Kind of a Newbie here. Actually the third time I’m using the software for a month only. Again I’m asking myself if I should stick to it because there are two things that really annoy me:
Planning around a busy life:
While I really like how fast I can adjust the length of a workout, it get’s pretty stupid when my personal/work schedule is off. For example if I have 2 off-days set in my plan (Monday and Friday) but i have very busy Tuesday/Wednesday while having lots of time on Monday/Friday I can only manually put in workouts or shift them. In my opinion it would be much smarter to have an availability set for each day and let AI do the work instead. In my opinion workouts should adapt to life changes. Hope that makes sense?
Calendar planning
Speaking of planning for someone that is very busy: I read about the origin of the workout names. I get it but why not change it to something descriptive as you go on. You already have all kinds of categories and descriptions inside your database - should be reltatively simple to create unique workout names that actually tell you what’s happening.
I’m subscribed to my workout calendar and actually do plan a lot of workouts on a specific time. But looking at my overall calendar gives me absolutely no clue what kind of workout awaits me and if it actually fits. Therefore I always have to open several apps/windows to adjust everything to my needs.
I have no answer regarding your second issue, but for your first issue you can easily change your plan to let the AI know how much time you have each day, and then let the TR AI structure your plan around this (presuming you are actually using a plan, and not just the Train Now functionality).
Have a look at this article and see if this has what you need to set you on the right track:
Basically, for any plan, you can tell TR how much time you have available to train on each day of the week, as well as which types of activity you would like to do on each day (Recovery, Endurance, Hard Intervals, etc.). And for Endurance days, you can even put a 'max’ time for the day. TR may not schedule the max time for each endurance day, but it will start moving you toward that duration if the AI feels you are handling the overall plan volume reasonably.
Thanks for taking your time but that functionality has 2 issues:
It changes the schedule for EVERY week. What I want is to be able to change for each day individually. Like “Monday in 3 weeks I’m not available but instead my typical off-day is free for training”. Also I think it shouldn’t be my job to decide which day is a hard one if schedule changes. Know what I mean?
Having a basic plan is fine but I need to adjust on a daily basis, almost. Depending on the week I’m able to train 4-7 days. I just need a plan that isn’t that rigid.
Here is an example: Monday and Friday are off-days. But I have heavy work from Tuesday to Thursday. When I cut my availability on the calendar from Tuesday to Thursday it just deletes the workouts but doesn’t use Monday and Friday.
My desired Input would be an availability for each day (in minutes). Than I could set all the days, that are just not possible to zero minutes and the plan should be built around it - respecting that sometimes I have 7 days in a row, sometimes 3 days off.
This functionality would be awesome. I fear it does only work if you edit your standing plan every week. I think there is no downside to changing it often.
Another kind of same issue I face is planed offweeks. I got a surgery coming up and know i can’t train for at least 2 weeks after. I put that offtime in befor comstum plan building. Plan builder gives me an off week before the surgery, while i think i should load that week, also it gives me a hard week when returing, i need an off week then to ease into training.
Exactly. The engine kind of needs to know what’s going on. There are competitors that provide that functionality by letting you give a more detailed feedback on things like recovery and also giving you the day to day availability.
In that case, it sounds like you might be better off just using the Train Now functionality, since ypure not really on a schedule, but just able to train when you have time.
If I understood correctly TrainNow does only “look“ in the past - no planning on targets or events. Also I still would be confronted each day with several options. At that point I could just train on my own and don’t need that kind of service anymore.
I really like to plan ahead and I’m pretty sure the TR engine should be capable of what I need. And I think I can’t be the only one - or am I wrong here.
I mead it’s advertised as not only being adaptive but hyper personalised. Why does it have to stick to a rigid weekly layout and a static Base/Build/Peak approach?
I worked with a real coach before and the magic happened when busy weeks were used to rest while weeks with good availability were used to really hit it on volume and intensity.
And wouldn’t you have had to update your coach regularly regarding your schedule changes? I don’t see that as any different than needing to regularly update TR to know your availability. You are really an edge case, so I’m not sure many (any?) apps would be designed in this manner.
