I think @Daniel_Gunnarsson_HE point was that he is missing certain workouts, once you missed the time window you can’t go back and complete that workout and have to move on to the next one which could mean that the intensity is much higher and you aren’t exactly prepared for it.
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The first year on Zwift I did almost only workouts. I never enrolled into a training plan, since the strict time requirements would not work for me. I did the standard Zwift workouts (there are almost 2000 to choose from). I started with the ‘6 weeks beginner FTP builder’ and after that did some other ‘plans’: ‘4 week FTP booster’,‘10-12 wk FTP builder’, some old Zwift Academy plans, PRL ride prep etc. I did all these plans in the time what best suited me. Sometimes I repeated a certain workout and some workouts I skipped. This worked very well for me. Now I do less workouts and enjoy the free rides more. Whenever I feel to do a workout now I pick one of my favorite workouts and do it.
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If you miss one, you miss it. Even if you paused for a week, you still won’t maximize the fitness you could have gained if you did it under the strain of fatigue the plan expects you to perform under week to week. I think it is the difference between choosing individual workouts when you can fit it in as opposed to committing yourself to a virtual coach with all that entails. At least, I would hope that the people who make the various training apps know how to devise a much more productive training plan than someone like myself could credibly make on their own with limited experience in what works best.
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Maybe Zwift can work on a feature that suggests workouts to those who don’t have the time for full fledged training plans, based on past data and future goals to improve certain areas of ones’ cycling. To help make it easy to choose individual workouts whenever one has the time.
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I like this idea! Based on past performance, if your goal is to improve your 5 or 20 minute power or your 15 second sprint, what would be the best plan/workout.
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ZWIFT!!
Please please please improve the flexibility of your training plans!
I often wake up early to do a ride and find that I can’t do it until 11am!!! Or I plan on doing a ride when I get home from work (around 8:30pm) and the ride expired at 6pm!!! This is so frustrating! Consequently, I am missing out on around half of the training plan rides because of the lack of flexibility you offer…I work 12.5hr shifts, combination of days/twilights/nights and with no set pattern so it’s very difficult for me to get the workouts done with the current training plan set up.
Suggestion…release all rides for that week at 00:01 on a Monday and don’t let them all expire until 23:59 on a Sunday. I understand that you want to encourage rest periods…maybe give a 12hr timeout period after each training ride?
Please sort this. I’m considering trying other apps 
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Just adding my voice to this thread. Please listen.
I have time to train right now, but not in 5 hours which is when my next workout unlocks. I’ll still have the same amount of days in the saddle and days off at the end of the week. Yeah it might be suboptimal if I do a workout 5 hours early, but it is better than me not doing the workout at all or me doing an extra workout.
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Just chiming in. If you choose not to offer any extra flexibility can we at least get a little more transparency up front about the time required between workouts in a training plan?
It really may change some decisions about when we choose to complete certain workouts.
I am currently in the Multisport Mixer plan and I had a 1 hour endurance Zone 2 ride and a short interval based run on the books yesterday.
After dinner I check the app and see that my 40/20’s workout for the next morning is already available. I felt pretty good and thought about sneaking it in but decided to stick
to my 5 am schedule.
I do my ride and check the training plan 5 hours after completing my last ride and see the next run/ride for tomorrow is not available for another 25 hours, so I will not have the workouts available to me in the morning on Saturday. My Saturday afternoon/eventing is booked solid
so now I am going to have to miss those workouts. Had I known ahead of time about the time window required to make these workouts available, I would have went ahead and finished the workout the night before.
I’m sure like many others in here, I am juggling work and kids, I cannot just hop on a bike whenever I want. I have small windows of time that I have to manage to make this work.
I love it and I want it to work, just asking for you to help make it work.
Reading through these comments, it seems important enough that you could dedicate some time to improving this system, people are clearly using it and would appreciate the effort.
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They have to start somewhere, just put a pause feature in, then if they want to fancy it up more they can have at it.
Zwift ! I just had an exasperating day due to the inflexibility …I have been away a week, my training plan was set up for a 3 h workout today OR a “free ride” , neither of which I had either time or interest for. (If I wanted to free ride why would I pay for Zwift ?? )) And no other option. So I ditched my plan after 6 weeks and started another one so I could get an interval workout. Total frustration.
