Hi everyone,
I’m a TrainingPeaks long term user and I decided to try an experiment and fully replace it with Intervals.icu from last October - in everything I used it for.
After 3 months I’m quite happy with the switch, maybe the only thing I miss a bit is the mobile app, it’s quite handy although feature limited.
Did anyone made the same switch? What do you miss the most?
Thanks!
Riccardo
TrainingPeaks has and continues to be a great free archiving service.
Versus iPhone/Intervals, in the TP mobile app it is easy to select intervals or (imprecisely) create an interval. Personally I find zooming in with Intervals on iPhone to be rather clunky unless I first scroll to bottom and click Analyze > Lock Intervals.
But overall for quick post-workout review, I’ve come to prefer Intervals. Here is why in 3 screenshots:
At a glance it looks like I followed the plan for those two workouts (except for the extra time).
Again, visually it looks like I followed the plan. Would prefer to see the plan’s power range - 75-85% for tempo in this workout - but the red line at mid-range (80%) is good enough.
This is where I run into annoyances, zooming in on mobile using “pinch and spread apart the thumb and forefinger” (is there another way?):
Annoyances:
But overall its far superior to “at a glance” look at a workout versus TrainingPeaks Mobile.
LAPTOP view of power+targets in TP of the workout above:
TP Mobile view, power only and decreasing smoothing:
Other considerations. Sync to WKO5. All of my coaches past and present use it to assign workouts. I’m currently doing BaseCamp and even the strength workouts are on TrainingPeaks, and TP did a good job with strength workouts. For example the BaseCamp coach made videos of most exercises, so you can review the video before doing the exercise.
Bottom line. TrainingPeaks free is a great data archiving tool. For better graphing and analytics I prefer to do some analysis in WKO5. For quick review on my phone after a workout, while I’m still in the garage, Intervals is great with some UX annoyances - somebody help me if there is a better way to zoom on mobile!
Wow, nice review, thank you!!!
FWIW a couple screenshots of TP strength workout player:
Reviewing on laptop:
and player on iPhone / TP Mobile:
My understanding is that TP has a clear vision of “make life easier for coaches & athletes” and we should expect to see improvements to TrainingPeaks.
In addition to the new strength workouts, another example of moving forward with TP’s vision is TrainingPeaks Virtual, I’ve used that for some indoor workouts, instead of paying for Zwift. I really like TP Virtual for indoor workouts.
Yes, I agree. But, aside from the costs of the 2 platforms, in my experience TrainingPeaks lacks those “never stay without” features that convince me to stick with it. In reality, developments in the last 10 years have been quite small for TP…
Thank you!
TrainingPeaks free does a lot.
Your hints are quite interesting indeed.
Do you think the paid version of TP brings a lot in respect to the free one?
Thanks!
What a paid-TP subscription offers, currently:
Annual Training Plan (ATP)
Obviously not available in the free version, this facilitates advanced planning, even though things don’t always go to plan and adjustments are required.
The good news is that David has this on his plans, which will introduce a way to plan the load per weeks. I don’t know the details, but I have shared my file so he has a base to work off.
TP Virtual
Currently free to use until March 2025, this is included in the TP subscription. Significantly cheaper than Zwift, which only offers the training and workouts.
Intervals has other (free) applications that it integrates with, but not all offer racing, if that’s what is needed.
What I use the free version for:
As mentioned already above, I use TP to feed WKO5, and also most of my older athletes that are linked too. All activities are downloaded to the HDD under a WKO sub-folder, so there is a “local” and a “web-based” file stored at no cost.
Redundancy checkbox ticked.
One thing I’ve noticed is that the basic (subjective) metrics from HRV4training no longer syncs unless on the Pro version (that’s a HRV4Training issue, not TP). So this function in TP becomes manual, if required, which means this previously good feature is not as good now.
deviation.
After each workout is upload/synced from a linked device/app, a pop-up message shows. I can complete the relevant feedback, eg. RPE, feel and comments. Planned workout details also show, and can be edited, in the event there’s a change in life plans. Along with the TP2Intervals app on the Mac, I can upload my (structured) planned workout for the day. If it’s unstructured, eg. a free ride outside, I’ll add the planned duration and load for the compliance comparison.
