ATHLETICA vs HUMANGO vs TRIDOT

General
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Hi guys, what do you think are the advantages and weaknesses of the three Apps (if any of you have used them and can compare them)

For me

ATHLETICS (my favorite :grin:)more “simple, essential, intuitive “ ; a coherent and most economical program

HUMANGO more like ATHLETICA (More expensive for the same service); with a sometimes ‘fallacious’ Ai; More Pleasant and Intuitive Appearance

Tridot I think it’s the only one without an Ai but it’s a pure algorithm I think … se non ho capito bene è “Data driven” That is, it calculates and adapts a plan that apparently cannot be changed and modified from time to time

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First off, I respect this is an Athletica forum. So I truly respect Athletica’s transparency but understand if they wish to remove this post. I have tried all 3, have most recently been with Tridot for the past year, but most likely am switching to athletica for the reasons below. I provide some personal + and -

Tridot:
-Touted by many past professionals as “amazing what they are doing” cutting edge
-Big marketing including Ironman partnership
-Allows some customization of S/B/R frequency and Long days
-Provides visual and numerical workout “compliance” post workout
-Tests every 4 weeks (more frequent if desired)
-Has race prediction for planning (+)
-Easy uploads to Garmin and now Zwift. (+)
-No release of proprietary science behind the program (- - -)
-Expensive compared to others for the same level of information/support and
-seems to rapidly be falling behind
-both app and website, app is clunky comparatively

Humango:
-Professional endorsement
-Marketing including Challenge Family partnership
-Allows full customization of availability (minimum times, maximum times, days of the week, sports available and allows for a weekly shift without restarting normal availability (+ +)
-Full graphics of data assessed (pulls everything that is seen on Garmin Connect) (+)
-Testing as desired, not needed ((+)
-Has race prediction for planning
-Easy synch with multiple platforms (not zwift)
-No release of proprietary science behind the program(- -) they do discuss in blogs
-Hugo is your coach using a ChatGPT like support process to answer questions
-Well priced for what you get
-simple app and website

Athletica:
-SCIENCE (+ + +)
-Full disclosure of principles and science behind the program (+ + +)
-Limited ability to customize other than deleting or moving days of workouts and low/medium/high volume
-Does have a workout Wizard to pick a similar effort workout in the same sport of lesser or greater time with same total effort (+)
-Testing at the start of a planned period or as desired
-Identifies new thresholds from data
-Quantitative workout via AI feedback with with percentages of compliance, output comparison with HR and PE data AND chat gpt (Best of all three +)
-No race prediction/planning although graphs can be used to calculate
-Very good price point for what you get
-No app, but website functions well on computer or phone

2Peaks, Triq and others are out there too, but I don’t believe they are keeping pace with those above.

I like the full disclosure and science behind Athletica, the ease and customization of Humango. I believe Tridot needs to catch up fast and watch their pricing. Good thing is increased competition means improve or die for all…getting a sense of science based and AI function, I believe Athletics has the others beat.

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You have fully centered my impressions!

If I had to recommend to my wife an app to train I would say HUMANGO (more “friendly”) but if I had to do it for an amateur friend who wants to train Scientificamebte and evolve as a self-athlete by training and understanding the process I would say ATHLETICA!

I will be back on ATHLETICA to date!

If I had to advise a ‘Impallinato’ who thinks about social media I would say ‘TriDot’ even if in my opinion in the last year he has lost many subscribers and the cost is exaggerated!

In Europe, coaches cost an average of 20/30€ per month so no one would pay more than 20€ for an App…

Price - Science - Essentiality is the weapon of ATHLETICA

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I’ve used all three, along with Mottiv, and TrainerRoad.

@Dazza has done a good job of summarizing most of the pros and cons, TriDot also syncs with Form goggles now as well btw.

Look, in the end, you are putting your trust in an algorithm/AI, which, especially in the case of AI, quite often even the programmers don’t know exactly what is happening. LLM models are literally a black box that no one really knows what is going on inside of.

But Athletica is the only one that explains the science behind it’s choices.

TriDot “adaptations” I am convinced, after using for over 6 months before coming to Athletica, are either so minimal it’s hard to notice, or just plain lies. You are never, ever, told what adapted.

Don’t even get me started on their touted Physiogenomix (you upload your genetic test from something like Ancestry.com and it’s supposed to adapt accordingly). I did that as well, it made … zero difference to the training plans and just seemed like a big gimmick.

I do like that TriDot (supposedly), use weather/heat data from sessions, and I think sleep data as well, for their planning (not that you would ever know, cause they never tell you what changes). I wish Athletica would do that as well.

TriDot is slick looking, and did a good job from getting me from 0% to 50% of where I wanted to be, but after that, it seemed to be content on keeping me at mediocre for way too long, even when I moved to their high volume plan. And again, zero explanation of the science.

Humango (which I used before TriDot), had potential. Hugo, it’s AI robot was laughably bad and pretty much useless. It did have some nice features, but I just continually hit bugs with it over and over again. Now granted, Athletica has its fair share of bugs still as well, but the response time is far better and way more transparent.

