I’m really flummoxed as to why somebody would invest the time and effort to train for 6 day stage race, and then use the wrong tool (for them) to train with, for months !!!, this is a hobby it’s supposed to be fun and enjoyable, Just the mental energy lost from all these posts is going to be detrimental to training
I was having probably the best year of my life for fitness and then it fell apart in July with Covid and then broken bones, I am truly excited for next year, looking forward to getting back to training over the winter, I can’t imagine thinking, that worked really well for me, I’ll use Humano instead this winter
Edit
Nothing against Humngo, it works for a lot of people, just didn’t suit me, so I stopped using it
Yeah, same. I hope Neuromancer doesn’t see these as insults but rather experience sharing from people who’ve wasted time and energy using the wrong tool/system. There are things I do and don’t like about Join but it’s too cheap to feel like I HAVE to stick with it if it’s not working for me. I’m currently following a slightly modified FasCat SS plan that I bought years ago because I feel like I need to focus on pushing out my TTE and Join wasn’t the right tool for that. I’m about to take a month long holiday and just focus on riding/running/hiking for fun. I’ll then either go back to SS work or do LSRF depending on what I want to focus on at the end of the month.
Absolutely, I hope I offered Neuromancer no offense, can be hard to see when you are close to something and sometimes you need somebody to point out that the fix is simple
Join has helped me a lot this season. I joined TR in late 2020 (start of indoor season here). The first year (2021), I saw significant improvements in FTP. In 2022, FTP climbed again. In 2023, I plateaued… but also felt completely exhausted heading into my A race which I missed due to COVID. The plateau combined with the fatigue/exhaustion led me to try something else. Join was offering 90 days free then (I think), so why not? Here are the results:
I should note that I switched to dual-sided power this season and learned that I have a L/R imbalance that varies from 53/47 to 55/45. If I ‘correct’ the 2022 numbers from the left crank PM to account for the power imbalance, my numbers are better across the curve. It’s even more interesting to see how some of those numbers compare:
5sec power - 2022 Chasing a local KOM after a brief warm-up (i.e. fresh) vs. 2024 Sprint at the end of a 100 mile road race
60sec power - 2022 Chasing a local KOM after a brief warm-up (i.e. fresh) vs. 2024 VO2 interval as part of a 5 hour workout
20min power - All out effort both years… but 25-30 watts better this year when corrected from L/R imbalance
1/2/4hr power - 2024 were results from Lotoja… a 200-mile ~10 hour effort. All previous results were from much shorter rides… you can go harder when you know you only have to go 3-4 hours.
Race Results:
July Fondo 1 - 2023 6th age group-57/301 overall vs 2024 age group-25/300 overall
July Fondo 2 - Not timed, but this course has 3 large climbs so less affected by wind/pack than above race. Strava times - 2023 Climb1 45:54 Climb2 40:39 Climb3 34:43 Total 5:31:31 / 2024 Climb1 39:51 Climb2 36:31 Climb3 26:57 Total 5:12:11… and I had a flat tire this year that cost me 5 minutes and my tire was a bit low for the remainder of the ride
Lotoja (I can’t see placing overall in 2022 and raced a different Cat each year, so just time and power info) - 2022 10:52:43 AP 171 NP 197 (L-only power, biased high) vs 2024 9:48:49 AP 183 NP 205
My work schedule is often unpredictable, so Join’s flexibility has been great for me. I also think the CTL progression helped me a lot. This is Jan 2023 through Sep 2024. You can see the consistent ramp up this year.
I have only used the Join workout player once or twice. I do most of my workouts outside, but when inside I’ve used both Garmin and Zwift. The Garmin x40s work pretty well for indoor workouts… the x30s less so. I will sometimes do the workout ‘freestyle’ in Zwift where I have the intervals on my Garmin and ride as though outdoors to hit the targets as opposed to ERG.
It’s possible I will plateau again on Join and look for something else, but the flexible/adaptive nature of the app works great for me.
