Hi all, spent all day today working on core performance of LeCoach, so no noteworthy new features but a lot of under the hood fixes in V1.230.
Regarding the missing activities reported above, they were imported to Intervals with Strava as source. Unfortunately Strava restricts Intervals.icu to share activities marked with them as a source to 3rd parties like LeCoach or other ai coaches or services. We explain this on this support article on Strava api restrictions. If you ever encounter missing activities in LeCoach please review that article, connect all your training platforms and devices directly with Intervals, download the data via those channels and then perform a full re-sync with LeCoach again.
Since most people do not actually record via Strava but rather Garmin, Wahoo or Zwift, once everything is connected correctly this does not cause any problems. However we will still investigate if we can integrate with Strava directly to completely bypass this limitation.
Hi thanks for sharing this, I actually like this idea a lot. I’m working on another feature that is really big and something that none of the (ai) training platforms currently offer, this would fit in there perfectly! Will add it to the list. Cant promise timelines cause it will become part of the big new feature.
Im trying to get this platform to work and there is a lot to like here, a major flaw as I see it is to not have lecoach to prompt the user for their zwift ftp, never a question I was prompted for…this means all workouts uploaded are on % ftp which is entirely different if the ftp on both platforms dont match..better would be to integrate to the FTP on Zwift which may not be possible then manual changes make sense
Similarly if there is a ftp change of lecoach then the user should be prompted to update on Zwift
Finally it does appear as if the FTP value is pulled from Intervals.icu rather than from the training stats inside of Lecoach or from any other place, I had to update Zwift Manually, then Intervals manually and then only was the plan actually correct. This appears to be an oversight
LeCoach prescribes workouts as %FTP intentionally so that they always match the platform or device at the time you’re doing the workout. Also, some users intentionally have ftp set a bit lower or higher on Zwift vs outdoors. So if your ftp in zwift is 250 then the workout will do xx% of that. If ftp is set to 240 on your Garmin or Wahoo the target will be xx% of that.
There will never be an FTP change on LeCoach. We receive all our data from Intervals which in turn get it from the platforms and devices you use to record rides. In other words if you do an FTP test in zwift and your ftp increases, then Zwift will update your FTP on their platform. Then since we prescrive xx% FTP targets, the next workout on Zwift will be based on that new FTP. If you want that new FTP to also carry over to Garmin or Wahoo for example you should update it there.
Also this is intentional at this point as we rely on Intervals.icu as the provider of our data. We have no direct integrations with Zwift, Garmin, Wahoo etc but rely on Intervals.icu as a bridge. Maybe at some point will we integrate directly but for now it is Intervals.
Quick update from this side: worked all day today on improving our proactive coaching signals and worked on a weekly plan review as well. Both are currently being tested by a few selected users and expected to be released later this week.
The goal remains the same: try to get as close to a human (but 24/7 accessible) coach as possible. This means,
The core plan in essence has a clear predictable pattern cause i really believe this is better than these fully adaptive but super nervous systems that constantly change things up based on minor signals (small hrv drop, one poorly executed workout etc). So with LeCoach you actually create a real plan that works towards your goals (improvement or race)
At the same we acknowledge that life happens and shifts are needed. So we have implemented signals that detect these occurrences. This could be your recovery data, your workout execution, whether ctl is actually improving, changes in goals etc. What I’m doing now is improve these signals, add more signals and combine them into actual human-like coaching behaviors.
Then, based on this and also your personal preferences, LeCoach will signal this to the user and propose changes where needed.
We strive to balance ‘ease of use’ with ‘control’ where we see that users initially prefer ease of use (tools like join.cc or some of the ai tools here on intervals) but then shift towards control (so the athlete itself does some of the adjusting or at least wants to accept certain changes before ai can execute them).
We want to tailor to both. In our own product support tool users have already given input on this, if anyone here also has input, feel free to let me know!
Thanks for responding Rutger… this makes some sense yet I would imagine that the best platform doing real analytics would be Lecoach… whilst setting external platforms FTP may be something unachievable I wonder if there isnt a notification that could take place by lecoach if there is a perceived change in power… I have asked the AI to do a weekly check and then just prompt me if the chance is higher than 2.5%… this could be baked in
Hi Duncan, actually really like that idea. I’ll try to catch ftp improvements and make that a celebratory message to the user with reminder to update FTP in Zwift etc in order to effectuate the change.
For anyone interested in recovery signals and why one ‘readiness’ score is not equal to the other, I have written a long investigative piece that compares Garmin’s readiness to the LeCoach Recovery Score.
The reason is that i got a virus infection last friday and even though LeCoach flagged it instantly, Garmin kept telling me for 3 sick day’s that I was 100% ready to tackle the toughest workouts.
I’m not saying Garmin’s readiness is bad (well maybe a little bit haha) but just wanted to understand how this is possible, what factors Garmin looks at and how, even when looking at more or less the same factors, completely different readiness outcomes are possible.
For anyone interested: see Garmin Training Readiness vs LeCoach Recovery Score. The article contains all my actual health data logged with my Garmin watch over the course of 4 days and per day, what Garmin had to say about my readiness and what LeCoach said.
Super interesting read. I was totally confused about this behavior so thanks for clarifying.
Btw, I wasn’t aware there was a blog at all. Perhaps good to have that as a menu item in the dropdown under your profile icon just like the “support” button?
Really enjoying this format more and more, how do I get more involved ? I have some key thoughts on helping to improve the platform, below is one
cant you find a way to be more dynamic during the ride, so many recovery is just one long set of the same power
Are you able to see any similar. programs from zwift or others..surely you can be more imaginative
I appreciate the candid feedback. You’re right—monotony is the enemy of motivation, especially when you’re training indoors. My primary focus is on the physiological stimulus (hitting the right zones for the right duration), but I can certainly make the “how” more engaging by breaking up those long blocks with cadence changes, micro-bursts, or “pyramid” structures similar to what you’d see in Zwift’s more dynamic programs (like “The Gorby” or “Emily’s Short Mix”).
Hi Duncan, LeCoach is indeed currently programmed to create relatively simple workouts that target the right stimulus per workout and are executable indoors as well as outdoors instead of trying to make them entertaining as Zwift does. A lot of those Zwift workouts make, from a training perspective, not a lot of sense.
I acknlowedge however that our workouts could get boring on Zwift. There are a couple of ways to get LeCoach to make them more entertaining/dynamic.
When creating a plan under the section ‘workouts you like’ (final step in plan creation i believe) you write that you like workouts that stay interesting and have a lot of variation and limited flat endurance or recovery blocks for example. You could even mention a couple of zwift workouts and i think that LeCoach will be able to more or less replicate them. Similarly under ‘workouts you dislike’ you can write what you don’t like.
However I acknlowledge that your plan was already created. What you could then do is activate plan edit chat and tell lecoach which workouts you don’t like and ask him to keep their intention but make them more entertaining by for example splitting endurance sections in intensity or add cadence drills.
Finally, after your earlier input we have improved the instructions to LeCoach for deload weeks. In the past it would sometimes create deload weeks with just boring flat recovery rides, now it is instructed to reduce load of the week but keep intensity. So when creating a new plan you should see less of these flat weeks.
Regarding ‘how interesting’ to make the workouts, we’ve received a lot of positive comments from users that our workouts are simple and very focused and intentional. However, if more people would want to have the option for more interesting workouts i can imagine we would add a setting where you can select this.
Thanks Rutger, interesting perspective, I have to be honest and say that I have given Trainnerroad AI a trial as well as one other. The thing that stood out for me has been the dynamic nature of the training sessions especially TR with their text prompting on Zwift, part motivation, part logic and part science. It definitely was the highlight of TR and made the pain of a hard indoor set noticeably bearable.
Personally I find an AI coach best suited to indoor sets whereas outdoor becomes very challenging to be able to follow a plan especially as the terrain will never match the planned session.
It may well be a ‘horses for courses’ situation yet I am surprised that others gravitate toward simplicity when I feel that a 60 minute constant power session becomes a huge monotonous grind. Not making a call either way however im sure you get my sentiment and YES the biggest advantage of Lecoach is that I can try and prompt it for more varied workouts and I will see how this pans out going forward.
I sleep using Fitbit. I get no sleep score in “analytics” page, but I get all other wellness data. Anything I can do to get sleep score into Intervals/LeCoach?
LeCoach gets all our data from Intervals so if it’s not there it also not in LeCoach, but if you send me a direct message with the email address you used to sign up for LeCoach I will check what’s already there.
Assuming your sleep is also not in Intervals yet, the first priority would be for you to get that data to Intervals. I’m not a fitbit user myself but maybe you can get it to Intervals via the Google Health connection on Intervals.icu . If that does not work I would search the Intervals forum, there are some articles about Fitbit.
jumping on here just to say, I am LOVING this app!
I’ve been using it for about a week so far, its reading data from my Garmin watch, tracking my efforts through myWoosh and providing feedback and session tweaks as it sees what other exercise load I am doing through the week. So far, its been really good.
Based on my experience so far, I plan to subscribe to the annual plan.
