I’ve been playing around this last week with the program during the free trial and I really like the functionality and scientific approach of Athletica.
As a Trainerroad user (found you guys via the TR forum), I do have a couple of questions/features I’m missing before taking the plunge to switch platforms:
In general:
Is it possible to account for time off in the plan? For holidays or really busy weekends in the rest of my life.
Can you change the availability per day? E.g.: I want to train on Mondays (1h30), Wednesdays (1h), Friday (1h30-2h) and the weekends (usually no time constraint). I really liked this feature in TR.
How do you account for a commute in the training plan (I can ride to work 1 or 2 times a week, 1h each way).
More specific to my personal training situation:
My A-race, a 6-day MTB stage race in Italy with 400km and 16000m of climbing (≈250miles, 53.000 ft) is in September. However, I have a big 3-week holiday planned in July in which I’ll be hiking every day, but no cycling. I know this is probably detrimental for the training, but i’m fine with that. However, i do want to be the best version of myself during the race (goal is just to finish strong for myself, not really racing the field).
How would you account for this in Athletica?
Hello Aradell, and welcome to Athletica! I use Athletica myself as a cyclist.
As a coach of athletes using Athletica, I can make some suggestions about how we use the platform.
For time off, you have two choices, just miss the assigned workout or delete it. Either way, Athletica will adjust subsequent workouts.
You can move workouts around as needed using the arrow button. As of now, specifying the times per day is not available, as far as I know.
With commuting, you can keep track of your rides on your device and Athletica will include them as “unplanned” workouts. That’s a great way to put more easy endurance miles in the bank.
With your vacation and race plans (both sound amazing), here’s what I would suggest: keep track of all your hiking as you would your commuting so Athletica knows you’re still doing work. There may be a better way to put a pause on the training platform, but I’m not aware of it. I would just keep the platform moving forward with the workouts you’re doing.
What I would suggest, though, is doing dedicated strength training, like walking lunges, side lunges, pushups, and core work during your trip. Doing the lunges will help build strength for all the climbing in your race. You can do these by simply walking up hill with longer strides into a lunge, if that makes sense. I would add those three times a week, even a short routine daily, just to re-balance your body after all the walking.
Thank you both for the input. I like the idea of keeping the strength work going during the holiday, hadn’t really thought of that.
And yeah @SimpleEnduranceCoach, I’m pretty lucky to do a big holiday and a cool stage race this year!
Good to know the program will still look at the unstructured commutes and take them into account regarding overall training volume.
The beta feature does look exactly like what I was looking for to plan out the week a bit better.
I’ll keep using it this week, and i’ll probably subscribe at the end of my trial!
@Prof how does one get access to the beta program? This is a feature that I would be really useful for me too.
And if I get your attention let me ask you a question:
how do I schedule training to start on a particular date? I’m going to take a couple of weeks “off” to shed some fatigue form SlowTwitch’s 100/100 challenge and I’m starting to plan what I want to do, and I’ve been playing around with Athletica’s plan builder trying different volumes levels or combinations of sports (I just ride, run, and lift) but every plan I check out starts on the following Monday from where I’m generating it.
Is there a way to tell it to start on a specific date? Because there were some plans that I really liked, but I won’t be starting for another 2 weeks, so I had to select “go unscheduled”.
You need only ask and be a subscriber. I see that you are so you have now been added. Please check out this thread for info and feedback on the feature which you are welcome to contribute to.
Congrats on the 100/100. Sounds epic. For your specific date question, indeed this planning/programming option has been requested elsewhere and it is on the dev list. For now, indeed, you’ll need to go ‘unscheduled’. Nevertheless, this shouldn’t prevent you from playing around with the new user-time-constraints feature. You can always miss or delete sessions as needed.