Also - why free rides ?? Honestly what is the point ?? Either give me a plan or not. I have been coached in other sports and have NEVER had a coach say …“oh just go do your own thing today” .
I just ran into this issue today - I can’t believe this hasn’t even been acknowledged yet by Zwift. Just open all of the rides on 00:01 on Monday, and close them at 23:59 on Sunday. Simple.
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Some kind soul have recreated all the workouts from the Build Me Up plan. So just do them from here and then tick the ‘I did this’ option in Zwift. It’s a pretty pain free solution to the inflexibility we currently have.
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Hello Zwift, Please listen to your forum contributors!! I am posting here to refresh this thread and ensure it doesn’t get forgotten. The Training plan scheduling was clearly developed to look good “on paper” but is in reality inconvienent and lacking pragmatism. It is in fact the opposite of what Zwift claims to be about, making indoor cycling more fun and entertaining. Please, please, please fix this.
For example, I work every Tuesday through Saturday and my weekend is Sunday and Monday. Requiring plans to start on Monday conflicts with my schedule and they are essentially unusable to me.
Thanks, Andrew
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This is absolutely outrageous that this hasn’t been addressed in TWO YEARS. Learn a lesson from Strava who had users fleeing the platform in droves due to ignoring simple requests like this. I just re-signed up for Zwift after over a year off and was glad to see more and better training plans available. But after missing a ride and finding this issue, I’ll be going back to TrainerRoad.
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@Zwift are you listening?
I echo hundreds of the comments in this thread. My story is pretty similar, loved the idea of training program, found one I was excited about and signed up, Did my first few workouts and then it said my next workout would be available “Wednesday morning”. So I wake up before work to do my 1:10 workout, get all dressed to ride, power up and find that the workout is still locked until 11:30 am, long after I will be at work. And this is all after I already had a forced rest day on Tuesday.
It is absolutely ridiculous to lock the training schedules down to the hour. Please notice that many users are begging for extremely simple functionality, at a minimum allow users to override the suggestion. Its kind of sad that this is being ignored. I wasn’t looking for alternative solutions, but alas reading all of these comments I see there are other training options available outside of Zwift.
If you really want to make Zwift flexible and fun, stop forcing inflexible training requirements. Give your paying users the choice! This whole thing has really made for a poor user experience. Up until now I have had nothing put positive things to say about Zwift, but now I will give pause when people ask me about my Zwift experience.
@ Zwift, are you listening?
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Hey Zwift staff, this thread existing for over a year without reply is an embarrassment of poor customer service and response to your team. I guess net promoter score and customer attraction/retention are not metrics your team cares about. News flash, there are other virtual training options and if you don’t even bother to acknowledge basic requests from your users THEY WILL LEAVE.
Here’s another news flash - you’re not our mothers. Drop the nanny state nonsense and let people follow training plans at whatever pace they want. Triathletes frequently train 2 or more times a day. Busy people travel for work and maybe stack certain events to a day in the week. No one needs or wants you to enforce training plan timing. It’s hard enough to get workouts in around family, jobs and everything else.
This artificial restriction has only one impact, making training plans less useful and less usable.
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Listen I really would give up on this thread – zwift won’t bother with it as they are obsessed with the virtual racing and taking over the world. I left quite a while ago and now enjoy Sufferfest which does what I want and entertains at the same time.
Somehow I am still subscribed to this tread and it is a nice confirmation that I did the right thing. If you are fed up there are many different options if you want to train rather than race in the zwift world.
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I know what you’re saying. I do enjoy Sufferfest and the flexibility as well. And who could complain about the Strength trading and 15 minute Yoga with Abby Carver.
Zwift is unfortunately defining a narrow audience. I have to decided how much it’s worth to have both services. Soon.
I am in week 5 of the build me up Plan and I currently have the flu. So I missed a whole week of training. So I cant pause the plan and therefore I need to stop the plan!
This is so f******* ridiculous and annoying. And I am this stupid and still paying for Zwift although Zwift doesnt seem to care a bit.
LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS!!!
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So, how do I "just do them from here?? I thought maybe this was the solution I needed (even if a little work), but I don’t see how I’d “do them from there”, and don’t see a way to download them to add to custom workouts. Am I missing something?
Thanks for the pointer, it’s great that someone has put them “out there” I just don’t see how I’ll do them without meticulously recreating them in a custom workout.