Weirdnesses in workouts synced from trainingpeaks

Bugs and Support
1

I’ve found two weirdnesses in workouts synced from trainingpeaks:

  1. If target cadence is set for the work periods in intervals in trainingpeaks workout, the intervals gets CadenceResting=“65” even though target cadence for the rest periods is not specified in trainingpeaks.
  2. Power levels for warmup/cooldown are way off. For instance, when my trainigpeaks workout says power range for the warmup/cooldown is 60-65% FTP, Zwift workout says:
<Warmup Duration="240.00002" PowerLow="0.52999997" PowerHigh="0.73000002" pace="0"/>
<Cooldown Duration="600" PowerLow="0.73449993" PowerHigh="0.52449995" pace="0"/>

I don’t really care about warmup power range, but starting your “cooldown” at the high end of Z2 is ridiculous IMHO.

2

Sounds like training peaks doesn’t correctly translate to Zwift workout format.

Is your FTP in Zwift and training peaks the same?

3

If it is working it out as a percentage would that make any difference?

4

Not if TP is power based and send power numbers to Zwift.

I don’t use TP but it’s a first thing to check.

5

Yup, but I find it irrelevant because th percent figures don’t match where they should.

6

The percentage figures are incorrect only in wu/cd. I get the correct target %FTP for the other portions of my workout.

7

What does the TP workout look like in the text editor?

8

I tried exporting my test workout to ZWO file from trainingpeaks web site, and it had incorrect power ranges for warmup and cooldown periods, so it’s trainingpeaks’ bug. I’ll contact them.

My test workout looks like (the way I put in their workout editor):
#1 Warmup, 0:05:00, 40-50 %FTP
#2 Warmup, 0:05:00, 50-60 %FTP
#3 Warmup, 0:05:00, 50-70 %FTP
#4 Active, 0:10:00, 70-80 %FTP
#5 Cooldown, 0:05:00, 60-40 %FTP
#6 Cooldown, 0:05:00, 65-55 %FTP

It came out in the exported file:

<workout_file>
	<author>KEN SUGAWARA (via TrainingPeaks)</author>
	<name>Test workout</name>
	<description></description>
	<sportType>bike</sportType>
	<tags/>
	<workout>
		<Warmup Duration="300" PowerHigh="0.55" PowerLow="0.35">
		</Warmup>
		<SteadyState Duration="300" Power="0.55">
		</SteadyState>
		<SteadyState Duration="300" Power="0.6">
		</SteadyState>
		<SteadyState Duration="600" Power="0.75">
		</SteadyState>
		<SteadyState Duration="300" Power="0.5">
		</SteadyState>
		<Cooldown Duration="300" PowerHigh="0.5" PowerLow="0.7">
		</Cooldown>
	</workout>
</workout_file>

In Zwift, it looks like (copied and saved as .zwo file):

<workout_file>
    <author>KEN SUGAWARA (via TrainingPeaks)</author>
    <name>Test workout</name>
    <description></description>
    <sportType>bike</sportType>
    <tags/>
    <workout>
        <Warmup Duration="300" PowerLow="0.34999996" PowerHigh="0.55000001" pace="0"/>
        <SteadyState Duration="300" Power="0.55000001" pace="0"/>
        <SteadyState Duration="300" Power="0.60000002" pace="0"/>
        <SteadyState Duration="600" Power="0.75" pace="0"/>
        <SteadyState Duration="300" Power="0.5" pace="0"/>
        <Cooldown Duration="300" PowerLow="0.70000005" PowerHigh="0.5" pace="0"/>
    </workout>
</workout_file>
1 Like
9

Hi Ken, i’m having the same problem. After you download that file are you able to edit it, save it, and upload it to zwift to then use as your workout file? thanks :slight_smile:

10

Sorry for my delayed reply.

Actually, you can copy your TP workout, edit the copy (you can’t directly edit the synched workout), save it, and then ride/run, all in Zwift game.

Or, alternatively, you can export your workout from TP web site as ZWO file, edit it on your PC with your favorite text or xml editor, and save it in your workout folder so that you can later select it from custom workouts in Zwift. This method is more suited to PC/Mac users, less so to users of other types of devices. The location of workout folder is described here.

I’ve known it before creating this thread, but it feels just tedious to do the above every time I do workout (I do mostly workouts only in Zwift these days).

Hope this helps,

11

I contacted TP for the issue, and turns out that Zwift is responsible for TP to ZWO export feature, I’m told.

And now I understand what is happening in WU/CD periods; because TP workout lacks the ramping up/down features, WU/CD periods take the average power if the WU/CD periods in TP workout is expressed in power range. Then, the TP-to-ZWO converter subtracts or adds fixed 10% point from/to the average. That’s why if the workout dictates my CD is 60-65% FTP, it will start at 72.5% FTP and ends at 52.5% FTP in Zwift. If WU is 55-65%, it will start at 50% (average-10) and ends at 70% (average+10).

I can’t speak for others but I don’t think I’m the only one who feels 72.5% FTP is too high for CD esp. after exhausting high intensity intervals.

Is it possible to change the converter so that, WU/CD periods start/end at the upper and lower ends of them if their target powers are expressed in power ranges in TP workouts, instead of adding/subtracting the fixed amount from the mean target? Or maybe reduce the fixed amount from 10 to 5?

In terms of Classic Coggan Power Zones, only Level 2 has 20% range (55-75%FTP), but anything higher has only 15% range (L3: 75-90, L4: 90-105, L5: 105-120, L6: >120) so subtracting and adding 10% points would almost always change zones somewhere inbetween. It might work for WUs, but for CDs? I don’t know.

FWIW, I currently work around this issue by manually editing every one of TP workouts in my training plan to replace WU/CD periods with fixed power work periods. That’s a lot of work for 12-wk training plan, and I’d appreciate it if I didn’t have to do this.

12

Ken thanks :slight_smile: