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. Iâm 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 youâre forced to skip 3 weeks worth of workouts or more, because your smart trainer broke down, and you canât pause your workout plan? Will this improve the âfitness valueâ 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 wouldnât gain in fitness. I donât 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 riderâs 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 oneâs FTP.
Read the last sentence I wrote in the post you replied to.
Thatâs 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 youâre not there, but thereâs a reason for that: youâre not the only one following the course. That doesnât 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. Thatâs not the training planâs 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 didnât raise their FTP, they are blaming the wrong culprit.
Thatâs fine Fez, but I shouldnât have to take the same stupid zone benchmarking, pedalling drills and âpre workoutsâ every time I miss a couple of days and feel like I should restart. The point of this is that we are paying for this, so should be able to pause it. No where in the plans do they indicate how much fitness you should gain, so how do you expect people to be disappointed?
I couldnât agree more. I think it is silly to blame plans. If a plan is not working for you it is time to move on to plan B. But sometimes you have to adapt a plan. And I think it is silly to not have that possibillity.
Specifically for the purposes of this conversation the problem would be pausing the plan simply to do each workout in the order they come up.
So this thread has been going for 2 years and still no reply from Zwift on this? Iâm away for work at least one week per month, it sucks that I lose a week of the plan every time. I donât get why we canât just have access to them without signing up in the first place, itâs virtual, not like they would have issues with too many people signing up for the same program!
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Hey zwift listen youâre goddamn community.
This feature should be easy to implement. Really enjoying the training plan, but going away (on an active holiday) shortly, and would like to pick up - really donât want to start again or leapfrog ahead. Should apply for sickness and injury too (every gym I know of offered a pause for illness). Please Zwift devs, this is a good one for the users and community!
+1 to this
I was sick this week for 2 days, on week 11/12 of Build Me Up and have 1 calendar day to fit in 2 x 2 hr sessions because they become unavailable on Monday. It would be great to pause or select a prior week and carry on the training from there.
Iâm in the middle of a 12 week Training and have to go away for 10 days. Donât want to lose all hard work, want to to finish the train without doing it all over again. +1 for this feature.
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2ish years since initial request and still nothing?! This issue has just passed me off for the 3rd time in as many months. It honestly diminishes my motivation when I miss a session due to no fault of my own. How hard can it be to remove the time limit. Or perhaps when time is getting low, have an add more time button?? Come on zwift. Summer is coming in the southern hemisphere and you are running the risk of me just taking my bike of the trainer and cancelling my sub. The trainer tracking is basically my entire zwift use case and when I miss stars I get angry 
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I am with everyone else on this. It is the most annoying thing that I cannot do a workout that I missed. In addition, why do I have to wait a few days for the next one to be available. I know I am crunched for time next week. Tomorrow I have nothing scheduled, but my next work out is only available Monday - which I may have to try and squeeze in or miss.
This functionality has to be the absolute worst part of Zwift
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Same here⌠Got sick and had to start over again