Slope mode like ERG mode (completed)

Feature Requests Completed
#101

We have a lot of respect for Joe here, but he talks about a lot of different concepts some would almost appear contradictory. Yes as hard as you can with long breaks could just be done in Zwift with no structure but if you want controlled progression it’s harder with really short durations. Not saying it is not valuable just saying less popular. I really like this automated slope mode and short intervals don’t get me wrong but still not popular from what I see.

Here you can see Joe talking about HIIT being more like 120% 4 minute intervals or 30s intervals. I have read all his books some a few times.

#102

Remember with many trainers maxing out at around 500-600w depending on RPM the predictability after 200% for many users would reduce the predictability significantly. i believe your bike is a great machine for this use case.

#103

That may be true. I don’t think it is a good idea to circumvent or limit training plans because some trainers can’t produce enough resistance. It’s only fair to tell riders to consider upgrading if they want to improve.

#104

Your excerpt is about V02 Max intervals and not sprint intervals. Valid and useful but not what I am referring to .

In his books, Joe describes maximum efforts with long recovery intervals to
engage the proper fast twitch muscles and related physiological systems. These should be performed in addition to VO2 Max intervals.

Here’s a good description about why these workouts are important:

None of these workouts are age dependent. But as Joe points out in Fast After 50, several longitudinal studies show that older riders who prefer aerobic over anaerobic workouts have V02Max losses similar to people who don’t exercise.

#105

I don’t want to sound argumentative as I consider this a learning opportunity, and you force me to double check things :slight_smile:

Not sure if you have read fast after 50 lately, I just did a quick skim to make sure I was not missing something but if you remember most of the book focuses on high intensity training, and after many chapters of discussing this he has a section titled “Guidelines for high intensity training” and his first mention there is 3 minute intervals, 1 minute rest.

And here is another title and section with suggested workouts from the book.
Suggested Training Details for High-, Moderate-, and Low-Dose Workouts

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I am not saying he does not suggest all out efforts in the book. I am just saying this is not the primary focus of his suggestions.

Also if you want to increase mitochondria in minimal time look at Blood flow restriction (BFR) that will give you fast results and at lower intensities. I have a BFR device, just for testing… :slight_smile:

But none of this is actually my point. The point is TrainerDay is super small and don’t even have time to get stuff done that lots of people ask for, so trying to do stuff that so far only one person has asked for is not something that we can afford. I was just explaining partially why I believe super short intervals are not popular. If and when they are, I am sure more people will discuss or complain about this issue of >200% intervals. I would like to improve your experience with this.

#106

Alex, Sorry to cause you such grief. Yes, I have read several of Joe’s books, and yes, I understood what I read. As you say, Joe has inconsistencies in his writing - probably because he reuses content from previous books in newer book. In the text for Fast After 50, he dedicates a chapter to maximum workouts at perceived exertion level of 10. It is a shame that he didn’t show these workouts in the appendix that you referenced above.

To justify the need to maximum intensity, you simply need to participate in a few road races. You will be asked to hit maximum effort several times in a race - particularly when you intend to win a sprint. VO2 Max training does not prepare you for this type of effort.

I have done maximum effort sprint training for 35 years. It’s only in the past few years that we could measure them so easily. Previously, we never thought to limit these efforts. The only thing that changed in 2022: we learned to add longer recovery intervals.

All the best.

#107

No grief as I said it’s all just learning. I love this stuff and very passionate about it.
And yes content re-use and changes in view points cause inconsistencies in most of us. I can’t seem to find that chapter but not surprisingly with google I did find him talking about big gear, 8-revolution, 50-70 rpm sprints via google.

Like I said I think indoor sprints are unusual and cool, as you pointed out most outdoor cyclist, especially racers, fast group ride cyclists, and MTB get regular hard sprint efforts. I wonder if zwift racers get these sprint efforts on a regular basis. I would think not unless they are a podium finisher.

#108

Hi Alex.

Really enjoying slope mode and have created a comprehensive chart for my single speed bike of watts at different cadences so that I can set all of my workout intervals etc.

However I do have one slight issue with my set up and wondered if it would be possible for you to adjust something in the app.

My Neo 2 is not totally consistent from day to day and for maybe 10% of my workouts all of the preset slopes will be off by 0.2-0.4% and need to be manually adjusted in the app during the workout.

On such days I need to add the 0.2-0.4 of slope to every interval after it has started which can become challenging with shorter intervals. So would it be possible for the addition & deduction of slope made via the app during the workout to be applied to all subsequent slope settings during that workout on that day? At the moment additions & deductions of slope only apply to that specific interval as I have preset slopes for every step of my workouts and the app defaults to the preset at the start off each interval/step…

Kind regards

Karl

#109

Hi Karl glad you are enjoying it. Can’t you just use + - at the bottom?

