FWIW, reading above, these training platforms are definitely a case of ‘horses for courses’. If you want to very strictly follow a prescribed plan that will deliver steady improvement over a period of time, whilst Join may achieve that, TR may be a better choice. The value in Join in my opinion is for riders that need a lot of flexibility. They do a lot of riding outdoors, they need to grab a workout here and there, week-to-week availability changes a lot, etc.
TR broke down for me with the often-discussed issue with progression levels not adapting to non-TR activities, and the over-complex workouts. They work really well if you do the vast majority of your training indoors, but with Join it has a much greater tolerance for doing your own thing for the majority of the time.
Join certainly has scope to improve though. Some big things that I would like to see:
Flexibility in the 3-on 1-off model. If you know you have an enforced break coming up, you don’t want a rest day. Sure, you can just do a workout anyway, but it would be good to have an option to ‘pull’ a workout that puts you in to the red and then shifts the rest days back (n.b. this can kind-of be achieved now, I just want it to be easier baked-in functionality).
Option to do a double day. e.g. 2 x 1 hour availability blocks in a day
Push the planning out a little - 10 days to 2 weeks. Just gives you a little more flexibility to move things around which will improve the quality of the prescribed sessions.
While I agree with the flexibility being the benefit over strict adherence like TR I’d say that it only goes so far. She. I do a ride in my own instead of the work out it tells me to try and stick to the plan. Also the workout scores don’t always do it any favors. They feel more confining. I like Join and In sticking with it I’m just trying to understand it better because unfortunately I don’t have a “training mind” so when it throws me a 1x30 a couple days before my race it feels odd but maybe there’s a benefit Im not understanding so I roll with it.
The user above with the VO2 question seems like a legit bug of some sort. I also agree some of those improvements would be nice. I just think it’s on the fence at times with strict adherence and go have a play. I do trust in time these things will get ironed out
Can you expand on this? I know there are complaints above about the scores being low, but why does it matter? I am wondering how people are using this score or if it impacts our plan in a way I’m not using to my advantage.
Can you expand on this thought? I got stronger in all measurements (FTP, CTL, Xminute Power) by pretty strictly following the Join LSRF plan and adding Z2 when I could (to the planned rides during the week and by choosing longer rides on weekends). When I followed TR plans, I had trouble handling the intensity and would burn out. I agree that there are horses for courses, but I would say the advantage of Join is for people who want more hours and less intensity, while the advantage for TR is for people who are time crunched or want more intensity, and all of the non-plan benefits of TR like this forum, the excellent workout player, etc. Curious to hear your thoughts.
I’ve had something similar happen before. I was still feeling good and proceeded to do the workout anyways but your mileage may vary. If your feeling good, why not do it? If you aren’t, other options would be.
Check your readiness score and lower it if you are feeling beat and add in some muscle soreness if the legs are tired.
Listen to your gut and if the ride is still programmed but you feel tired, grab and endurance ride from later later in the week and complete that. See what Join does afterwards.
Pros and cons all systems. If I had year round good weather then Join would win hands down as I prefer outdoor riding.
The precision and focus of TR is a double edged sword. I have seen great results but there is also a cost in the form of poor sleep, irritability and constantly tethering on the border of overtraining. Perhaps that is required to get the best out of yourself.
Feeling great since I went back on JOIN despite putting in my biggest TSS weeks in over a year. Sleeping like a log, crushing the less frequent and easier interval workouts. Too early to comment on FTP, VO2max, CTL and performance but my well being has increased significantly.
The addition of the + / - on the player makes a difference to my indoor workouts, if they added powermatch I’d possibly stay with JOIN for winter indoor.
Previously I couldn’t tolerate indoor training without really hard intervals. My view of this has changed and now enjoy them via JOIN.
As mentioned by others circumstances dictate which works best.
Training for Marmotte JOIN seems a better option. And I have Alberto Gran Fondo in September which I will commit to JOIN only and see what condition I am
JOIN had revised the Tue VO2max to a rest day as I was “doing a bit too much”. So I will rest today instead and ignore the VO2max and see how it adapts tomorrow.
