Please allow specifying a custom set of exercise type -> FTP mappings, not just Cycling, RowErg, and SwimErg

We have cycling, RowErg, and SwimErg FTP settings. The obvious remark here, for this slightly odd set, is why do we have SwimErg (surely an exceptionally niche category), yet no SkiErg to go along with the RowErg (I’d hazard to guess that however comparatively few potential C2 SkiErg users there are compared to cyclists with an interest in TrainerDay, they are still at least one order of magnitude higher than SwimErg users). I’d love to be able to use TrainerDay whilst training on my SkiErg.

However, talk of specific machines/devices actually makes limited sense when there is a far bigger picture here.

What TrainerDay represents, and has a unique opportunity to offer, is something that is precisely NOT JUST a cycling power training platform, but in fact a “structured power training workouts for ANY device platform/continuous exercise type that supports power”. Now, of course, cyclists probably represent 90% of that target market, and can feature most prominently in the marketing, but still…

So the addition of a RowErg FTP setting is very welcome. But why stop there.

Instead, and here is the feature request, paying subscribers should have the option to define, say (let’s say 6) custom

name/label → FTP value

mappings, because that is all that they are.

These custom “name → FTP” mappings can be user-assigned its own relevant name (e.g. “Tacx Turbo”, “Wattbike”, “RowErg”, “SkiErg”, “Treadmill”), and particular icon.

Anyway, I have a SkiErg, so as a workaround, I’ll have to use the SwimErg FTP value for my SkiErg. It just seems super odd to me that having taken this additional (very welcome step), that you didn’t carry the concept/idea through, as described above, and then create the FIRST true MULTI-DEVICE/multi-sport integrated power training platform.

Or, at the very very least, having created RowErg, not created SkiErg to match, for all of us Concept2 fanboys/fangirls :slight_smile:

You’re kind of missing a trick here. For almost zero extra development effort, you could also market your platform to all of the Concept2 community, and also things like the whole Crossfit community. The vast majority of the brilliant set of workouts on TrainerDay apply just fine to either a rowing machine or ski machine (or perhaps even something like a Nordic cross trainer or whatever), but clearly, every piece of equipment/machine/activity will need its own individual FTP value.

Garmin are still guilty of this, for some reason they don’t allow you to setup any rowing power zones, meaning all of the power data reported in their workout analysis for rowing activities, etc, is largely worthless, as almost nobody has a rowing power equivalent to their cycling power, if they’ve done even a modest amount of training across both. Rowing FTP is quite a bit lower, and SkiErg FTP is almost certainly lower than RowErg FTP, etc.

Yes, I have had a few people ask for ski-erg. We want to go more down the multi-sport route but are just very small and realize that we need to perfect cycling before optimizing multi-sport. I will think about when we might be able to do it. As you mentioned it’s probably not too hard (at least the simpler parts) but really we should try to do it the right way this time. Doing in the website is one thing but we don’t have clear seperation at this point. Meaning you can have a cycling workout and do it in rowERG mode for example. So we should fully separate the sports first.

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Thanks for the response. I understand what you’re saying but I also think you’re over-complicating at this point :slight_smile: . Further down the line, absolutely have really elegantly siloed/delineated training calendars/filters/nice UI that represents these different sport types and keeps everything beautifully presented for multi-sport. That is a stretch/phase 2 goal. (For reference, I work as a software developer).

But most people do their analysis (if they are so inclined) in TrainingPeaks or intrevals.icu or WKO or Strava, etc., and use TrainerDay for their workout delivery. So at this point, for a “minimum viable solution” to this feature request, it is actually relatively straightforward, since you’ve already implemented 95% of it anyway.

Basically:

  1. Let the categories/mappings be user-defined names (not just fixed to Cycling/RowErg/SkiErg) for sport type to FTP.
  2. Allow there to be more of them (you can restrict this a subscriber feature), not just three.
  3. Simply use the existing toggle/menu dropdown, or, better still, just have a button somewhere that someone jabs to switch between the “exercise type profile”, which flips and icon, and then they can do whatever workout they like, but with that corresponding FTP setting.

I realise there is a little bit more in terms of workouts being correctly mapped at correct type on other platforms, etc., but even if my rowing workout got sync’d elsewhere as a cycling workout (for example), it takes literally a few seconds to alter it on the destination platform.

Even an unpolished first variant would basically offer something nobody else really offers in a convenient manner.

But user defined names does not really work, meaning they ultimately need to align with a sport type in TP, Strava, Garmin and others or else users will end up having problems (can’t sync for example).

So in order for us to add it to the app to execute it needs to be fully supported every where because it is all an integrated system. Additionally the more exceptions to how things work we have the more users get confused and have problems. We are trying to move toward more simple, clear consistent user experiences. So while I appreciate what you are asking for, what we usually find is the farther we dig into it, it might be more complex than it sounds.

