As long as of them is an endurance ride … sure. 
Intensity three times a week is one time too many for lots of people. There’s plenty of scope for making the two remaining intense workouts each week harder, though. I thought all of the long workouts were relatively comfortable, which was a shame when the short versions were there as an “I’m not feeling it today” fallback option.
But isn’t this what will make the ZA spesial and make people proud to have the Latest ZA jersey?
Also more workouts will show better results and improvements.
Moving the finish line ride to a few days after the last workout would probably do more. Else you may have a great block of training and lower power in the finish line test. Participants need to understand that lower power results in the finish line test doesn’t mean it didn’t work. It would also be good to explain to inexperienced riders what they should be doing in the weeks before the academy in order to get the best results. Overall it seems like a good introduction to the workout system, but as a training plan it may be way off for many riders.
I agree, My thought is the whole ZA is 6 weeks:
Week #1: Baseline rides.
Weeks #2 to #5 Workouts
Week #6: Finishline
I see that I am not the only one that wants to share feedback. There are a few threads doing just that. On this one, I see many of the posts are from those who can compare this year to previous years. I found learning what I missed an additional disappointment to what I experienced as a ZA newbie. Here are my thoughts from the newbie perspective.
FTP test - Talk about a leg toaster and a shocker. My FTP values, in the past, have been set via hard 20 minute efforts in group rides and workouts. That was nothing compared to the test where I got another upper of 10 watts. So, when Sept 12th came around, I wasn’t at my best.
Duration - With sore legs, I looked at the program and sought insight. I’m lucky that my husband is a power training coach to pros, so I probably hear more than most about what’s a good idea and what’s not. He just shook his head when he saw a program that would include a baseline test, 5 out of six high intensity workouts, and a finishing test condensed into 4 weeks. He didn’t want me to do it, but I gave it a go, lowering my long-term expectations and used it as a learning experience. And it was that. Learned about ERG mode training vs non-erg training. And I learned I am strong enough to hurt myself.
Baseline glitches - My first ride set the tone of disappointment. I was one the poor shmucks that eagerly jumped on the trainer for the first Sept 12 baseline ride. Long story short, to this day I never got an email for that ride or the one I did on Sept 16th - in an effort to correct my inaccurate times. This redo was delayed because it hurt the first time and I wanted to be sure that the issues had been resolved. So, I lost a week in the training process. That made the 4 weeks even worse.
Workouts - They were workouts for sure and hubby just grinned when I wanted to puke at the end. He may not have agreed with the 4 week approach but he knew I would get a workout. “If you’re going to do it, do the long versions,” he said. So I did. I wanted the learning experience and got it. However, by the time my legs stop throbbing, I doubt I will see any significant improvements.
Finish line experience - I tried to do it 2 days after workout 6. I was sore and pushed too hard on the first segment. So I stopped and rested until Oct 9th, when I had to do it or live with the incomplete. That’s just not me. It was a painful process. I did what I could do but it wasn’t Sep 16th’s numbers.
Final email - It’s been 24 hours since the finish ride and I haven’t seen an email. I went into the CA to get a screenshot of my numbers at least but the ZA has been removed. I went to the Zwift site and all I see are the unlocks I earned. No numbers. That sucks. Thankfully I have Strava. Sadly, the banded baseline numbers show better times than actually earned.
Ride conflicts - I’m not a racer but I wanted to give it a go. I thought the individual monthly stage races would be a great introduction. Given the start and finish of ZA, I missed out on Sept. And I missed out on doing all the stages for Oct. I agree with others here that the timing of this program in conjunction with other high intensity events was poorly done.
Will I ever do ZA again if it uses the same setup? No. If you bring back the good old days described by others, I might. It sound’s interesting.
Depends … and up to a point. Good training means making your hard days really hard (and your easy days really easy).
Not everyone can (or should) do, say, 5 × 4 minute at 115% of FTP VO2 Max intervals 3 times a week. Not at 54 years old (to pick a random example 
). Same story for 2 × 20 at Threshold, say.
Most people will get better fitness gains from 2 very hard workouts and 2 easy workouts than from 3 or 4 moderate workouts. Partly because of the increased peak training stimulus, but also because of the increased time available for recovery.
I agree not All workouts need to be high intensity, but there need to be more of a challenge.
Definitely. Every time I was able to get off the bike and not curl up in a foetal position, sobbing.
What’s that about!?
In fairness, though, it’s hard to pitch workout levels for a massive population of individuals. 6 months ago there’s no way I’d have been able to do 2 × 20 at threshold. I had to build up by progressing from 3 × 10 to 3 × 12 to 2 × 15 etc, each time getting used to managing the effort for longer, and it took quite a bit longer than a handful of weeks.
I think rather than Short and Long, the two options should be Improver and Hardcore, or something along those lines. The former would likely naturally be of shorter duration, but wouldn’t be just a cut down version of the latter.
Thank you James - great to know that our feedback will be considered 
Echoing what everyone else has said.
This is my 6th Academy, and compared to other years, this just felt like Zwift going through the motions.
Zero community buzz. In previous years, Leah had done a stellar job of encouraging, supporting and entertaining Zwifters. This year felt like the whole Academy was adrift on a big sea, floating with no oars and no Captain.
