Lack of adaptive training makes me switch from SYSTM

1

I just wanted to share that I’ve decided to leave the SYSTM platform.

As we approach 2025, I think it’s fair to say that the lack of adaptive training is becoming a significant limitation. The main issue for me is that the training plans don’t adapt if you miss a session or decide to ride outdoors instead of indoors. And realistically, many of the structured sessions aren’t easily transferable to outdoor riding unless you have access to quiet, controlled environments like closed parks.

I’ve really enjoyed using SYSTM—the workouts are well designed, the content is engaging, and the community is great. But at this point, other platforms like TrainerRoad are offering a more adaptive and flexible experience at a similar price point, and that’s what I need to keep progressing. Additionally, the absence of AI-driven features like estimated FTP or performance trend analysis, seems quite limiting. It feels like SYSTM hasn’t really been innovating much over the past few years, while other platforms have made major strides.

Do other people share the same feeling?

4 Likes
2

I understand your frustration with SYSTM and agree with the comment about many of the sessions not being easily transferable to outdoors. I have far too few flat roads around to do that, and my priorities are to ride outdoors and see the beauty of my surroundings as I ride, so that overrides most other factors.
So I’m not paying for SYSTM at all during the warmer and drier season, which for me is at least half the year. If the annual rate were at least a little more discounted, I would probably keep SYSTM year-round, knowing that I’d use it only occasionally for many months.
Personally, I consider adaptive training systems almost a different category in itself, mainly because I haven’t seen anything that interests me enough to pay for that. It’s not that I have no interest in “progressing,” but I feel I can progress if I really want to, simply by following what I know intuitively as well as through research, (including following this forum, which has a LOT of good advice from various perspectives.)
And saying that, I do not mean that I would not WANT to have adaptive training from SYSTM (or from any app/service/device.) That would be a wonderful addition to the app, but frankly, I suspect that would only mean an even HIGHER COST for the service, and that would be a turn-off for me. I suspect that SYSTM is already pushing the limit on what many people are willing to pay for an indoor riding app, PARTICULARLY when it seems to be going BACKWARDS in what it provides, rather than expanding its value. (YES, that DEFINITELY MEANS DEGRADING THE SUFFERLANDRIA TREASURE OF WORKOUTS!)
So, while I would LOVE for SYSTM to provide more adaptive training, that’s not what made me love SYSTM anyway. In fact, I never found ANY of the training plans useful for me because it is I THAT WON’T ADAPT TO THEM! I ride outdoors year round, as much as possible, and indoor rides are a fall-back option. So all I could get from “PLANS” is some general idea of how they are designed and try to do similar things with outdoor rides. That is very limited in effectiveness, and I’m fine with that because it’s not my focus.

I already pay for STRAVA, more than I like, certainly, but it’s value to me is more for community. That said, I value its Fitness and Freshness tracking as a decent assessment of how I’m doing. That’s obviously an AI feature in a sense, and it’s pretty good, IMO. Some of the OTHER AI features on STRAVA are absolutely ludicrous, in my opinion, like the STUPID AI garbage that pops up when you save and title activities. That stuff is so transparently LAME that I can’t believe STRAVA hasn’t already put it back in the TRASH BIN where it belongs. It’s total REGURGITATION.

I also already have a Garmin Fenix 7 and an Edge 840, both of which provide estimated FTP if desired, tho’ I don’t use that generally because I think it’s only useful to turn it on when I know I will make honestly hard efforts on climbs of appropriate length for that purpose. I also do NOT want the result to change my FTP setting without my agreement, which I found it doing too often when it was left set to Automatic, and that fouled all my sense of Zones as I ride, so turned it off.
And as Garmin has moved toward hiding some options behind an additional pay wall with Garmin Connect PLUS, it is possible they will try to take that feature away someday, but that would just be a mistake, IMO, because it would just encourage buyers to go elsewhere. I am personally NEVER going to buy devices that require monthly subscription fees to get what I want from the device in the first place.

If SYSTM ever DOES bring in a truly useful AI feature to training plans, I agree it would be a value to many, but for those of us not wanting to follow plans, it would need to be a separate pay feature or we would be paying for an unwanted piece of the app. One could make the argument that already is the case for the things like Yoga, Strength, etc that SYSTM offers; I’ve barely dabbled in those aspects and found them not useful to me at all so I never used them again. I suspect those aren’t still taking up much investment on the part of SYSTM, so they keep them, but I still suspect they don’t draw that much more interest to the app. Some on this forum might flame me for that statement, and I’m not saying nobody uses them. I just think the numbers are fairly small among all SYSTM subscribers.