I am not saying we won’t do it. It’s just this winter at the very least we are very focused on perfecting our cycling experience. We have way more to get done then we can probably even do before the winter comes to an end.

Yes, I feel the same way. Especially adding SkiERG. As more C2 users focus on power not pace our app becomes more relevant (if we improve if)

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I think you could solve for the user-simplicity by having most of this stuffed/hidden away into an “Advanced Features/Beta/Multisport” section that is disabled by default. So for the 97% (or whatever that % is) of TD users who only ever use your application with their turbo trainer, none of this would be enabled by default and everything would just be bike focused only. So the user-experience for “typical” TD cyclists is unaffected.

Sport type mappings are always an intrinsic problem because, fundamentally, sport type mappings are so poorly catered for by EVERYONE, including the biggest players like Garmin, TP, etc. Basically, if you do something other than running or cycling, things are never well catered for, even today. It is quite suprising it remains this way even after two decades+ of fitness devices/platforms. For example, I have to map SkiErg to XC Ski in TrainingPeaks, for example, which is not ideal. Since I don’t ever get to do actual XC Skiing (I wish!), it isn’t really an issue, but I can imagine a TP user/real XC Ski athlete who actually does get to do real XC Ski training in-season together with sessions on the SkiErg off-season, it’d be kind of annoying for them. Anyway, I digress and mention this purely to illustrate that sport-mappings are just one of those intrinsic “poorly solved for” issues with all sports software, for no particulary good reason. Meanwhile, at an API/logic level, it is just a matter of having the correct “fallback” sports/assignment set when type X does not exist on platform Y. As a software/logic integration issue, it is not particularly difficult to solve/cater for, mostly annoying, as you end up having to maintain a set of per-API/per-service mappings, to ensure that all activities will always sync regardless of the input sport “type”, even if that means the target sport type on platform Y for type X is a default fallback (e.g. “workout”).

The interesting thing is there is an “educational” issue here. For whatever reason, irrespective of the incredible fitness accomplishments and sports specific training knowledge that exists in the rowing/erging community, it does seem that they are behind the curve (compared to the cycling community) in terms of training optimally with power. And as you note, Alex, the C2 community in particularly is becoming more “power” conscious with every year (e.g. EXR Rowing is entirely based around it/rowing FTP. But TrainerDay has a far richer workout library than EXR, so for those of us who care more about workout libraries/training programs versus fancy gaming graphics, TD could/should be the one-erg-training-library-program-to-rule-them-all). Power has a much finer granularity of scaling versus pace, that also remains linear, unlike pace, so that’s the biggest thing.

From a commercial point of view, though this market may start off as “niche”, I think there is a real opportunity to develop it.

Anyway, micro step 1 would be merely adding SkiErg too, that’d please all of us into our C2 family of machines/torture-devices :slight_smile:

Yes, I talked to some guy, I remember his name is Justin T? and was pro rower and coach and active on the C2 or rowing FB pages and he agreed all rowers should train with power.

It’s the dumbest thing ever that C2 started using this +5 seconds or something for intervals. +5 seconds at a 1:30 pace is nothing like +5 seconds on a 2:30 pace…

Yes, since I believe SkiERG would be exactly the same as RowERG, that would be by far the easiest. Runners would like it too but I am sure most would want pace and distance so that is harder or has more room for confusion.

But still my team is so backed up for the next couple months it’s hard to even imagine breathing…

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Indeed, that is absolutely the problem. Power gaps become HUGE once you start going below about 2:00 say. I can imagine that people unaware of this could get very easily discouraged, not realising that, say, increasing from 2:00 to 1:55 is actually a significant jump, and it only gets more severe after that…

As a fellow software developer, I know exactly what you’ll all be feeling :upside_down_face:

I’ll just use SwimErg for SkiErg in meantime. Planning on getting stuck into some TD sessions in about a week’s time (in combination with my existing training program), just been setting up some equipment things in preparation, and using the intervening time mostly to experiment with various options.

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Oh great, looks like you are ready to volunteer. You can add SkiERG :slight_smile:

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Ah, do you mean SkiErg has been added into your development/staging codebase? I don’t see anything on the iOS TrainerDay app yet, I ensured to update it again very recently.

I’d naively thought I could just just connect the SkiErg whilst using the SwimErg profile (for it’s FTP setting), but of course that didn’t work, as it just didn’t detect that variant of the PM5 as a connectable option/trainer at all…

No we have not done anything with SkiERG. I thought like you that it might be working but now I remember someone a while back said it was not. Right now is a crazy busy period so we can’t prioritize making it work. We would need to work with someone that owns one when we do have time. In the spring time when things start to slow down a little we can see if we can’t get it working if you want.