Unlock Your Potential: Personalized Training Plans with FitPlanConnect! 🏃🚴‍♂️🏊‍♂️

[fandacious]

3 hours ago, bleedToWin said:

Feedback on the summary:
 

• A nice little breakdown.
• Average speed of 25.6 reported, but the slowest ride was done at 27.2
• It reports elevation gain, so is taking that into account somehow, but IDT rides (for me) have no elevation. Not sure how much this will affect things.

Feedback on the programme:

• Day 1 - 2h z2
  Strange to recommend this coming off of a rest day and 2 days 90min z2 in the last 3 days.
• Day 2 - 3min intervals with 1:1 work to rest ratio.
  A good session for sure, but doesn't specify number of repeats. It says to do until the end of the ride meaning only 3min of cool-down and probably too many repeats. Workout is specified as 40km with 10min warm-up.
• Day 3 - 1h recovery ride
  Not what I would have went for, but not terrible. Big problem though is that this is Saturday and I have time to train, so what a waste!
• Day 4 - 50km hilly route doing hills hard.
  Not a very specific specification and the execution (in real time and post analysis) is not very measurable. Not a good session. Two days after doing VO2max intervals, eish I would not perform well... Also, it's Sunday I have more time than this!
• Day 5 - 70km tempo
  Hell no. Adding fatigue the day after hills with very little training stimulus. Also now you throw a longer session my way now that it's a work day?
• Day 6 - 80km endurance
  Longest ride of the 7 days. Hard to fit in on a Tuesday. It's also not long enough to get me into long ride benefits. My data (which the algorithm didn't look far enough back to see) indicates I need to cross the 4h mark.
• Day 7 - 40km recovery ride
  Mate, I came into this 7-day programme with 2 days training logged, you need to schedule a day off!

General feedback: 

• I assumed Day 1 is tomorrow since I already did a ride today, but the programme should specify when to start (or if you haven't done a ride today ask to confirm if you want to start today or tomorrow).
• It needs to schedule at least one rest day per week.
• It should space out intensity days more.
• It should be calendar aware and use weekends wisely.
• A rider with power data should be given power targets for intervals.
• It should require me to input training hours available and/or look further back to see how much I actually train. It prescribed 20% less than my regular active week training volume.

 

Honestly, this might sound overly critical, but it violated quite a few basic fundamental training principles. A universally applicable one sentence piece of advice would lead to 95% of people self selecting better sessions to fill out a week.

Thanks for this detailed feedback.  I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this

We're aware most people work on a weekly training schedule. However, as we only generate 7 days of training a time, it gets difficult to start on a specific day if the user is generating a plan on Wednesday.

for transparency I'm posting your entire program here (also I note that it did ask for more strava activities. For the record - if you regenerate that training plan it will pull your 10 latest activities)

my replies in bold

your goal: I want to be a top level competitive road cyclist

 

Based on the provided data, let's analyze your current fitness level and activity trends before generating a training plan for your goal of becoming a top-level competitive road cyclist.

**Fitness Level and Activity Trends:**
- You have a total of 5 recorded activities in your Strava data.
- The activities include rides with distances ranging from 35.6 km to 96.6 km.
- The longest ride was 96.6 km, and the shortest ride was 35.6 km.
- The average distance of your rides is approximately 62.6 km.
- The rides have varying durations, with the longest ride lasting 11,966 seconds (approximately 3 hours and 19 minutes) and the shortest ride lasting 4,714 seconds (approximately 1 hour and 18 minutes).
- Your rides have different levels of elevation gain, ranging from 0 meters to 963 meters.
- The average elevation gain of your rides is approximately 418 meters.
- Your rides have different levels of intensity, as indicated by the suffer scores, which range from 15 to 143.
- The average suffer score of your rides is approximately 49.4.
- Your rides have an average speed of approximately 25.6 km/h.
This is the avg across all your rides incl stops. Although I'd agree this is probably not really relevant
- Your rides have an average power output ranging from 193 watts to 263 watts.
- Your rides have an average heart rate ranging from 116.8 bpm to 140.2 bpm.