I just finished a month on Join.CC and according to their own FTP model and AI FTP on TR, I dropped 12 watts. I like the flexibility, but if I’m paying to get faster I want to get faster, so I’ve started back on TrainerRoad today.
You can take a peak at my Join FTP battle I had a above. Their FTP estimate is not very strong. I’d actually take a peak at your AI FTP with TR during that month as a realistic picture of what happened. If that still decreased, then I’d also be going back to TR.
Without knowing anything about your recent training, that could come across to the reader as HIIT-like (TR) brittle fitness. Seriously - it only took a month to lose? Without context that means nothing yet everything LOL.
My big issue on TR (pre-AT), yoyo-ing fitness and never coming close to regaining what I got from simply doing a lot of threshold work on relatively low volumes (6-7 hours/week). I’d take a break and lose 10-15%, then struggle with lots of intervals to regain it. Averaging 6 hours/week, and never get within 5% of where I am now.
By contrast this year I’ve had some work/life issues and volume is lower, averaging a little over 6.5 hours/week, and my overall fitness is within 5% of a long period of time Oct 2022 - June 2023 when I was averaging nearly 9 hours/week. So dropping from 9 hours/week average to 6.5 hours/week and “just” a 4% drop in threshold. Considering the fundamentals of endurance training, that makes sense.
So an estimated 4% drop on TR, and 2.5% drop on Join. First off I’d question the estimates, otherwise like I said earlier it comes across as you having brittle fitness.
Since switching from TR to more endurance focused training, I’ve never seen that in 1 month unless I took a break off the bike. Or was foolish enough to believe in a bad estimate.
I posted an FTP of 282 shortly after a recent race during a week off the bike, I then completed the month of Join.CC training as prescribed.
I was doing 8-12 hrs a week on a low volume TR plan, supplementing intervals with Z2 outdoor rides and the occasional spicy group ride or long outdoor ride.
282 was/is my career high and came on the back end of the first time I’ve ever tried low volume intervals supplemented with Z2 free rides.
So you completed a Join plan of some ? hours/week as prescribed. What did that month look like, by hours each week and rough breakdown of work?
Trust me a TR LV plan is not 8-12 hours a week. That sounds like an endurance first plan, and for convenience you used TR to select workouts. Yet you attribute the gains to TR LV plan. Peaked and then lost a chunk of the gains?
And this was your first time doing endurance first? How long did you do it? There are some great endurance first plans and they have been around for longer than TR, for a reason.
Not wanting to call out someone by name, he will describe how great TR LV plans are, yet he fails to mention averaging 12-14 hours/week for the majority of the year. Trust me, that is not a TR LV plan. It’s endurance first and some intervals. It almost doesn’t matter what intervals you are doing. And I’m here to tell you that you that in my experience (and those in this area), you have a good chance of seeing even better results by doing 8-12 hours/week and focusing on threshold work a couple times a week.
It doesn’t matter in theory. It just doesn’t seem to support the philosophy. It’s all subjective though what I’m about to say. I did a 4:30 ride with SS and accelerations in the middle. I did a solid job I felt keeping in the zones. I just felt it should be more forgiving. The longer the workout the harder it is to keep it in zone. I got a workout score of 7. So I think it’s great the way it structured intervals but it still wants pretty strict adherence
Maybe I missed it but curious what you did to keep most of your fitness and less volume? I have a baby on the way so I’ll take whatever knowledge I can get
Basic principles. Mostly endurance riding. Some endurance with 8-12 seconds sprints with full recovvery between sprints. Some tempo intervals, including taking it out to 1x64-min. Some threshold work. Some endurance with a handful of 20-30 second accelerations and full recovery between efforts. Unstructured group rides with about 20+% at threshold and above. Some hiking, and kettlebell work + push-ups. A lot of “EZ Endurance” rides on my calendar, with spicy efforts thrown in as described above. And keeping each week, total, included 1.5 hours strength, above 7 hours.
