Zwift Academy Workout #1

True, but I feel like being surrounded by other people is better than being by yourself.

I see what you’re saying, it was a little annoying to be putting out 400 watts and going 17 mph

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@Federico_Cribiore

FTP in Zwift is also average of one hour. Zwift use the 20 minute method to calculate your FTP by using 95% of your average 20 minute power.

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Great 1st WO. It’s what I needed to get motivated again after a long time being lazy :slight_smile: Where do you see your progress dashboard? My ride hung while saving and is on Strava but not Zwiftpower. I can see Mandy’s Dashboard via the sign up e-Mail, but no purple Z to show I completed WO#1. I’ve raised a support ticket but just in case someone else can help :slight_smile:

Oops sorry, wrong gender group!

I did WO 1 from the workout selection rather than an event. Will I still get credit for doing this as part of the academy or do I need to do it again :frowning:

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I would love the answer to this. When you log back in, do you have credit for the workout in the “challenge / academy” part of the home screen.

I would much rather do these workouts on my own. I really hated the elastic blob effect and I don’t like how much it limited my overall distance for the workout.

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In previous years we could do them from the workout menu and it counted.

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I did this and got credit. I don’t enjoy the rubber banding of the group workouts so do them all individually :man_shrugging:

Also worth mentioning that cadence targets don’t count towards achieving stars, only the power levels. You could have “spin faster” (or slower) flashing for the entire effort and still get the star.

But if you do want to match cadence targets, the easiest way is to ignore the power, match your cadence to the target and let ERG mode deal with setting the power to match you. Really short blocks it’s sometimes not feasible.

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Is it just me or was anyone else cooked by the time they got to the 8 minute effort? I was way below my FTP for the 8 mins. I think it was the high cadence targets in the lead up to the final effort that did me in.

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Me too. Doing it before breakfast probably didn’t help. But I have less than zero chance of getting a pro contract anyway, so I just did what I felt I could.
Having said that, the intro text said that they were aiming to deplete one set of effort (an/aerobic? I can’t remember!) and that that effort could provide 10-25% of your usual FTP… today’s result would be about 17% down on my “normal” Zwift FTP, so I guess maybe they’re right, that’s smack in the middle of the range… but it’s all pretty irrelevant to me, I just ride on :wink: :smiley:

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I also could not get past the last 90% interval. My legs didn’t hurt good. They were in pain. I’ve come to realize that there are some riders that cannot ride at these levels, should not participate in a pro contract level program, and I’m one of them. :man_shrugging:t4:

It was definitely tough. Workout 2 was way easier.

It was definitely tough and I was pretty cooked by the 8minute effort. My FTP ended up being the same as before oddly enough but I had to do a sprint at the end to get a few last watts.

One of the tougher workouts I have experienced on Zwift for sure.

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Agree; I was hoping to at least match my FTP on the final 8 minutes, but was almost 5% short (I was too knackered to see what my final average was). My Zwift FTP did not change though; I wondered if this WO was going to impact it. I also had trouble keeping my cadence @100 on the high power sections; my heart rate rose too high (for my age), so I lowered the cadence and concentrated on maintaining the power. However, I got full credit for completing the WO, so I guess I’ll just do my best to follow the instructions, but won’t sweat it if my cadence drops.

Pro contract? I’m just here for the discomfort. I guess I was on the extreme end of the cooked scale at about 25% below FTP.

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The text during the workout said getting cooked before the 8 minutes was the plan. Burn off your anerobic strength so you are left to your aerobic capacity only. It was a hard 8 minutes, I was only able to perform slightly above what zwift says is my ftp

I found it tough too but had a hard week with IRL and Zwift rides. I did it on the last couple of days of this training block so was pretty fatigued. As a punishment for finding it hard i did AdZ the next day to really finish my legs off!!

I got a week of easy riding now so no workouts planned. Then i’ll be trying to fit in ZA with WTRL Tuesday night races and some IRL stuff. The next few weeks is going to be interesting.

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Count me as another person who’s not going to do the group workouts. If I put some power down, I expect my avatar to move… if I stop pedaling, I expect my avatar to slow down/stop. Group workouts break this fundamental rule.

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What kind of %of FTP should one have expected during the 8min free-ride? I completely missed the text during the workout while toweling and drinking. I was at 113%, but some folks are talking about not hitting their FTP - or do they mean a different number that was calculated and shown on screen? I’m taking the interval average power from the workout.

I managed to hold 108% of my FTP. Perhaps foolishly I’d done a ramp FTP test 14hrs before Workout 1 and was slightly surprised when I started the workout that it included the 8mins all out effort. Spent the whole workout dreading the 8 mins and regretting both the prior FTP test and the fact I was fasting! I am quite pleased to have survived at 108% now that it’s done. Was surprised the workout didn’t give any notification of what the new FTP was.