Nice remarks, thank you!
Thanks for chiming in!
My version of paid subscription:
I’ve used free to apply a paid plan and then if needed, rearrange workouts on the day of but its a hassle (freemium model, so that is by design). I have rides/swims/hikes/etc going back over 10 years, and appreciate the archiving. Really simple to generate a yearly archive and download to a computer. Earlier this week I realized Intervals failed to import a month of workouts from January 2018, so I simply clicked Import and navigated to the 2018 archive folder on my hard drive and problem solved in 5 minutes.
Personally I don’t view it as either / or, as I’ll continue to use TP free. I might drop TP paid at this years or next years renewal, that I purchased last year at a deep discount. If I do JoinBaseCamp Winter Group Training next year, they include premium subscription for the 20 weeks of BaseCamp.
Occasionally TP offer a trial period, which is when I would’ve also created an advanced plan, but with the TP2Intervals link, it’s more convenient to manage everything in Intervals.
I’ve got history as far back as April 2009, on TP, with some data missing compared to Strava and Garmin.
Yeah my plan is to export TP paid plans soon, and let premium lapse.
I actually prefer the TP Workout builder and libraries. Plan builder works in premium and free. But you temporarily lose libraries while on free - but still have paid plans.
On the couch after dinner and want to tweak something? Editing text on phone using Intervals is easier than going to get computer.
Lots of tradeoffs but overall Intervals is far easier to review completed workouts at a glance. So day to day, along with WKO5 for superior graphing and advanced analytics.
I primarily use TP for training plans, 80/20 and others. I re-use them.
I’ve used both TP Premium and ICU. I’ve always preferred ICU for 99% of things and have completely moved away from TP. I pay for ICU now just to show support etc.
I find ICU to be a lot more user friendly and easier to navigate and dive into things.
The training plans and ATP are a nice plus for TP but I brought all my plans over (manually) to ICU and haven’t looked back.
Just in case you have smth left in TP, you can migrate plans automatically 
Undoubtably stay with it! TrainingPeaks Virtual racing is way too fun to miss out on!
I used TP long ago and got frustrated at the lack of new features for the very high price. So I ditched my subscription and went with Today’s Plan around 2018, which was great for ~5 years and never looked back. It provided all the analytics I was wanting from TP and a lot more, plus fully configurable charts, all in the browser, synced, portable, no desktop app. Also had a native iOS app.
Meanwhile, ICU was starting to get really built out – and thankfully, because come Nov 2023, Today’s Plan announced it was shutting down. That’s when I checked out ICU again and wow had it come a long way. I moved over and now I wish I would’ve moved over sooner! I don’t know how @david does it, but the app continues to evolve and just keeps getting better IMO. And for my casual mobile needs, it works great as a mobile web app too!
I was also a long time TP user, I got tired of their poor customer service and zero responses to suggestions for feature enhancements, not even an acknowledgement of receipt. Their rate of feature enhancements in my opinion was pitiful and the platform was getting a bit dated as a result. I switched to intervals.icu about 3 years ago and have zero regrets. David is a whizz and very responsive to feature enhancement requests, I’ve seen the platform advance more in a few months than my entire time on TP.
Did use TP for 7 years while had a Tri Coach, do not miss anything to be fair. It was completely stagnated in new features for 5 years, they only started to work again in anything nice in the last year. But it is still years behind intervals.icu analysis, the way we see data, how you can customize tabs and so on.
The time has finally arrived… I didn’t renew my TrainingPeaks premium subscription, and paid for intervals.icu instead. Since the majority of my riding is in Zwift, and I’m a Strava h8r, the recent integration was a major reason for that decision. I started with TrainingPeaks in 2004 when I was working with a coach. Now I’m a completely unserious athlete, but I do like an app to help me know if I am working hard enough or ready to do some thing and intervals.icu provides that very well. TrainingPeaks seems moribund for a long time and I like the energy going into intervals.icu development.