**Feasibility of Goal:**
Based on your current activity data, it seems that you have a good foundation for pursuing your goal of becoming a top-level competitive road cyclist. However, it's important to note that the provided data is limited to only 5 activities, and it would be beneficial to have a more extensive history of your training to accurately assess your readiness for such a goal.

**Training Plan for the Next 7 Days:**
Here is a training plan for the next 7 days to help you progress towards your goal:

Day 1: 
- Workout: Endurance Ride
- Distance: 60 km
- Pace: Maintain a steady pace that allows you to comfortably hold a conversation.
- Heart Rate Zones: Spend the majority of the ride in Zone 2 (115-152 bpm).

For the record, the bulk of your training should be z2. Lots of cyclist (and runners) think "I need to train hard to go faster". While speed work _is_ important, 75-85% of your volume should be slow rides.

Day 2: 
- Workout: Interval Training
- Distance: 40 km
- Pace: Warm up for 10 minutes, then alternate between 3 minutes of high-intensity effort and 3 minutes of recovery. Repeat this cycle for the duration of the ride.
- Heart Rate Zones: During the high-intensity efforts, aim to reach Zone 4 (170-189 bpm). During the recovery periods, drop back down to Zone 2.

It's easier to just ask the user to do 1:1 3min high intensity intervals during the duration of the 40k ride. 

Day 3: 
- Workout: Active Recovery
- Distance: 30 km
- Pace: Ride at a very easy pace, focusing on recovery and allowing your body to rest.
- Heart Rate Zones: Keep your heart rate in Zone 1 (0-115 bpm).

You'd definitely want a day of active recovery if you did your intervals properly

Day 4: 
- Workout: Hill Repeats
- Distance: 50 km
- Pace: Find a hilly route and perform multiple hill repeats. Push hard on the climbs and recover on the descents.
- Heart Rate Zones: During the climbs, aim to reach Zone 4. During the descents, drop back down to Zone 2.

I agree that it would be nice if it knew you had more time on a Sunday. But again, this is just a suggestion. No-one is going to punish you if you ride a bit longer

Day 5: 
- Workout: Tempo Ride
- Distance: 70 km
- Pace: Ride at a steady pace that is challenging but sustainable for the duration of the ride.
- Heart Rate Zones: Aim to spend the majority of the ride in Zone 3 (152-170 bpm).

Z3 isn't balls to the wall. its slightly above conversational pace. If you want to be a top level athlete, some sessions are going to be hard

Day 6: 
- Workout: Long Endurance Ride
- Distance: 80 km
- Pace: Maintain a steady pace that is slightly challenging but allows you to comfortably complete the distance.
- Heart Rate Zones: Spend the majority of the ride in Zone 2.
Z2 is basically "have a chat with your mates while riding slowly". This should be easy to do

Day 7: 
- Workout: Recovery Ride
- Distance: 40 km
- Pace: Ride at a very easy pace, focusing on recovery and allowing your body to rest.
- Heart Rate Zones: Keep your heart rate in Zone 1.

Z1 is almost freewheeling. Again - you should easily be able to do this

Please note that this training plan is based on the limited data provided and may need to be adjusted as you progress. It's important to listen to your body and make modifications as needed to prevent overtraining and injury.

Good luck with your training, and remember to enjoy the process of becoming a top-level competitive road cyclist!

[bleedToWin]

Yeah, with a little common sense I can tweak the output into something sensible. Do the intervals immediately because I'm fresh and that allows me more time to recover for the hills, replace the one recovery ride with zone 2, replace the zone 3 with more zone 2, do hill repeats instead of "ride hard on the hills", do a proper long ride, replace the other recovery ride with a rest day...

Things is, if someone said "do VO2max intervals early in the week, hill repeats later in the week, all other rides zone 2 with a long ride on Sunday" I could also use a little common sense and end up with something sensible...

