Coach jack plans

#1

Hello team.
Thank you for providing a great platform.

I have several questions about “Coach Jack” (CJ) functionality.
First of all I’d like to note, that I’m a time crunced cyclist and have usually 7-8h per week.
I’m trying to get a plan with starting 7h and CJ always provides me a plan with a base period starting from 5h and all base period the time I should spent on bike is lower than 7h and only once the time is higher than 6h so sounds like I should feel that gap by my own. Why it was built like that?
Another thing is the “build” block, when time I should spend on a bike in higher than 8h and many weeks I won’t be able to complete just because I have 10+h on bike. I understand that we need to add more stress in order to progress but can I make that stress from higher intensity and less rest between intervals during the build period?

I’d appreciate adding an option to build a plan for a time crunch cyclist keeping plan more strict when it comes to a time spend on bike. Is it something you can do?

  • take into consideration user input;
  • build growth from higher intensity and lower rest period;
  • giving an option to do more hard days before the rest week (i.e. 3-4 instead of usual 2-3).

And the second question: how do you usually tackle issue like I have? I’m sure that i’m not the first one person who have that issue. Of course, I can try to build my own plan from the scratch

Thanks

#2

Hi, there is a slider for both start weekly hours and intensity. Also a daily hour limit. I will respond in more detail soon.

#3

hmm… please ignore or delete that thread.
I re-opened the web interface and that time it shows a plan correctly (not sure why it was displayed in a wrong way when I tried it before). I set 7h and it is set to 7h (with more growth to 9h) and I found a tickbox “Auto-adjust and locked to base” which solves my issue with spent time during build period

#4

Cool!!! :slight_smile: Yes the options are a bit overwhelming at first but then once you understand what is there, most people can get what they want / need.

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#5

workouts are a bit confusing…
I created a plan, choose “base” blck, then choose “custom” block type. then just for testing purposes I started trying different workout and I found a thing which I do not really understand.

I set intensity to 10 out of 10.

I tried a threshold:

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and… I will be in the threshold for about 4m in total towards to the end the spent will be closer to 8m and 13m in z3. is it a proper threshold training?

I tried to do the same for tempo and so the alternates “3-4m 82-84% and 3-4m just below 71-72%”. is it better than classical 4x15,3x20,2x30?

Sorry for asking many questions. Using platform for a year and decided to give it a try with CJ but there is something I do not understand fully the plan building and workouts.

thank you

#6

So the mainstream world would tell you that this is not long enough. Andrea Morelli is retired pro coach and still key advisor to the Trek team. He has used plans and sequences similar to these to get Cadel Evans to win the TFD as well as many other pros great success. Their is a misconception that you need to do super long hard efforts to get fast. Most people do these super hard efforts because they believe they are so important, but the reality is you can do low intensity progressions and due to the progressive nature you will see adaptions. You can start at level #1 like the pros do. Pros think main stream cycling workout intensities are crazy. Now heading outside and doing some max effort intervals are fine, but sustained threshold is un-necessary unless you happen to love it.

Andrea has also coached thousands of non-pros with great success. For many it’s a leap of faith to give up some of that long duration intensity, but really if there is long duration intensity it should be just prior to your main season and would come better from fast group rides outdoors or some warmup races.

For those that can’t take that leap of faith we do have custom blocks workouts. See below. Because they are progressive, the start is easier and it gets harder. Most platforms don’t have logical progressions like this.

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Your questions are good ones :slight_smile:

For the truly crazy guys, you could push 16 weeks to My Plans and then push weeks 8-16 to your calendar, so starting at level 18 :slight_smile:

#7

thanks for reply. Can you consider a request to add “tempo blocks” as it was done for the threshold? Will appreciate it (and possible not only me).

also seems I found an issue with time calculation in the plan.
I checked “indoor long ride” and chose “sunday” and got 5:25 for some reasons. And here answer question: do I see two workouts on Sunday or something else?

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#8

…(only one embedded image allowed in single reply)…
but if I won’t choose any for a long ride then weekly hours will calculated as expected:

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#9

Great suggestion!!! We will add tempo blocks ASAP. Oh maybe this split feature has a bug with super long rides, let me review this.

#10

if you do not mind I have another question about progression in “tempo”.
i built 8 week base plan and included “tempo” workout once per week so I got 8 workouts “tempo_7” … “tempo_13”. also I chose to 3 weeks on and 1 week off.

what I get:
week 1: 20m in z3
week 2: 13m
week 3: 56m
week4: 1:10m (should be a rest week is not it?)
week5: 26m
week6: 12m
week7: 27m
week8: 35m

honestly saying I’m completely confused with the starting TiZ (20m), progression (sudden jump from 20m to 56 and then sudden drop 25 again), adding more TiZ during the rest week (and I’m absolutely sure that it is 3/1 because there is no intensity on Tuesday).

@Alex , could you please shed a bit of light on tempo workout? I read several times what you wrote about “progression” workout and I understand that but I do not really understand how I can get any adaptation doing 12m in z3.

thank you

PS. for “vo2max crunched” the progression more consistent inside a single block. but if I will put “vo2max crunched” into build block then intensity/duration/amount of intervals will be set back to “base, week 1”. why?

PPS. and another question: how I can reduce the intensity of the plan once it was created. let’s say I created with intensity 10 out of 10 did a couple of workout and found them too hard for me. how I can rebuild the a block by setting intensity to 7? is it even possible or should build a new plan from the scratch?

