I’ve been following the gravel plan most of the season, it was mainly for a 10(plus) hour gravel race in July, which went ok despite falling ill a week before, come back a decided to follow the gravel plan again as I have a shorter 2.5 hour race in mid september, I’m not expecting it to go well as it going to be short and hard, but following Join, this week has been hard, felt a bit WT$ is going on, my upcoming week is nice, just endurance rides
Agreed, I really like this feature. With my new(ish) job, my travel schedule is highly irregular and I’m traveling much more often. Whenever on the rode I try to do an easy Z2 ride on a spin bike (often sans a fan, though, so not sure how “easy” it actually is … I tell myself it is heat acclimatization). Anyway, I’m leaning toward continuing with JOIN after the upcoming offseason.
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Started the second week of FTP builder with JOIN. Started with a level of 34 and it assigned me a Vo2max workout on Tue followed by a threshold workout (3 * 10 @95%) on Wed, endurance ride Thur, I input an endurance road ride on sat, Threshold Sun.
I complete the Tue / Wed workouts but there is no way that is sustainable, not even the most intense trainer road plans would assign that sequence.
What was the Vo2max workout Tuesday and the Sunday threshold workout? You only described 1 workout 3x 10 at 95% which shouldn’t be too hard with a properly set FTP, imo. Some plans have back to back hard days, I know fascat does this in some of their plans also.
I’ve been finding the opposite where I feel like I’m not getting enough intensity. I’m not on the ftp builder plan and maybe that’s why yours has more intensity.
Tue was 1’30 with 2 sets of Vo2max pyramid, 2 min 100%, 2 mins 120%, 2 mins 100% surrounded by 30 mins @ 65%. Haven’t got my phone to hand for the Sunday workout.
Initially when I looked at them thought not too bad but feeling it today. Might be my age but I prefer endurance sandwiched between those 2 type of workouts. Also these are the first hardish workouts indoors in erg after a summer outside.
Back to the gym this week so not sure I could do those types of workouts around leg work in the gym.
Any suggestions for an easier plan to combine gym?
If I don’t like the workout or feel I can’t do it I use the “Shuffle Workout” and see if another it chooses is more palatable. If I’m still not feeling it I’ll choose an endurance workout and let it adapt.
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I’m guessing it’s like you said, that you’re just not used to doing structured intervals after a summer outside. That pyramid is the kind of “VO2 workout” that I am seeing on the LSRF plan. I personally consider that “easy VO2”. I agree that 3x10@95% shouldn’t be too hard also. I’m assuming there was 8-10 mins of recovery between intervals?
I would definitely not pick a plan called FTP Builder if you don’t want your legs to be tired so you can focus on gym work. That name just sounds like a nice way of saying “lots of intensity” to me.
Check out my post above that shows what the LSRF plan has looked like for me over the last few weeks. That may be more like what you’re after. JOIN cycling app - #1122 by Pbase
Like others have said though, if you don’t feel any given workout is appropriate on any given day, just choose an alternate. I think Join is more focused on staying consistent than strict daily guidelines. It’s a different approach when you’re used to being on a plan where you feel like you need to have 100% compliance.
Happy Birthday, btw!
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I had similar happen to me (I think I mentioned it above somewhere) but it made the following week just endurance, I like you was a little bit , what, I can’t handle this for long
Think I worked out how to change today’s workout. Remember someone asking about that a while back, because it didn’t seem to work the normal way.
- click on the “change workout” icon (in the workout pic)
- pick “choose workout”, and pick the one you want
- the workout pic for the day will revert back to the previous workout
- now click on the “change workout” icon again, and pick “shuffle workout”
- it will shuffle to the workout you just picked before
…at least that worked three times for me now.
If after choosing an explicit workout it doesn’t change in the app I’ve found just closing and reopening the app updates it to the chosen workout.
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Yes there was 10 mins recovery so not a difficult workout on paper, just tired from the previous day and interval rusty but still think those 2 workouts back to back was a bit much for week 1. I think I will switch to one of the other plans and see how that goes.
Might end up back with TR SSB HV plans as I like the weekday workouts in that plan combined with weekend Z2.
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It’s worth mentioning that TR scores the workouts it receives from Join very oddly, so if you’re going back and forth between the apps, your PL’s are going to be hosed. As an example, I did a workout today that was 5 sets of 3 mins Strength (low cadence Tempo), 2 mins Threshold, 3 mins recovery wrapped in 30mins of Z2 on both ends. TR called that a Threshold 1.1.
I’m not complaining about TR here. We all know it’s not set up yet to score non-TR workouts properly…just something to be aware of if you decide to leave Join and use TR instead.
Even though I started using JOIN six weeks ago, this is the first week I’ve had with no work or personal travel, and I was teleworking to boot - so I could finally see what JOIN would give me without all of this churn. I similarly got back-to-back hard days, but have an easy tempo ride and endurance this weekend. I’m doing the LSRF plan.
The Wednesday strength workout was suprisingly challenging after the VO2 and threshold. Also, at the time, Monday’s VO2 workout looked a little “light” so I did the set of 1-min intervals twice.
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That’s very similar to my weeks…except 2x20 would destroy me! Kudos to you!
@Pbase thanks. The 2x20 was tough. I did it on the trainer and used Zwift’s new Climb Portal to be going up hill. In hindsight I should have gone up the Alpe and set a PR. C’est la vie!
Oh, and JOIN wants me to do 1x30 next Wednesday.
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That looks like a really demanding week, would absolutely fry me and not really sustainable for me personally, no way I would have completed the 2 * 20 mins so congrats!
Thanks for sharing, I’d definitely looking for something easier than that through the winter months.
The gravel plan has been 1 vo2 workout and usually a long 3-4 hour ride that’s either threshold or tempo. The rest has been endurance or their “intensive” endurance. Sometimes I’ll get a third “hard” day but not every week. So to me the LSRF plan looks like it has more “intensity” than what I’ve been getting.
What I’ve learned with join you have to have your ftp set properly sigh. They don’t have the cushion that TR does with their progression levels and the users FTP. Which is a positive or negative depending how you view them.
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Don’t be fooled, this isn’t sustainable for me, either! I had a bunch of life events happen over the summer and blew up during the Specialty phase. I ended up taking a week and a half completely off of the bike and cut my hours back by 30%. I’m finally feeling better and decided to push it this week since I’m around with no travel. Back to the grind next week.
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I’m planning on riding Tour de Stations in 2024. It doesn’t exist (yet) as an event. If I create it as a new event it comes down to 74k at 3.6% average. But it’s in reality 3 long climbs.
Will a Join plan for 74k/3.6% be suitable for an event with three long climbs? Or am I better off choosing another plan?
As it’s still quite a while away, I’d do the “improve long climbs” plan first, which is 3 months (I think). After that, it might be available as an event to plan for?
I also saw you post of the Join forum, lets see if they come back with something.
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