One Training app to rule them all

1

Hi everyone,
Just a bit of discussion here about the various apps for planning, analysing and implementing training.

I’m a relative newcomer to Intervals.icu and so far like what I’ve seen. I’ve used many other apps in the past including TrainingPeaks, GarminConnect, Strava, Rubitrack, SportsTrack, Zwift, TrainerRoad etc etc. but have never quite found the one app to rule them all.

At the moment I use a combination of:
TrainerRoad for actually implementing indoor (and sometimes outdoor) bike workouts
Strava - for the social aspect and segments
TrainingPeaks for planning and analysis
and I’m trying out Intervals.icu for analysis as I’ve only just come across it.

Data does still also go to GarminConnect (as it is free).

The recent advances in TrainerRoad with the calendar and especially the new plan builder feature has meant that TrainerRoad is rapidly replacing TP when it comes to planning my training. With that in mind, TrainingPeaks is becoming less useful than it was in the past. I’m paying for TrainerRoad for the workouts and indoor training anyway so using that more seems like the way forward. TrainerRoad are also developing things fairly quickly which is exciting whereas TrainingPeaks hasn’t really changed anything significant for years.

That said, Training Peaks does work really well as it is. It is stable, reliable and it still has the best analysis tools. The PMC chart has always been useful, but the charts on Intervals.icu are just as good. Training Peaks is of course more fully featured but it also looks a little dated in comparison to Intervals.icu. and David is actively developing Intervals.icu which just adds to the excitement of using it. TrainingPeaks is also quite expensive and I’m always looking for ways to save money.

I’m wondering if sometime soon a combination of TrainerRoad and Intervals.icu will negate the need for a TP subscription? Unfortunately as things stand, TrainerRoad doesn’t quite have the necessary support for sports such as swimming, running, kayaking etc as it is very much orientated around cycling but things are improving on that front.

It does seem silly to use quite so many tools to plan, record and analyse my training so it would be good to consolidate these to just one or two. I just don’t think I can quite do away with TP yet.

Will there ever be one app to rule them all?

Al.

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I think a lot of people will continue to use several tools. There is always going to be something done a bit better in another tool. Software products need to focus on their niche and be the best in that area.

For Intervals.icu I am focusing on making interesting and useful analytics easy to use and understand. Its a great way for me to find interesting problems to work on and I like building visualisations.

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Thanks for the effort.
I’ve just registered here today and have been playing around a bit.
And I really think that you are doing a great job in visualising otherwise quite complex data.
Keep up the good work!

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Any Kudo Coach users here ? Your opinion ?

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Please share yours. Or were you asking because you’re interested in it?

At first glance, it looks less static than some others and it’s training load based, so I’m not sure if it has any advantages over, say, Xert.

For starters: I don’t see an option to enter a starting load (Xert estimates one, but you can overwrite that) and that means that a plan will be generated from scratch.

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Somewhat interested in it, but I can’t make it run on my device ! Crashes on startup half the time, and a cryptic error on the login screen. There is now a 60 days trial, so I’d like to test it, without the need to use it from the browser on my PC (I need the screen to play with BigRingVR simultaneously) !

PS: hmm, I’ll check if there is a way to run it from the browser… on my mobile…

PS2: hmm, it seems it could… from Firefox it’s not possible to connect with the BT sensors, but it could work with Brave…

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I would be happy to dump TP and just use this tool exclusively if custom zones (power) were possible… I use the 8020 Cycling zones that are available in TP, and the 8020 app on the Garmin headunit… which dont match the standard zones implemented here, Othewise this is a brilliant product!

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I have dumped TP anyway and switched to Xert, dumping Xert end of year, but that’s besides the point :sunglasses:

I just don’t know what to do with this:

kudocoach
kudocoach1892×1036 197 KB

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Did you ask them?

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I’m fairly sure that if you go to ‘Settings’ then click the little pencil above the current zones you can edit the %FTP thresholds for each. It doesn’t look like you can create more zones though. So if the 8020 zone model (never heard of it before now) has the same number of zones then you can just adjust the numbers in ICU to match.

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On intervals.icu yes, but not on kudo.coach…

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Custom zones have been much requested and are high up on the todo list. Currently you have to have 7 zones and can’t rename them but you can make the power ranges whatever you like.

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I had some trouble with Safari and switched to Chrome and it seems to be better there.

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Ahh I see. I didn’t scroll far enough up to see the whole context!

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Great, thanks… If the %FTP is editable that will work for me.

For anyone interested, the 80/20 cycling zone calculator can be found here -

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Scroll…

You have a summary/planning of your current week, click on each day and you have suggestions for your workout.

PS: what are your reasons to dump Xert ?

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I tried with Brave and had a warning about the web Bluetooth API not being enabled (similar problem with Firefox). So unable to connect the sensors and HT. I will see if Chrome does a better job (as well as Vivaldi, as I read somewhere that if was enabled on the mobile version, but not on the desktop…)

Edit: the API is enabled and working in Vivaldi ! :+1:

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Yeah, I get that, but it’s assuming a TL of 220 for a weekly target. I’m a wee bit higher than that…

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You can adjust your week TL by clicking the button on the top-right.

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Probably. Already too many things to look for and manually adjust.

It may be cheaper than Xert, definitely cheaper than others, but I guess I’m done trying.

Just curious, as you brought it up, but I should stop doing things like that :sunglasses: