Hi,
I would like to start a new rowing plan. I went to create a new plan to train-to-maintain and it asks me to enter my rowing critical power and critical HR. Does the rowing plan not do a test week like it did for me in previous cycling plan? Any suggestions on how to calculate my rowing critical power?
Related question- I have a WaterRower with SmartRow. Are there plans to link SmartRow with Athletica? Right now I use RunGap to sync data to Garmin and it works well, but it would be nice to not have the additional step.
Hi @green-biker ,
Yes - if you start a new plan, it will add a test week so this can be calibrated quickly like the other sport plans. To begin, just add something like 120W or so to get you going and this will be re-calibrated shortly.
With respect to WaterRower, this is the first I’ve heard from them, so no plans yet. If we get more calls for this from the Rowing community then we will for sure consider.
Best,
Paul
Hello, I too use a SmartRow pulley (power meter) device on my Ergatta (WaterRower) as a separate power-reading device from my Ergatta power readings on my erg. SmartRow allows automatic uploads to Strava, so a linked connection of SmartRow read workouts to Athletica is currently possible. It would be convenient to have a direct connection to SmartRow if they would allow it.
I’m currently 15-day trialing Athletica, uploading only my Ergatta-read workouts through my Strava account in addition to tracking my workouts on intervals.icu. Two questions:
Is full functionality of your rowing-based features available during the trail period?
Any thoughts on you providing integration with intervals.icu to allow automatic uploading of your training plan workout to the interval.icu calendar. It is painful to have to manually enter, and daily update, my Athletica workouts into intervals.icu.
Glad you’re enjoying it. Obviously we’ve just launched Rowing so we’ll need to work on these integrations over time. And we will. I’ve just sent a request to SmartRow and hopefully it won’t take them too long to get back to us.
Yes - full functionality is available. What you see there is what you get. That said there is a beta program thread you can find here on the Forum that talks about the features our beta group use (user-time constraints mainly).
I’ve chatted with David at intervals and its not out of the question. Can I ask what the key features you’re using at intervals that are unavailable to you on Athletica?
Best,
Paul
Hard question to answer @Prof Paul as I’m still working my way through Athletica’s features. It’s easier for me to say why I’m trialing Athletica:The personalized dynamic training recommendations.My first impression is the features of intervals.icu are easier to navigate, and their help blog is more robust/developed (to be expected given the “age” differences).
I started out in 2021 using rowsandall.com for tracking/analytics of my erg rowing and rojabo.com for training program recommendations. Despite the fact that rowsandall.com offers fitness/workload tracking/analysis, I transitioned my workout tracking/management to intervals.icu as it provides very robust analytics and easily customized features that can be independently applied across a large number of sports. I’ve also used TrainerDay as a rowing interval workout pacing tool with my SmartRow pulley to row my intervals.icu-designed workouts, as SmartRow’s workout design tool is pretty limited.
On the training side, while rojabo.com is a great tool, find their training recommendations aggressive for me (now a 69 yr Master erg rower) as I age. I feel it has led me to overtraining in 2023, and a string of related injuries. In retrospect, my fitness chart in intervals.icu show that I was overtraining….I just wasn’t schooled well enough at the time to see the potential that I was heading down that road.
Since January (2024) have substituted various self-managed training approaches to replace rojabo.com, following Dr. Skiba on the Power side of the equation and Dr. Seiler on the physiological impact side. Intervals.icu has worked well for me for planning and tracking my workout (weight training, rowing, fitness work, etc.) as it provides the flexibility of using separate ftp, pace and HR profiles for each activity….and whether those activities use a power meter or just HR tracking. What I’m tiring of is self-coaching
That is what has led me to Athletica. I liked the training programs recommended by rojabo.com, so I am hoping the algorithms/intelligence your team has designed into your app will better suit someone who doesn’t tolerate overtraining like I used to, nor recover from it like I once did.
I suggested the potential for a tighter integration with interval.icu because David has designed a great tool that does what it does very well. My hope is Athletica.ai will do the same on the program design side, and I can leverage the best of both.
Thank you for offering that @Firestop. Really great to understand your perspective. Spot on with this comment. We recognize and we’re working to provide a better UX, and we’re aligned with the training philosophies of the experts you mention. Request noted on the intervals.icu and you are not alone with that one. We also weren’t aware of the other businesses you reference so great to see what else is out there in this space.
+1 on the request for Intervals.icu integration @Prof . The features, functionality, analytics and UI experience are currently more mature than Athletica. I’m looking forward to Athletica catching up with Intervals and TrainingPeaks, but for now that integration would be important to me.
Discussing your request further internally RE: intervals.icu. integration.
Can you please be clear around how you would see this operating ideally for you? What do you want to see happening? Are there similar operations out there doing this with intervals?
One integration that would be really nice would auto uploading of the Athletica-planned workouts (I.e., the intervals) into the athlete’s intervals.icu calendar. Currently, I have to manually enter them which is a real pain in the a**….especially since Athletica dynamically updates my planned workouts following each workout I complete. Given this would be pretty server intensive, maybe just upload the next 7-days worth of workouts. An example in reverse is what TrainerDay does…they automatically download the current day and next day workouts from intervals.icu……
Another example with a similar feature is icTrainer (https://ictrainer.com). My understanding is icTrainer auto-downloads planned workouts from intervals.icu and then uploads their observed results back to the intervals.icu calendar. I would only ask that Athletica upload my planned workouts, to include each interval time period, and the Power, Pace, and HR target ranges, from my Athletica training calendar to my intervals.icu calendar…….
Here is their response fyi. Can you give the Strava connection a try?
Hi Paul,
Thank you for your email. Great to e-meet you.
Currently, we are very busy with launching a new product. So, I’m afraid this is not the moment to deepdive into a new integration…
However, we might already have a connection, if we understand correctly. You use information from Garmin and Strava, right? SmartRow already has a direct connection with Strava, is that data usable for you or is it to minimal? It is also possible to import SmartRow data in to Garmin, and we still hope to get an specific API for a direct connection in the future as well.