People’s questions went unanswered and there was zero encouragement from Zwift to get fired up and ride.
The lack of group rides was a massive loss. I’ve made many friends through ZA over the last 5 years. This year people didn’t even speak in workouts.
The workouts themselves - 4 weeks is NOT long enough. It encourages cramming, which is ridiculous. The workouts and on-screen prompts were full of errors, which is pretty shoddy, considering it’s an annual event!
It just felt like a ghost Academy - as if Zwift were simply paying lip service to a previous concept, with the aim being to phase it out completely in the future.
What a shame. Zwift was always about community - and the group rides and a ZA Co-ordinator (Leah) really added to that shared experience. Now it feels like racing the tumbleweed down the road.
Unless there’s a change of direction back to that community vibe, sadly this will be my last ZA.
This was my first ZA and also my first time completing any kind of workout plan in Zwift. I did everything in the time given EXCEPT the finish ride - I was out of town and sick last week and my training days got derailed. For some reason I was convinced today was the last day and was happy to be back in town to be able to do my finishing ride. I’m absolutely crushed that I’ve missed it and there’s no opportunity for makeup rides. I’m sure that the work I’ve done has shown some improvement, and will take what solace I can in knowing I did the work, but it’s so disappointing to not be able to “officially” finish it.
I was also expecting more community out of the experience and have been kind of disappointed where that’s gone as well, especially after reading this thread and seeing that it used to be so much more social. What a bummer all around. 
I’ve cancelled my Zwift subscription because of academy road.
No great loss, I had only started using Zwift in august but the bugs and botched attempt to create artificial scarcity and my lack of attention meant I missed the final ride with no way to complete it in my own time.
The 4 week schedule and drip feeding of sessions meant I actually rode less as a result of doing AR than when I do plans on wahoo/Sufferfest.
Sorry Zwift, but cycling is not my job, I’ll stick with a training plan that I can do on my own schedule.
Welcome to the forum.
Zwift have some good training programs and a awesome community with group rides and races.
For the record you could do all the workoutd for the ZA on your own schedule.
Great! Maybe I will resubscribe in 11 months time when ZA rolls around again Perhaps the UI will be more intuitive then.
I think I just signed up at the wrong moment - Zwift were heavily pushing ZA as the best thing ever but I found it incredibly hard to even find the workouts. I missed one that I’d signed up for because there was no calendar alert or weekly training plan that I could see that would show me what I was doing when.
I missed another one by 1 minute because the app hadn’t refreshed the session list for the current day and when I got it to refresh I couldn’t join the session because it had already started.
The whole experience was made to feel like Zwift’s time was more important than mine, and being locked out of a session for being a few seconds late just comes across as downright customer hostile. I just want to ride my trainer and get fit with friends on the internet!
Feeling like a kid being punished for being late to PE class not so much.
Then it was not your threshold…
Did you do the pro contender workouts as they were certainly challenging?!?
I did not say the workouts was not challenging, but you did not need to do the Pro contender workouts to get the ZA 2022 kit.
What I am getting at is it need to be challenging to get the ZA 2022 kit so people can be proud to earn it.
I’d be in agreement, if we were talking about a vaguely experienced cyclist.
As it happens, I was brand new to cycling and had yet to learn how to express my underlying fitness, such as it was. I had no real clue how to pace an effort and hadn’t built the muscular endurance and mental fortitude to do long efforts at threshold. Those are skills that can be learned and honed.
I’m a little bit further down that road now. A little bit.
This is partly why the likes of Zwift and TrainerRoad get newbies doing ramp tests, I think. The pacing required to do a good 20 minute (or longer!) test is beyond us, and as a result we can end up with iffy FTPs and consequently poorly calibrated training.
Everyone’s mileage varies, though. Apologies to all for the digression
I have completed every Zwift Academy and agree with many of the other posts here that this year’s was a bit disappointing in comparison for all the same reasons that have been expressed already. The first few academies developed such an amazing community of women riders and were so much fun to participate in. They were also much longer with more activities and workouts so I felt like I could make bigger improvements. I was completely new to cycling when I joined the first academy and learned so much from the rider leaders and other cyclists in the group rides.
I did find the rides really challenging this year and appreciated having the long/short options. I also liked having the baseline and finish line rides to measure improvement in my w/kg. I really miss some of the social/community aspects though. Sure there are group workouts, but who has time to socialize during hard intervals? I also know those group rides were where a lot of people who are new to Zwift/ZA/cycling in general could ask questions (in the women-only rides anyways) and get really helpful, supportive answers.
Most of us aren’t trying to contend for a finalist spot and just want to connect with other riders, make some fitness gains and have fun. I hope next year’s academy is designed with some of this feedback in mind.
I love ZA, and join in every year. I missed the social rides, Great idea the choice between short and long workouts. Too bad that i could not finish ZA this year. I Was short on one workout and the finish baseline. For me it was a too busy schedule: mix of going to work, WTRL ZRL racing, recon rides for those races, training rides with the team, recovery rides after race, rest day… Maybe an idea to … not do ZA in the same time period as the WTRL ZRL races but before or after a season round? Just an idea.