Dynamic Workouts

Feature Requests
1

I would love it if you could add support for “dynamic” workouts, by which i mean workouts where you have more control to modify them while they are in process.

For example, currently, a workout might include a 15 minute warmup. Sometimes that’s more than you need, sometimes it’s too little. I would love to be able to warm up until I am done warming up, however long that takes, and then hit a button to finish it and start the main workout.

Similarly, a workout might have a slow ramp or a series of steps as its warmup, say for example 5 minutes at 150 watts, 5 minutes at 200, 5 minutes at 250. Well, you might find that some days, you need more time at 150. You can reduce the wattage target for using the +/- bias feature, but you are limited to plus or minus 10% and it moves slowly. It would be great to be able to on the fly set your wattage target for the interval in a much larger range. Like a full erg mode.

In interval workouts, some days i want to go out and do intervals until I stop recovering, some times that’s 10 times, sometimes that’s 5. The fact is, the body is a cmplicated machine and you can’t always predict what will be the right thing to do for that day. It would be great to be able to start an indefinite workout, and press a button to cut it off whenever you hit that point.

Finally, rest intervals: some days you are recovered after 4 minutes, sometimes it takes longer, sometimes it’s quicker. It would be great to be able to shorten or extend these intervals.

of course you don’t need to do this for EVERY workout; sometimes, deliberately forcing yourself on a short rest interval is a great way to get a different kind of training stress.

But the option of dynamic, body-guided workouts and warmups, with on the fly modification, would be a great feature.

I understand that you can already skip intervals or cut them short, but then you don’t get the XP, it’s kind of cumbersome, and it doesn’t help you at all if you want to extend an interval.

And as i said above you can use the bias feature to increase or decrease the wattage targets, but the increments are small and the total change is far too limited.

2

I do workouts, but hardly ever (only when there is some type of mission to do one) use the built-in Zwift workouts. I just have a laminated card next to me with the length of the warm-up and the internal times. It is a lot more flexible (like your request, I can do a longer or shorter warm-up) and change the workout up on the fly depending on how I am feeling that day.

3

There’s always that, it’s always an option. I do that sometimes too.

To me, the advantages of using the workout feature are that (i) it takes terrain out of the equation (less of an issue now that we can choose our courses, but still), (ii) it gives you the availability of ERG mode (which is important if you ride a bike like a CX or MTB that has low / dirt-optimized gearing), and (iii) Zwift’s workout feature will automagically import your workouts from TrainingPeaks, if you built them using TP’s workout builder; you’re not limited to Zwift’s prepackaged workouts. Which is pretty cool.

So, i agree with your approach but it’s not a perfect substitute.

1 Like