they use instructions like low, mid, or high zones to guide where in the zones work is to be done. When utilizing resistance mode, this kind of paradigm works rather well in terms of understanding upcoming instructions and current effort.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that TR goes down this route, but there may be some ideas there that may help facilitate resistance mode for indoor workouts and suggesting that from a low-hanging fruit, surfacing what’s coming up next (10s to the next interval) may be a good start.
My use of resistance mode isn’t as extensive since I do have a smart trainer, however, while I do have ERG mode, better understanding what’s next would be a nice-to-have.
TL;DR
As a user, I would like to be able to understand what I’m about to do in the workout so that I can prepare myself for the effort (in ERG mode, mental prep. in Resistance mode, mental and gearing/resistance prep).
Possible solutions: Interval notification preview (show what’s the next effort 10s before it begins). Color the graph intervals based on the zones they are in (at the very least the user would be able to process what zone they’ll be working in next).
Hypothesis: Better execution of workouts especially for those that use resistance mode or have non-electronic trainers.