Like many of you I’m sure, I have been looking forward to workouts or better yet training plans to be released in zwift. Many of us have been running TrainerRoad, perf pro or other programs with zwift to keep us entertained while suffering through intervals. This works well but lately I have been wondering how the workouts will be incorporated into the game, will it be a bar graph showing the power I need to produce as every other program does it? Or will we see something new?
If any of you have an idea you would like to see implemented for workouts, post it in here. It would be fun to see what we come up with, and who knows maybe it will help inspire the game developers.
I would like to have a vehicle to follow, maybe a team car with the license plate displaying the power I should be producing at each step in the interval. The team car would be streaming my favorite Pandora station which would be loud and clear if I’m on my watts and right on the bumper, but would start to fade if I am faltering on an interval. It would also be nice if I could invite friends to join me on my workout and they could ride with an ftp handicap so we all stay together.
I still think that a pace rider that you can set at whatever you like would work well. It would need to be based on your own weight though.
I am not sure they really need to bother with training plans as there are plenty easilly available online. Some kind of workout creator if they go down that route would be nice.
a workout creator would be a great idea - although zwift should offer some default plans.
In some of the early versions of pre-zwift I noticed there were ‘pain tunnels’ and the like. this kind of thing is a great idea. You shouldn’t be limited by simulations - its supposed to be gamification of training
I am currently following a workout plan from a coach, and would like a general course like a track, where I can do a 30’ or 5" interval, without looking like a d-bag for sprinting past people then recovering (half-way up a hill).
Ability to create your own intervals based on percentage of FTP.
Ability to create intervals based on power
Ability to create intervals based on cadence
Ability to save and recall those created interval sessions.
I would love the pain tunnels for the “on” intervals that have progress bench marks along the way and a where you can see the light as you start approaching the end of the tunnel. I would also like the tunnel to be really weird with maybe some surprises in them from time to time to make you want to come back in again. Think Willy Wonka.
But at a minimum the workouts should be FTP% related and customizable and saveable.
I’m not sure it needs structured workouts - that already exists in many other places (TR & Perf Pro being the main 2), and does not embrace the strengths of Zwift. I’d like to see more time making it as engaging as possible, you then ride at the pace that suits.
Maybe different routes, some city based for variety, some flat and some with big climbs split into official categories. You can then pick the route that suits your training ride goal - a city ride for an active recovery session, a tough hill climb or flat for total control over interval training…
Would be great to see others cadence and % of FTP so you get an idea of effort they are putting in.
Integration with Kinect sensor would be awesome to mimic position on the bike, on hoods, drops or tri-bars and adjust aero resistance accordingly.
Kinect could also be used to look over shoulder and see facial expressions of the people around you on a climb
Having a number of different styles of loops would be good. I find that there is to much temptation to chase and sprint when I should be just doing a simple LSD ride or recovery ride. An easy route to build that could be fun is a loop based upon a NASCAR race like Bristol! Then the folks that want a structured interval session could go there to play.
I agree that there are already some programes that do this pretty well. Maybe if they hooked up with TR and gave some type of combined deal so that people won’t drop one or the other.
I did a workout today on Zwift with TrainerRoad and I did it mixing between ERG and Slope mode. This works great and it really does fly in compared to doing it on TR on it’s own. It is amazing how fast 7-8 minute intervals can pass when this is around a full lap time. It works great with plenty of people on the course.
I am not sure longer laps would work as good though as you might be on your own a lot. I agree though that if you are only using Zwift then a flatter course would make keeping to set power levels a lot easier.
Many good ideas but I’d like to have the Zwift programmers distinguish themselves from the other training software. Just come up with ideas that they feel can be written into their platform. I’m not too interested in copying things I can do in RM1 or TR. Be different is my vote.
I agree. Different would be good as long as it was better. I am pretty happy with using TR and Zwift together so for me it will need to be pretty special to stop me using TR.
I don’t get why some folks don’t think that structured training plans need to be a part of Zwift. At least at some level. I don’t think it has to be limited to either/or. I would think Zwift’s strength would be to appeal to both.
I would also be perfectly fine if the Zwift folks did not add workout but allowed PerfPro (in my case) to control my Kickr while I tooled around the island doing my prescribed workout. But I do think Zwift would lose a good percent of users that follow training plans if they don’t allow for it to work somehow and I’m sure they would lose some percentage of folks that use Trainerroad as they will not want to pay both subscription fees. For me PerfPro is already a sunk cost so it wouldn’t matter.
I also agree that it would be cool if the workouts were different (ex. Pain tunnels) to leverage the strengths of the Zwift platform.
I used TACX for many years and we used to ride a wide range of animated courses on several Islands (Callisto, Olympus etc). We had leagues each with different ride challenges and rounds which could be ridden offline or online, usually there would be one new ride every week or fortnight with 6 - 10 rides per round. They’d be themed eg long rides in winter and shorter rides in summer. Bkool is a bit similar but it doesn’t have animated islands. The drafting was very effective on TACX, I don’t actually find the Zwift drafting particularly strong (I use Wahoo KICKR now). I find the drafting poor on Bkool too compared to my old TACX. Anyhow, I’m wondering if in time (perhaps Zwift Island 2 ?) we’ll see a bigger variety of courses, although if we do live group rides I’ll be interested to see how Zwift deal with the need to decide which turning to take at junctions. In TACX it would work by a rider doing the course in advance (using steering), then uploading the ride for us all to use, however once it became a league ride you’d have to ride it with your steering turned off otherwise your ride would not be validated on the leagues (this prevent people taking cheating by taking short cuts). I haven’t seen any sign of Zwift using live steering and I’m not sure many trainers would have that capacity (my old TACX fortius did but my new KICKR doesn’t).
I’m thinking that it would be a great idea to enable the use of existing TR workouts in Zwift, where you could compete against others doing the same workout. Imagine the Tour of Sufferlandria where you are seeing people competing as you go through each workout. Not sure how you can tie in the sufferfest videos, but could be interesting.
I’m not sure why’d you’d want to recreate the boring interval blocks into a visual environment like Zwift. The advantage of the visual environment is to make use of the terrain for intervals. It essentially replicates a “fartlek” workout you might do outside on your own. Different courses with variable length sprints and climbs seems like a logical way to build in “workouts”.
Even cooler would be to have scheduled “group sessions”, where everyone gets on the same course at the same time and “goes hard” in the same way. Obviously, rogues could go hard during the easy times, but that’s not really that big of a deal. Also, easily avoidable by creating “invite only” workouts. Cooler yet would be the inclusion of proper “races”, categories, leagues, etc.
If you need to do a structured workout, just do what you do on the road: ignore the terrain and other riders (except as a visual distraction) and just do your workout. Or maybe, there can be short lap courses that are amenable to the typical structured interval durations/distances.
Personally, I’d use another service or just watch some video for highly structured workouts. I’d use Zwift to help survive longer indoor workouts and for the social/competition aspects.
Banner to Banner, On/Off’s
-Orange Banner to KOM Banner - ON
-KOM to Orange - OFF
Sprints,
-Sprint for the full KOM segment (Black bear to KOM Banner)
-Sprint for Green Banner, 300 meters
-Sprint for Orange Banner, 300 meters
-rest in between
How about an “AI” personal trainer? An AI who we ride with that is “briefed” on our own personal goals and with our current level of fitness in mind. No need to follow the numbers, just do as the AI does.