#11

Hi sorry unlike the other sequences the current “Tempo,” is not progressive. We have a new tempo blocks sequence coming out, possibly today or early next week that will be progressive.

To edit just click on edit in coach jack or from the top right hamburger menu in our calendar and it will change them all.

#12

Thank you for replying on a question about temp workout?

What about question related to vo2max workout? I found the same issue with other progression workout like threshold blocks, sweetspot blocks. If I want to continue doing a vo2max through the whole training plan: base+build. there is no reason to reset the intensity/duration/amount of interval at the beginning of each block.

<< question from my prev. comment >>
PS. for “vo2max crunched” the progression more consistent inside a single block. but if I will put “vo2max crunched” into build block then intensity/duration/amount of intervals will be set back to “base, week 1”. why?
<< ----- >>

thanks

#13

So there are multiple ways to get what you want. CJ is crazy adaptable but it might require tweaking to get exactly what you want :slight_smile:

You might want to create multiple plans. Either with

  1. 3 plans that are each single block plans (say three 12 week plans)
  2. Or for example overlapping single day or multi-day plans (One plan could be only your VO2max day) and another could be something else.

But you can get what you want by setting different starting intensities for each block. See below.

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#14

i see… so it does not bump it up automatically. i need to change intensity.
and you explain me how to create “double days” because that was my next question. I did not though about the idea of having many plans and combining them into a single plan based on block/needs/feeling. that is very brilliant idea. loving it!

#15

Just send a plan to your calendar, and send a second plan to your calendar over the same time period. If you are not using our calendar you just need to have 3 plans sent to destination or downloaded and imported. Yes, having separate blocks, and even separate overlapping blocks allows you to create exactly what you want.

So there won’t be a single master plan. I thought it would be cool to add a feature to merge plans into one but you can do it now but it’s just not reusable as a single plan in the future.

You can even send CJ plans to My Plans, and then send specific weeks to our calendar or donwload specific weeks :wink: There is no limit to what you can create.

#16

hello, thanks for bringing a new tempo and redesigning “custom”
i just find the issue with the shown workouts.
In the custom block type choosed hiit, sfr, z2/z3, press “save”, then choose hiit, sfr, sfr and again press “save” and “z2/z3” workout type was still there. I’m able to reproduce it in 90% of cases

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thanks

#17

I just saw that there’s a new CJ Sweet Spot Hard plan and I cannot wait to give this a try after my base++ training!

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#18

Oh thanks we will fix this asap

#19

Hello Alex,

thank you for time you investing into developing that tool and giving user an option to create custom plans which could fit their needs. I’d like to apologize in advance for what I will write below.

heh… honestly saying the CJ plans is a bit disappointing experience.

  1. tempo and tempoblock workouts look almost identical to me with a small differences. looks like there is a list of base workout sessions and they were added with a random order into both workouts with a few of changes with does not make much sense from a bigger perspective. compared to a well developed different vo2max workouts… they are just poor;
  2. no progression for these two tempo workouts. tss and tiz just randomly jumps higher and lower in a single week. pretty zero chance that on the next week you will get a harder workout compared to the previous. on a rest week you can get a harder workout then you had during a week;
  3. some weird issues with “z2/z3 outside with climbs” which pops up everywhere out of nowhere. on the other hand, tried to add this workout but got a threshold instead of it. why?;
  4. “HIIT A” workout more or less fine but the name is misleading while “HIIT B” is something really weird and can get you to a workout with 10s on 30s off
  5. “threshold” workout - tiz in minimal. looks more like tempo with a few threshold efforts. “threshold block” is ok
  6. did not loot as sweet spot since I’m not interested in that

I’m very sorry for this summary/overview but it is hard to build a custom plan for a base period if I want to have: a bit of z5, tempo and endurance (including one sfr)

  • a bit of vo2max (had to choose vo2max instead of hiit since they more well developed) - that is fine. I would prefer to have hiit but vo2max crunched still ok
  • tempo workouts just do not work. ramping up, increasing intensity just does not work because there is no progression;
  • endurance is OK… unless z2/z3 will pop up and mess everything.

i was just thinking maybe instead of all these predefined workouts you can provide an other functionality:

  • user can create a sample workout
  • this workout will be analyzed to get from it: load: intensity + duration, rest: intensity + duration, amount of intervals. Or we can do it even simpler user can provide you just a single interval with desired rest period (it is still could be tricky because of “high start” workouts or “over/under”)
  • you give us a couple of sliders where I can choose how do I see these intervals changed through my training: increasing intensity, increasing duration, reduced rest time, more intervals and so on… to make it flexible.
  • based on workout sample and data from sliders you can a list of workouts with expected progression (possible with included rest week) for a long period of time;
  • having a list of such workouts I can fit them into a plan to get as many plans as I needs. I will be able to re-use created “progression workouts” not only in a base block and in others as well. thanks for plans we have consistency and that is great but personally I find progression a bit odd.

you can name it “coach jane” and support two versions. finally, users will decide what they like to have simple plans with a few of clicks or work on a designing plan which fit their needs.

thanks for considering

#20

I am an my phone so I can’t really respond. It might take me couple days. Just remember I worked with Andrea Morelli on these and he is arguably one of the best Cycling coaches in the world. So to tell anyone that has Coched a TDF winner they don’t know what they are doing is a tall order. I appreciate your feedback and will try to understand better but it’s also possible you might learn something here :slight_smile:

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