I’ve been following this thread and noting some similarities between Join workouts and CTS/Strava, FasCat, and Velocious. Three years ago I ended up using a FasCat off-the-shelf plan, increased volume average to 6.5 hours/week from previous two years of 5 hours/week, and was surprised that ‘easier intervals’ and a little more volume resulted in more performance (FTP and other metrics).
Since then I hired a FasCat coach, and he made intervals ‘easier’ (for lack of a better term, apologies for not being more precise) and we increased volume to 8 hours/week in 2022 and FTP and overall performance keeps increasing.
In the 2022 year in review thread I posted the graphic that clearly shows my response to volume/consistency:
Rather than minimum effective dose, I think of it as a tradeoff between increasing weekly hours while keeping the ability to recover and absorb the training. Everyone is different, what works for me may not be enough stimulus for your unique ability (and life situation) to recovery and absorb the training.
The question of 10x40/20 being enough is situational. All I can say - for myself - is that increasing overall volume from 5 hours/week to 8 hours/week average has improved my short power more than doing a lot of really hard short power intervals. It has increased my capacity to do really hard, high power intervals.
he posted numbers and I added them up, he did a total of 413 hours in 2022. So he went from 323 hours in 2021 to 413 hours in 2022, with ‘easier’ training and a 30w increase in threshold. My threshold increase was smaller, but short power and short repeatability improved by a good amount. With very few repeats on the z5/z6 intervals.
yes but I didn’t find that helpful in the context of this thread - and explaining that some of us see fitness and performance increases by simply increasing amount of easy work and decreasing the amount of hard work.
I didn’t ask on Twitter, but my assumptions, right or wrong, was 413 hours was cycling only as it referenced 30W threshold increase.
Or I didn’t add up the minutes correctly.
400 hours of cycling is at the low end of 8-12 hour/week ‘intermediate’ plans, and my personal best. But I’m sixty and not in my 20s or 30s. I know two club mates that are older and ride more, but many of the guys just a few years younger than me finished the year in the low to mid 300 hour range.
Checking my work in Excel versus my previous use of macOS Spotlight Search…
Join needs to add Nordic ski load properly, just as running is there. Otherwise the app is great, I really like their philosophy…which boils down to:
True endurance zone
Intervals for intensive endurance.
Build on intensity from shorter duration intervals.
Encourage to add volume.
Very simple stuff. Their workouts look a lot like the workouts of my friends that pay for coaches. Hopefully they don’t start optimizing for subscriptions and engagement.
This is the part I like as well. Even when doing intervals around FTP, it is never anything close to exhaustion.
Feels a bit like what I am currently doing in the gym, where for the heavy lifts I am stopping 1 rep short of exhaustion. It feels like a less intense workout as it could have been, but still able to add reps or weight every week.
One thing I dislike is the recurrent scheduling of FTP test, I know I have the option to opt out, but what I don’t like is that in those days you don’t get a “replacement recommendation” from the system.
So this is my No. 2 feature request, after properly adding Nordic Ski.
After taking a month off and being sick, plus changing my saddle, I’ve finally extended my availability for the first time on JOIN to give me longer than 1 hour workouts on the weekend. Did 1.5 hours yesterday (vo2max workout) and 1.5 hours today (strength). I thought it’d be overwhelming but it was achievable in both cases and I’m not wrecked afterwards. Level going up, and it 100% feels sustainable. Good times.
Strava also just completely gave up on telling me to take it easy: “This was a significant increase compared to previous weeks.” haha.
Anyone have a Zwift/Strava workout not fully import into Join?
Did a workout today imported into Zwift (through TrainingPeaks) and it did sync to Strava afterwards. I get a notification from Join to provide feedback but when doing so the workout isn’t there for today. I keep getting prompted every time I open to app to provide feedback but it’s not there.
Reconnected Strava to Join and no luck. I can manually import the workout but…