Preach. Same here. What was even more frustrating was when I’d ask questions in the various social media, the end users would always gang up and tell me that I just didn’t understand because I didn’t study the podcasts explaining it all well enough. Half the reason I left was because their biggest supporters were just insufferable.
A different vision of tapering. Iirc Jim explained in one of the dutch podcasts. For my event on a Saturday join gave me a vo2max workout on Tuesday and an endurance ride on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday off
I had the exact same experience and one of the many reasons I ended up dumping it. Not sure why anyone would get upset at calling out deficiencies in this or any other training app, also good info as far as I am concerned.
Nobody was getting upset about anybody calling out deficiences in this or any other training app
The concern that was Necromancer was not doing his own mental health or training any good, with a app that he was not working for him, he’s not being paid to review the app for you and provide information on how good the apps work, he’s paying to get a trainer plan and get faster, and it’s not been working for him for a while
Just rememmber, this is you’re hobby and you should be enjoying it, if you are fighing training plans , software companies, it’s the wrong one for you
Good, a lot of people swap and change, even when works for you, I’m more than guilty off this, I’m probably a bit older than you, but spend 6 months doing the wrong thing (over the winter) set yourself back for the summer, pick up a injury in August (like me) your back to trying to recover over the winter, that’s 18 months lost .. you’re time a health is important, like he posted Pbase pointed out in July that this wasn’t going to end well
If cost was a issue I really would look @ TrainerDay (you can have a look for free, just to use the wokout player is $3.99) and I’m really simplified my training
Ride as much as you can in Z2
Base = Sweetspot and Threshold
Build = Threshold and V02
Speciality = V02 and V02 (or somthing similar)
And then for progression I just have a series of workout where I add 5 mins to time in zone, and then divide up into intervals, it’s worked well for me so far, I think a lot of apps make things a lot more complex than they need to
For me it’s still going great, I just did my best all time 5 minute power and I did it on rollers even without crashing after a long day at work and 2h of commuting with someone crashing into (though I think it will start hurting more tomorrow then today
you did well to make the start … hope you didn’t take any risks ? I broke my foot 8 weeks ago and still not allowed to ride outside !!!
I’ve just got a watch on the Channel as I enjoyed using Join and like to see what is happening with, but not currently using so can’t give any advice on the training plan
I’ve tried enough plans (which I didn’t all finish) to see that most start the same but gradually each go in their own direction. For winter maintenance my favourite plan so far is LSRF but not go too crazy with the availability. I tried indoor training but it was way too intense for me and I contacted support about the the number of intense workouts I got and I switched to LSRF though after that they contacted me to say they had found a bug on their side in the workout completion algorithm so it didn’t detect I had already completed several intense workouts…
What would this consist of? I think I know, but if you clarify, others might be able to make some kind of recommendation or share what Join told them when they asked for the same.
Glad you didn’t get hurt worse in the accident and you’re doing well enough to race so well!
From my experience they do constant low cadence work on Stamina Builder.
From what I see Join follows what’s usual in most European Pro’s training, and that means some type of VO2 work every 10 days or so in their base programs, they don’t do any crazy one type of workout progression and they follow a 3 days on, 1 off with sparse recovery weeks.
You really need to be comfortable with this Philosophy or Join will probably be frustrating.
Personally this fits me well, and even if I don’t understand how, I’m hitting personal bests in all my power profile except 5s, I’m 48 and training since 2015 with the same volume since 2019, maybe there’s something better out there, but for this price I’m not complaining.
Just listened to the new podcast, it was quite interesting to listen to in general but 2 things stuck out:
●Join level rises after a ride/workout to give you instant gratification for your workout rather than the days afterwards to account for supercompensation
●They are working on running support with a build up schedule for running which will ultimately allow you to replace cycling workouts with running but still focus on your cycling goals
I’m glad to hear running is on their roadmap, but it really frustrates me that they have it as a high priority instead of fixing all the little things that need to be fixed for cycling first.
age group-25/300 overall
you did well to make the start … hope you didn’t take any risks ? I broke my foot 8 weeks ago and still not allowed to ride outside !!!