Workout - Holiday Pause

Based on this having 88 votes, and the ‘workout flexibility’ one having 212, this is one of the highest requested features (and also a lot more simple then world switching). Not sure why Zwift seems to be ignoring it

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How long can it take to implement such a simple feature? I‘t really makes the workout plans - wich are quite nice - useless!

Really disappointing!

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Adding another voice to this as we come in to the Thanksgiving holiday. Going away for just 3-4 days means I will lose weeks of training progress and be unable to continue where I left off.

If you want to put a limit on the amount of time you can miss, that’s reasonable. But missing less than a week shouldn’t mean I lose 3x that in progress and have to start over.

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You’re not listening Gerrie. We want to do structured workout plans, that’s why Tacx has added them, but real people have lives, I can’t imagine getting through even a month without having to miss a block of days. Makes no sense not to allow people to pause the plan.

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The plan Gerrie pointed to is a structured workout plan. It just doesn’t force the schedule on you. You do each workout in succession when you’re ready.

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I was just proposing an alternative way to do workouts, as @1506 pointed out.

Well the inevitable happened. I ditched the Build Me Up plan due to missing a few workouts - a huge shame as a few days after missing the few I had 4 days back to back for training.

Even worse those workouts don’t seem to be available apart from in that training plan (asked in another thread but had no response).

Wish I had renewed my TR membership.

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Try the 12 week ftp builder, you can do it on your own schedule.

Just to respond Gerrie, noting is it off topic, that plan doesn’t look right for me. I won’t go into why on this thread.

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Sorry if this is resolved but I can’t read 58 posts.

Is this still under consideration?

I’m a triathlete doing the multi sport mixer this off season but 5 rides a week and 4 runs leaves little the to swim or weight train and unfortunately there aren’t any other great plans for triathlon. A pause would be great so I could fit a swim and a lifting day in somewhere.

For 15 euros a month, one should at least have the freedom to proceed with the workout plans as you desire.

There you have it, please give us a break allready!

More than a year now we have been begging for this feature, with one valid argument in favour after another and dozens of examples of how RL tends to colide with good intentions and training plans every now and then, and … nothing changes, no counter-arguments are offered - it is just maddening. We’re customers, but it feels like you ar deaf for our reasonable requests.

I really feel that compared to alternatives, Zwift is the most fun for me by far. But Workout-plans are an important feature for me, and as I recently found out I, the inability to pause them really make them a no-go, and I will look for other options. For the time being that will be in Zwift, probably importing workouts from the internet.

This all makes Zwift much less valuable for me, than it would be with ability to pause/rewind. But above all it is the stubborness and arrogance from team Zwift that is on display here, that makes me want to look elsewhere.

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I have switched to The Sufferfest in the meanwhile. The social/game aspect of Zwift is fun, but good training plans and having the flexibility to move training sessions around is far more important for me.

Cheers, Charles

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Sorry to read this Charles, but as you can deduce from my reaction, I can certainly relate to your decision to look elsewhere. Cheers!

Every time someone takes a break from a a training plan, they will not be able to maximize the full potential FTP gain one would expect form a given plan. I’m not saying this to disagree with a pause feature per se, rather to remind people that the desire to complete every workout in a training plan in a longer time frame than the plan calls for will dilute the fitness value from a plan. Same thing happens when you are forced to skip workouts when real life gets in the way.

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Would it be a compromise to say that if a rider skipped lets say 5 workouts she would have to take an ftp test before continuing where she left off, with possible adjustment in the load?

And what happens when you’re forced to skip 3 weeks worth of workouts or more, because your smart trainer broke down, and you can’t pause your workout plan? Will this improve the “fitness value” of the plan?

It would be a compromise - a terrible one, for me at least. Thing is, I really like to be treated as an adult. Zwift is treating me like a baby and this would too. What if you had the flu? Start fresh again with a full blown ftp-test?

Or start with some low aerobic activities, then maybe rewind the last 2 weeks of the workout plan, maybe fill in a slightly lower ftp, and continu from there? It might not be perfect, but training plans seldom are when flu interferes.

I doubt you would lose much of your fitness over 5 days off the bike but you definitely wouldn’t gain in fitness. I don’t think a new ftp test after 5 days being busy would be necessary, although she may want to start the plan over or simply do individual workouts until she has the time to fully commit to a plan. Presumably the rider’s FTP is set at what they would like to train towards and not an FTP that they were already comfortable at. For example, I can average a 40km race at my old FTP but I am still training to race at my new FTP which is unattainable for me at the moment. I guess the point is that you have to train under fatigue to make gains and skipping or pausing workouts in a given training plan will not help improve one’s FTP.

Read the last sentence I wrote in the post you replied to.

That’s like saying that Zwift workout plans should suck because real life sucks if I understand you correctly. Off course in real life class goes on if you’re not there, but there’s a reason for that: you’re not the only one following the course. That doesn’t apply here.

Edit: So why settle for the John Doe-treatment, when we could get the Chris Froome-treatment in the wonderfull virtual world of Zwift @AaronGT?

The point is that whether you skip or pause, you will not get the most from a training plan. That’s not the training plan’s fault, or the author of the plan , or zwift. I watched an episode of GTN a little while ago and they said that if you get sick or have to skip a workout then you have no choice but to move on to the next phase of your plan. That is not to say that Zwift plans are perfect but you will not increase your FTP very much under any plan if you are not training under fatigue. If your schedule is making it impossible to do a training plan then perhaps fitting in individual workouts when you can, will help at the very least maintain your fitness until you have the time to commit to a full plan.

I will say that if someone has to extend a 12 week plan to 24 weeks with pausing, and then starts complaining that the plan sucks because they didn’t raise their FTP, they are blaming the wrong culprit.