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I feel the same way. I’m a relatively “simple” person. I just want to do something for my fitness and don’t have any real athletic goals in terms of events or anything like that. That’s why the science behind the apps isn’t super important to me.
I’ve also tried a few other apps like Zwift, Join, and Rouvy. But I just don’t find them motivating.
Storylines, music that fits the workout, or just Mike Cotty with his “hop-hop-hop”… That’s why I’ve stuck with Systm, despite all the problems the app has.
I just hope that at some point, features like a proper calendar function with things like blocking certain days will be added.
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SYSTM’s consistency will keep me — relevant training plans, engaging and fresh story content, and an accessible user interface. My enhancements over the five years of use have improved my fitness. This past year, it was weight training. As a 57-year-old, cycling has been a primary source of fitness. I want to adapt again this upcoming year by incorporating some swimming, particularly in the winter, a mobility routine, and using Level mode on the indoor trainer.
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I am also a month into my TrainerRoad journey as pairing it with Zwift and completing the workouts there, and am enjoying it. I REALLY like how they organize the workouts and that it is easy to switch workouts on the day of if–for instance–you find you don’t have as much time as expected you can find an alternate that has the same goals but is shorter (often longer workouts seem to have significant sections of zone 2 between the working intevals). Their difficulty scale is lovely and easy to understand, going from Recovery to Breakthrough. Based on their scale, most Sufferfest workouts would be Breakthrough or at least “Stretch” if it’s a strength. It seems a lot of the lower zone workouts also include various drills and advice–Friday I ended up doing one which had single hand drills–which led me to realize I tend to put more weight on my left, which is probably why I have had some numbness issues with that hand.
I appreciate that during setup, you can adjust your working weeks on the whole (rather than having to move around every single workout; how many workouts, how many of those are hard ones, and how long each session on each day is. And that you can go anywhere from Conservative to Aggressive on training approach. I do wish they had the option for 2/1 mesocycles instead of only 3/1.
I plan to continue with it…hopefully making some gains towards my goals.
It shouldn’t be…I couldn’t get into the SYSTM yoga workouts partly because of that. Give some of the youtubers like Yoga with Adrienne or Charlie Follows a try…both are much more engaging. And not done in an all grey warehouse…
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Yeah, have replaced the systm yoga with free YouTube yoga by Mady Morrison (auf Deutsch) and it’s more varied and interesting. Just gotta remember to schedule it in my calendar myself.
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I’ll jump in here with a Strength training plan alternative. I ended up using Gemini (paid Google AI) and told it specifically:
- I ride bikes, mostly gravel
- I’m mid 40s and female
- Make me a plan to fit around this lifestyle and these time constraints following Stacy Sims principles for older women
- This is the equipment in my home gym.
It came up with an epic 7 day training plan that:
- Includes 3+ days if strength training that fully utilises my gym gear and meets my requirements
- allows for 3 days of bike training
- Allows for the addition of bike commuting
- Fits in my Fri morning group ride
- One rest day.
I feel rested enough on this plan. I’m progressing to be SO much stronger in the gym and back to hitting PBs. Despite almost no bike kms this year I seem to be maintaining fitness. The best part, just like a coach, I give it feedback and it gives me weights progressions, adjusts things if I’m sick etc. I’m pretty impressed. I choose my own bike workouts at the moment but it tells me what to focus on.
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This might be behind a paywall, but you might be interested in this article:
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I finally figured out the problem (with no help from Technical Support). I need to have more free disk space for the program to operate.
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Yep and I certainly wouldn’t use it for workout ideas. It just says…do endurance or consider sprints. Very high level. I still do the work on the bike workout fronts but it has the gym sessions really good and mapped out so I can fit everything in around life and the inevitable extra rest I need for my life stage
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Fyi/heads up, TrainingPeaks has a 30 day free trial right now.
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Bumping this as I myself have returned from TR for this turbo season. It has features that I wish Wahoo would copy (alternative workout recommendations, adaptive plans), but, irrespective of video footage, the workouts themselves are dull in comparison to what’s available on Systm. The variations in power and cadence targets within intervals and between sets are part of what makes Systm sessions fly past and are non-existent on TR.
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Yeah, I missed the sufferfest content a lot to begin with but then I tried the TR integration in Zwift and it’s so well done, I’m addicted. This on top of all the adaptive workout plans and ai FTP prediction, I don’t think I’ll be returning to Wahoo any time soon. Plus no hooligans 
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Is there something special about the TR integration in Zwift, or are you referring to the standard integration that Systm also has for workouts?
(I agree that for some types of rides, eg inspiration ones, the Zwift option is a good one.)
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Just that it is pretty seamless in both pushing the workouts to Zwift (including when it changes on the fly) and retrieving them to tell when you actually do the workout. Once you get it set up it is even smart enough to deal with activities which were dual recorded (as I do).
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Tbh, I don’t know - TR is the first and only Zwift integration I’ve tried. Credit to sufferfest in that its content was engaging enough that I never bothered trying to run it in Zwift. It was ok finding my own content for TR, but their own workout app on desktop hasn’t seen much love from the developers for a while and is not as good as the Zwift workout UI.
Plus with Zwift I can ride alongside friends and family for the easier recovery rides.
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Fair enough. I never tried this as I don’t find the idea of Zwift compelling in the slightest (plus two subs to pay for) but I know I’m in the minority on that one!
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I will stick to Wahoo Systm. I find the training plans really well thought out and they do work. TBH I am a little bit amazed that so many people fall for all the overhyped AI marketing.
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