Either way. It's a good project, and it could very well grow into something powerful that empowers more people on their fitness journeys, so good on you! 💪

[fandacious]

@bleedToWin We've updated the app to pull a total of 10 activities from garmin/strava. Also, we now take the days of week into account with a bias towards longer rides on weekends

 

Please can you regenerate your training plan and let me know how it looks

[bleedToWin]

Been giving further feedback in DMs and iterating through some plans. Algorithm is spitting out some decent training structure. 👏

[Frosty]

1 hour ago, bleedToWin said:

Been giving further feedback in DMs and iterating through some plans. Algorithm is spitting out some decent training structure. 👏

I haven’t tried too much i.t.o. trying all the variables, but I would expect to give a definitive goal, and then training tailored to the goal. So if it’s short term, or long term, the training would be specific to the time frame provided.

 

 

[Chumi]

The goal is to run a 4h15 marathon on the 4/5 November (undecided on Soweto or Kaapse) and then ride 947 on the 19th.

I'm happy with the generated plan for the week. So far the best integration I've seen of any available resources on the web. For me though it feels heavier on the long rides than runs. I'd have it the other way around. Also as already mentioned here somewhere, I'm already in my 2h30-3h00 long runs, a 1h30 Sunday run will be counterproductive. If it can somehow pick that up from loaded workouts and consider that, that would be great (in my case 10 days' worth of activities would have revealed the last two weekend's LSD) 

Also, I wanted to input dates into the goal after noticing I didn't, I couldn't do that and I couldn't simply create another one as I have reached my limit. 

Other than that, the plan is not far off from what I'm doing. I pay for coaching subscriptions and applications and with some refinements, I wouldn't mind paying for this. 

Also, do I jump to today on the plan or do wait for Monday? Or is Monday simply Day 1 of the plan?

**Training Plan:**

Monday:
- Run: Easy run for 45 minutes at a comfortable pace.
- Recommended pace: 6:30-7:00 min/km.

Tuesday:
- Rest day: Focus on recovery and stretching.

Wednesday:
- Run: Interval training.
- Warm up for 10 minutes, then perform 5 sets of 800-meter intervals at a faster pace.
- Jog or walk for 2 minutes between each interval.
- Cool down with a 10-minute easy jog.
- Total running time: 45 minutes.

Thursday:
- Cycling: Endurance ride for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
- Maintain a steady pace and focus on building endurance.
- Recommended speed: 25-28 km/h.

Friday:
- Rest day: Focus on recovery and stretching.

Saturday:
- Run: Long run for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
- Focus on maintaining a comfortable pace and gradually increasing the distance covered.
- Recommended pace: 6:30-7:00 min/km.

Sunday:
- Cycling: Endurance ride for 2 hours.
- Maintain a steady pace and focus on building endurance.
- Recommended speed: 25-28 km/h.

Monday:
- Run: Easy run for 45 minutes at a comfortable pace.
- Recommended pace: 6:30-7:00 min/km.

[DieselnDust]

On 9/6/2023 at 11:23 AM, fandacious said:

>I know my 5 most recent rides were not representative of my usual training as I've been winding down for saturdays big ride.

sure - and it would pick this up because it knows what your heart rate / power meter ranges are. So it would know that these are easy rides for you

Adding hard rides that you did more than 2 weeks ago have very little bearing on your current training regiment.

 

We spent a few months doing different configurations and this was the best combination in terms of accuracy without needing bucket loads of data.

 

All of that said, we are looking at either making the "number of activities" configurable or just bumping it up to 10 activities over the last 2 weeks

I think you need to spend a bit more time considering the bolded part. Training rides i did a month ago add up my training stress today. I guess what you're wanting to look at is load that has not been completely assimilated to get the subscriber on track immediately at an appropriate load BUT....it needs to look further back to understand where that person is in the training cycle. They could be nearing the end of a macrocyle and about to peak and it will prescribe he wrong workouts because its looking at the data with blinkers on.

Great app btw. I was going through it with a subscriber. It has potential to at least help people get closer to their aspirations

[fandacious]

9 hours ago, DieselnDust said:

I think you need to spend a bit more time considering the bolded part. Training rides i did a month ago add up my training stress today. I guess what you're wanting to look at is load that has not been completely assimilated to get the subscriber on track immediately at an appropriate load BUT....it needs to look further back to understand where that person is in the training cycle. They could be nearing the end of a macrocyle and about to peak and it will prescribe he wrong workouts because its looking at the data with blinkers on.