#110

Hi Alex.

Thanks for your reply.

Yes that is what I do at the moment.

I guess what I am asking is would it be possible for those + - buttons to apply to the rest of the workout rather than just that particular interval step.

Then slope mode + - modifications would functions like erg mode where for example adding 2% via the + - buttons will increase all subsequent intervals by 2%.

But if it is not possible I will just continue multiple pressing the + button at the start of each interval on days when my Neo is behaving a bit differently.

Many thanks.

Karl

#111

Oh you found a bug, that’s an interesting one. Are you mixing ERG and slope together or only slope? It should affect the entire workout. We will get that fixed if there is a bug.

#112

Hi Alex

My workouts are slope only.

Thanks

Karl

#113

A post was split to a new topic: Bloodflow Restriction (BFR)

#114

Have been experimenting with slope mode, and like the difference in training experience. Two questions (and apologies if I am asking for the obvious): where can I find the general description of how slope mode works? And is there a way to see the slope in the workout player? When importing a TCX from a recent ride, I had some situations where power hardly changed but unexpectedly the slope ramped up a lot, almost knocking me off my rollers. With a visual pre-warning I would have adjusted gears pro-actively.

#115

Oh, nice to see someone using this slope mode like this. We don’t have any indicator but you are 100% right we need one. I just struggled on how to do it visually correctly. It would be nice to have some kind of visual overlay but a simple fix for now would be to do this. When slope is select don’t show the up coming target but show the up coming slope change. It might not be enough of a warning but at least if you are paying attention you would know. I guess it could turn RED if the difference was > 2% change or something.

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I need to create a good video but this blog posts is about as much as I have
https://blog.trainerday.com/smart-slopes-779c74a0c921

Are you asking about how the slope conversion process works or what are you asking about “how slope mode works?”

#116

Thank you Alex, the link is very helpful. Don’t know if it would be possible to add a line in the graph showing the slope? On rollers the phone or iPad is farther away in front of me, and small text boxes are tough to read (yes, getting older, I know).
Few questions:

  • If the ‘slope’ box is left empty but power is provided, that will move the workout to erg-mode, correct? And if slope is provided it will move to slope mode? And linked to this, the ‘type’ column has text fields with no direct (programmed) influence on the workout?
  • How is the sampling done from a TCX file? See mostly one minute intervals, but some are longer. Asking because the TCX file I used had some rolling terrain in it and outdoors the momentum of the bike reduces the impact, but on the rollers going from -1.4% to 2.4% to 1% over three 1 minute intervals has a different impact (I think).
    Thank you, again, Jan
#117

I understand the eyes and my suggestion. You would see a little red dot for a big change would be the only hope :slight_smile:

I think seeing the slope might be strange (see below). Seeing the elevation would be better but it would be hard to show the right scale. Since it would be on top of the chart it could go right over top of the blue part… I would like to do something I just can’t seem to think of the right solution.

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The only way to automatically switch from slope to erg is by typing that in the field. Black slope will not do that (see the blog post reference)

Sampling is pretty much all 1 minute although I think it tries to combine them when possible (almost no change between intervals).

#118

It could be a line showing grade, like the example from RidewithGPS below (left axis/scale is elevation, right is grade). In this case it would be 1 minute discrete steps, but the line would still work as overlay on the existing screen (like HR).
But taking the concept one step further, the system is either in ERG or SLOPE mode. So if the system is in SLOPE mode, why show Watts in the graph? In the ideal world it would show slope just the same way it shows Watts in ERG mode. Gets slightly more complicated when the two modes are combined in one workout, but different color graphs for slope and Watts would make it quite intuitive for the user what is coming next. Copy-pasted a quick example below, blue is ERG and grey is SLOPE.

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#119

I like this conversation. :slight_smile: meaning I am waiting for someone passionate about it to try to help me solve it.

My feeling is a slope without any reference of target and no visual stimulation to inspire you to keep a certain speed seems strange so slopes only I would think is kind of useless, you should have some kind of target power and I think most people would, also as you mentioned we have slopes + ERG.

I understand how rideWithGPS does it or strava and they show a scale but I think to most of our users the power scale and hr scales are much more important, so the only way is without a scale. So with no scale if you climbed an 8% grade for 3 hours vs a 2% grade for 45 minutes. The later you would basically not see any elevation change. So the solution is to scale it based on the ride and the end of the ride is always the top of the elevation scale (very few people won’t do long distance downhill in our app).

But the problem is, as you see below 1% looks exactly like 5% in two different rides making it hard to differentiate.

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without scaling it would look something like this, or even worse…

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#120

I should say another option is we have our interval comments that popup. We could have a setting to automatically let you know about a slope change 10 seconds before it happens for example. That would be another easy one. You can test it yourself by adding some comments to your workouts.