You are right, I had to update him and I’m willing to update TR. What’s different: my coach was not sticking to those rigid patterns of 3 weeks on, 1 week rest or even a week having 7 days. In my opinion it should be easier to update a machine regularly and individually than a coach. TR is very vast when it comes to updating the plan - I’m just have no convenient way telling it what to do.
Xert and MATS are absolutely designed that way. They have other downsides (that’s why I’m again trying TR). I may be more of an edge case than I thought - thanks for that feedback. I was thinking 9to5 kind of is dying…
You are in fact, more of an edge case athlete because it sounds like your schedule is ever changing, but I think you can benefit most from the new AI Training Simulation we just released, because it’s meant to adjust live to any changes to your schedule and show you a nice path forward with the correct workouts to keep your training on track.
I know it’s easier on the eye to see a set Calendar, but the idea is that the plan flexes with you and is not rigid, much like your schedule. I think in your case, this is something that it’s inevitable no matter what and something to come to terms with. Like @NigelTufnel11 mentioned, a coach would be needing to know all these changes and adapting to them.
The system does require your input if your schedule changes. That said, I would let TR create a training plan for your Event, and then either drag and drop you scheduled workout for the week to the days you’ll be training, or use AI Workout Alternates if you tight on time. Also, if you are not able to complete a given workout that day, no worries! The plan automatically recognizes that and changes future workouts to keep you on track.
Lastly, I would start with 4-5 training days a week. So I would consider ramping up into more volume instead of overdoing it. Quality over quantity
boy do i feel you. I work a variable swing type shift schedule that does not follow a pattern. (example this week i worked 6a-5p sat, 10-9p sunday, 4p-3a monday, 10p-6a tueday, 4p-3a wed). i know from experience that i cant hit power after work, and only have 60-90 minutes on the 10a day. however on the other i can ride however long needed. When i had a live coach working with me i just put work into training peaks. now its a lot harder and must be updated a lot.
I appreciate your answer but still i don’t feel understood. This is what a perfect product would do in my opinion:
If an athlete has little time on week A (which is a hard or volume week) but a lot on week B (which was scheduled as rest week originally) it should adapt to the athlete.
If in a week there are 5 scheduled workouts but the athletes has only 4 days available the product should tell the athlete which workout is best on which day - not the athlete to decide which is to skip or which to do first or last.
I never said that I don’t want or can’t give the software that input but it’s not designed to work that way. My real coach had my work schedule - he also did know not only work times but also how stressful some days might be. The power of (AI) computing systems is to actually deal with that kind of input, doing simulations and come out with the best plan (based on the actual data of course).
What TR does wrong in my opinion is pressing the AI abilities in that old school fixed plan approach where maybe monday and friday are off and this or that day is hard and every 4 weeks is a rest week.
If I’m available on my rest day (e.g. monday) but not on my high intensity tuesday - should it not rearrange my workouts? Now you want me to do this myself but is shifting this session to monday the best decision or is it maybe doing the hard stuff on wednesday and some easy stuff on monday instead?
That’s the kind of stuff I’m asking myself. The same questions I had to asked myself with fixed plans on Training Peaks. Therefore I’m back to guess work. I would love for software relieving me of that.
To your last point: scheduling 6 days is my workaround for letting the system take in account more days. I would take 7 days if I could. What really happens is adjusting my stuff from there at the moment. I’m testing other platforms in parallel to be honest as I’m not quite satisfied on how much thinking and guessing I have to put in.
Also I would love a reply about the naming stuff. Am I another “edge case“ in there?
Ah, I see! It seems like what you are looking for is not just the ability to give available training time and desires per day, but to be able to declare and adjust those dynamically from week to week.
That isn’t a use case we’ve built for, and I’m not sure it’s something we would build for, at least in the near term. We do have plans to update how Plan Builder works, so I’ll pass this feedback on and we’ll keep track of the volume of requests for this functionality.
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