Their interface looks “ok”, but is clunky and overcrowded I found.

Motivv isn’t a bad choice for beginners, not a lot of smarts, but solid enough. It is essentially developed by one main developer, but I did like it’s nutrition advice for each session. Would love to see that brought into Athletica. Never felt like it was advanced enough though once I moved to higher training loads.

TrainerRoad is still way too cycling focussed to be of real benefit to Triathletes. There are some similarities between it and Athletica with its adaptations and it’s red light/green light system (essentially like Athletica’s warning triangles on sessions), and it’s interface is no doubt slicker at the moment, but it doesn’t adapt swims, nor do red light/green light on those, and doesn’t push out to Garmin for some things.

If you listen to their podcast with the founders, you’ll realize they have no intention of focussing on Triathlon anytime soon either.

In the end, my view on all the platforms, is to use the AI smarts for adaptation suggestions, but use my own brain in the end for final decisions. But to do that, you need to know WHY the adaption was made based on what foundation, and that is where Athletica wins by far.

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Wow grandissimo!! I believe that the biggest limit of TriDot is the exaggerated cost and the fact that it does not have an Ai and does not adapt well to subsequent workouts

The major Pro of ATHLETICA SIA that with the choice of AI you can combine your feelings and “vants” without upsetting the plan!

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Pretty well summed up above, my simple thoughts are, Athletica explains the science and philosophy, as well as having easy access to the people how design and run it, truely valuable.

Humango, fine, seemed aimed at a less techy audience, but the workouts were overly complicated, for I’m not sure any great benifit, compared to Athletica’s.

Cheers, Andre

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What means LLM model?

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In my opinion ATHLETICA does not need to complicate itself with sleep or HRV … it can do it as extra data but so it is fine because it combines science with their plan to use as a “guide” and then it leaves it to you to decide whether to lengthen shorten or skip a session if you are not 100%

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Large Language Model … it’s the tech behind things like ChatGPT, Gemini (from Google), Grok (from X) etc, and is what is commonly referred to as AI these days.

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For me, an adaptive training platform should adapt to your physiological markers combined with objective training data, and subjective user feedback. If I haven’t slept more than 4 hrs a night for a week due to work commitments, this opens me up to a higher chance of injury, and a much lower capacity to push at, and above, threshold, and so, for me, the training load should adapt accordingly.

But, that’s just me being an old fart worried about getting injured and wishing he still slept like he did in his 20’s.

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I was on tridot before Athletica. Coming from various coaches I do not think they are very expensive. However Athletica is a lot cheaper making it easier to enter.

I liked the tridot interface, the gamification, the Stryd and Zwift integration and the support. However I got injured and could not run. Tridot kept on telling me to run long runs every week. So I concluded the AI is not really there. I contacted support and they told me to adjust the trainings myself. So no AI in my opinion, just marketing nonsense.

Athletica has AI and I just love the option to change workouts with the wizard. Other then that there is some room for improvement in UI and some other areas but I know they are working hard on that.

No experience with Humango
On top of that the training seemed about the same most of the time. Only changes I saw was power adjustments when temperature was high.

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Of course! On this HUMANGO it is better in fact to warn you immediately if you want a day off (but I believe that at ATHLETICA they are working on it) I also believe that they must work on the fact that they can choose a period in which NOT train because they are injured or choose which activities they can do so that they can leave gradually without risking injuries. However, you know you have slept little so with Workout wizard you can safely decrease the intensity of the

Workout (it would be the only thing to

Being able to do)

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TriDot is Data driven like TrainerRoad… just a simple algorithm … they say it’s not to injure you in reality they are limited

ATHLETICA combines Ai with your feelings and it’s great…unfortunately I have a HUMANGO subscription (I did 50% discount in December 2023…) but I’ll switch to ATHLETICA …the price is really competitive!!

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A very special but interesting forum! While reading I felt like I was reading a benchmark report, research, or software engineering discussion. :smiley:

I am happy to know that I came straight to Athletica 2.5 months ago and everything has gone super duper so far. I love the hybrid of science and AI.

I’ve strictly followed the ATHLETICA plan, except that I do the strengthening sessions with a personal trainer and I’ve also made my own decisions based on my physiological markers/mood (reducing intensity or just deleting sessions). In the end, I ran 1 half marathon in July and I’m doing another one this weekend, so that’s a good indicator of progress.

Let’s see how the year ends, I already had my main triathlon in March but I’m thinking of doing another one. It will be interesting to see how I do with ATHLETICA in this discipline.

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Blockquote @AdamJowett
“But Athletica is the only one that explains the science behind it’s choices.”

^ This exactly. I did the free 2 months on TriDot and it was so non-transparent and the FB / forums were just super cult-y. “Trust the process” echoed everywhere, while it wasn’t responding to my input and injuries. Not to mention the app is clunky and confusing and a PITA.

Came to Athletica, and just ONE week in went “this is it!”

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TriDot in Nazi
HUMANGO Is the handsome and playful big brother of ATHLETICA :joy: