Hello,
I have a question regarding the focus and structure of my training sessions, as I’m not entirely sure how to create and work with my plan properly.
My main goal is running, which I enjoy supplementing with other activities based on how I feel – mostly cycling and rowing.
Currently, I don’t have any races planned, but I’d like to stay fit and continue improving. I’ve chosen duathlon as my main plan in Athletica, with the idea that on days when I don’t want to bike, I’ll use the Workout Wizard to replace those sessions with rowing.
What surprised me, though, is that the rowing workouts have nearly the same duration as the bike ones. For example, instead of a prescribed “Aerobic development” bike session of 1:10:00, the wizard only offers me a rowing session titled “Steady 10’/5’ interval row” with a total time of 1:15:00. That doesn’t seem equivalent in training load, as rowing engages significantly more muscle groups than cycling.
Is this expected behavior? Should I manually shorten the rowing duration, or does Athletica account for the difference in modalities in another way?
Hi @Lurk ,
I went on your profile and noted that your critical rowing power was absent so I entered that for you in alignment with your rowing critical power (Charts). Note that the Wizard in the case you mention tries to find a similar load as the mode you switched from except specific to your switched modality. So I can see you have an SE session coming up and Wizard shows a related rowing session done SE style in tab ‘modality’. Hopefully the adjusted critical power number might assist (give it 12 hours).
Thanks for the info. I looked into the changes after the adjustment and I’m starting to think I might not be able to use the Workout Wizard Modality the way I originally intended.
For tomorrow, the AI generated a 2:00:00 Bike AER session. If I want to replace it with a rowing session, it suggests 2:20:00, which feels a bit excessive to me.
I’d appreciate any advice on how to approach training planning in Athletica. When I created my plan, I gave the AI a lot of freedom – I only specified the sport and my experience level. I expected it to build a plan based on my training history, and that I’d just follow it.
But now I’m not so sure. When I try to modify the plan using the Workout Wizard – for example, by replacing a run with a rowing or cycling session – it seems like my training history isn’t taken into account. For instance, I was given a 2-hour bike ride. If I try to replace it with rowing, I get a 2:20:00 session – which I’ve never done before and would likely leave me exhausted for several days. Similarly, replacing a 2-hour bike ride with a run results in something like a steady 84-minute run, which is longer than anything I’ve done in the past year.
To be clear, I’m not looking to add other disciplines as cross-training – I’m just hoping to occasionally substitute a session (e.g. a run) with another sport using the Wizard, based on how I feel or what I have access to that day.
I enjoy variety, but I want the plan to reflect my actual capabilities. Ideally, I’d like to focus mainly on running, and use cycling and rowing as substitutes when needed. I’ve considered using the triathlon plan and replacing swim sessions with rowing, and occasionally swapping bike workouts for runs or rows depending on the day. But maybe it would be better to just stick with a run-focused plan and adjust as I go?
My ideal setup would look like:
3x running
2x cycling
2x rowing
optional extra session (depending on the week)
Any thoughts or suggestions would be really appreciated!
Hello,
You’d be probably happier with the triathlon plan. As it has great variety and if changing swims to rowing , you’ll definitely avoid those long sessions on the rower.
Swopping two hour bike will give you a long anykind of session as the purpose of the session was aerobic development (going long).
Thanks for your reply!
Starting next week, I’ll try switching to a triathlon plan and see how it works for me.
I have one more question:
When the Workout Wizard gives me a long replacement in a different discipline, is there a way to shorten it?
I’ve noticed that it’s possible to shorten the original workout, but when selecting an alternative discipline, there only seems to be one fixed duration, based on the session it’s replacing.
Is that correct, or am I missing something? Thank you
I tried the suggested approach, but I’m not sure everything worked as expected. I had a planned 2:04:00 bike workout, which I shortened to 1:04:00 just to see how the system would handle it. The workout was then marked as “Added by you” and the “Workout Wizard” option disappeared — I assume that’s expected behavior.
After that, I changed the duration back to 2:04:00.
But what surprised me is that the training load changed — originally, the 2:04:00 session showed a load of 100, but after adjusting it back, it now shows a load of 76.
I didn’t change the intensity and the duration is the same, so I’m wondering: why would the load be different?
Also, is there a way to revert back to the original AI-generated workout if I make changes — as if I hadn’t edited anything at all?
Yes, you lose workout wizard when you change the details of a workout. Imagine the amount of calculations needed if everyone changed their one detail in their workout and then expected to have multiple alternatives of workout wizard in their fingertips instantly?
Let me see if I understand this correctly. You original bike 2:04 load was 100. Then you changed it shorter duration. And finally back to 2:04 as if original. But this time load stayed at 76.
Not sure I am certain why the load didn’t change back to 100. I assume you did not change intensity zones at all.
I am sorry I don’t have a good answer. If you do this again, could you screen record so we can report with back end team?
Yes, that’s exactly what I meant.
I ran another test with an activity where I first changed the duration from 50 minutes to 30 minutes. Then I changed it back from 30 minutes to 50 minutes without making any other modifications.
However, the calculated training load was different — originally it was 40, but now it’s showing 34.
Unfortunately, I’m unable to upload the .mp4 video file…