Great app btw. I was going through it with a subscriber. It has potential to at least help people get closer to their aspirations

Yeah, you're absolutely correct in that TSS/fitness score/etc is calculated over a long period of time,

however, by looking at the last 10 workouts, we're able to infer your level of fitness by comparing the HR during rides to your defined HR zones, as well as power during rides vs defined power zones. This info along with speed, distance, elevation, duration give us enough information to have a very good idea of where you are at. Also, it should be noted that a new training plan is generated every 7 days based on the workouts you've done in the preceding 7 days, so even if you're finishing a block of "ride slowly", it will adapt

[fandacious]

15 hours ago, Chumasande Chumi said:

The goal is to run a 4h15 marathon on the 4/5 November (undecided on Soweto or Kaapse) and then ride 947 on the 19th.

I'm happy with the generated plan for the week. So far the best integration I've seen of any available resources on the web. For me though it feels heavier on the long rides than runs. I'd have it the other way around. Also as already mentioned here somewhere, I'm already in my 2h30-3h00 long runs, a 1h30 Sunday run will be counterproductive. If it can somehow pick that up from loaded workouts and consider that, that would be great (in my case 10 days' worth of activities would have revealed the last two weekend's LSD) 

Also, I wanted to input dates into the goal after noticing I didn't, I couldn't do that and I couldn't simply create another one as I have reached my limit. 

Other than that, the plan is not far off from what I'm doing. I pay for coaching subscriptions and applications and with some refinements, I wouldn't mind paying for this. 

Also, do I jump to today on the plan or do wait for Monday? Or is Monday simply Day 1 of the plan?

**Training Plan:**

Monday:
- Run: Easy run for 45 minutes at a comfortable pace.
- Recommended pace: 6:30-7:00 min/km.

Tuesday:
- Rest day: Focus on recovery and stretching.

Wednesday:
- Run: Interval training.
- Warm up for 10 minutes, then perform 5 sets of 800-meter intervals at a faster pace.
- Jog or walk for 2 minutes between each interval.
- Cool down with a 10-minute easy jog.
- Total running time: 45 minutes.

Thursday:
- Cycling: Endurance ride for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
- Maintain a steady pace and focus on building endurance.
- Recommended speed: 25-28 km/h.

Friday:
- Rest day: Focus on recovery and stretching.

Saturday:
- Run: Long run for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
- Focus on maintaining a comfortable pace and gradually increasing the distance covered.
- Recommended pace: 6:30-7:00 min/km.

Sunday:
- Cycling: Endurance ride for 2 hours.
- Maintain a steady pace and focus on building endurance.
- Recommended speed: 25-28 km/h.

Monday:
- Run: Easy run for 45 minutes at a comfortable pace.
- Recommended pace: 6:30-7:00 min/km.

So yeh - we noticed that sometimes it was starting on 'Monday' instead of tomorrow. We're working on a fix for this.

 

Secondly - you should be able to "edit" your goal (see screenshot). Regardless I've changed your user to have 3 different training plans in a week, so if you wish you can create more

[g-star]

Hi 

How can I delete or edit a training plan on fit plan connect

[fandacious]

@g-star we allow editing a plan once, but after that you have to wait the 7 days before you can edit it again. 

The idea was to explore paid features, but I think for now we're going to allow users to edit plans as much as they want.

 

in the mean time I've given you ability to have multiple training plans

[dexterdent]

This is pretty cool, but without the ability to choose how much time I have available, I would not be able to use it. A function where we can select the timeslots we can ride and the training plans adjust to that would be beneficial.

[fandacious]

On 10/31/2023 at 8:32 AM, dexterdent said:

This is pretty cool, but without the ability to choose how much time I have available, I would not be able to use it. A function where we can select the timeslots we can ride and the training plans adjust to that would be beneficial.

Ah that’s a good point

 

for what it’s worth you can just add “I’m free mornings from 5-8am” in your goal