3 Likes
3

I agree with both of your comments. Sadly SYSTM has been left in the dust: there has been no innovation/new features for a very long time. Even before Wahoo acquired Sufferfest folks were asking for updated training plans, etc.

None of these have been forthcoming and the training plans now have a majority of No Vids, Inspiration videos or On Location - none of which keep me motivated.

While Trainer Road’s AI is not perfect it is innovative and I like their traffic light system which seems to quite accurately reflect how I feel on given days.

Any innovation/new fitness test workouts that were in the works seem to have been filed away never to be seen again since Sir Neal and co left.

4 Likes
4

:confused::confused:

3 Likes
5

As I understood the SYSTM plans (based on the text that accompanied the Apex plans), the plans expect you to have a 80% workout completion rate, so there is some flexibility included in the plans, i.e. missing or substituting an outdoor session wouldn’t affect the “results” of following the plan.

I would like to see some independent quantitative analysis that indicates that day-to-day adaptation of plans has a demonstrable benefit compared to a “fixed” plan.

Given that everybody is different, I imagine that is nigh-on impossible to provide some double-blind experimental data, so I will add “adaptive plans” to my AI “hype” pile and continue with what I know and trust.

3 Likes
6

I think I fall somewhere in the middle. Having been an elite athlete many many decades ago, I know my coach would change our plan based on both workout and race results. By definition, that was adaptive.

My question is, can AI replicate that with some degree of accuracy? My sense is AI might be able to offer better results than a wholly static plan, but not better than the nuanced adaptations a seasoned professional coach would. And not all AI Adaptive plans are created equal.

The ‘so what’ off all that for me is, when my subscription runs out in a few months, I will not be renewing, and I will give one a try. Even if it turns out to be much ado about nothing, at least I won’t be in a constant state of disappointment like I am getting here lately.

6 Likes
7

I understand your point, but for people like me (i.e. people who don’t have much experience in structured cycling plans), adjusting and correcting a plan is not simple. How would I know how much different an outdoor ride was from what I was meant to do according to the plan? So, to me even if the “AI” or “non-AI” adaptive training is very basic I feel it’s still better than what I would be able to do. I do agree that AI just for the sake of it it’s useless (see Strava AI, total garbage).

8

My point being is that you don’t adjust. You just move on to the next planned workout and carry on as normal.

2 Likes
9

Be aware that, as yet, off-plan rides don’t feed into your progression levels on TR. I think the automatic FTP calculation does take them into account though and any active plan you have will adapt based on the TSS of an outdoor/extra ride (e.g. it will change a planned workout to an easier one or cancel it altogether if you’re in danger of doing too much).

As I started using TR in the spring, so far it’s been the Train Now functionality I’ve found most useful. The ability to easily switch between similar workouts is great as well.

2 Likes
10

I’ve been using Join Cycling for the last 5 months or so and could not imagine going back to non-adaptive plans. Not as good as a real life coach but much better than plans that don’t even take your availability into account.

  • Every Sunday I set my hours/ day availability for the following week and then put those rides into my Intervals.icu calendar.
  • Wherever possible I do the rides outside (workouts automatically sync with my Karoo 2) although in winter due to short days and lots of wildlife on the roads my weekday rides tend to be on the trainer (workouts auto sync with Rouvy) and weekend rides outside. I’m fortunate in that I live in a valley and have lots of hills around me and live at the base of kunanyi (“the mountain” - see OL with Nicole Frain) so for most workouts I can find the right terrain (admittedly choosing the right terrain has been a learning curve).
  • It was only on the third attempt at a join Cycling plan that I gave it enough time to get to know me and started trusting it - even then it essentially shut me down for the first 2 weeks - from 6 rides/ week to 2 - telling me I was overtraining. Week 3 I started listening to it. Week 4 it gave me 4 rides and by week 5 had settled on 5/ week.
  • Not only does it take my daily availability into account but it also allows me to shuffle through similar workouts, replace the workout completely with an outside ride and when I had gastro recently gave me a few days off and steadily got me back over 8-10 days.
  • I’ve learnt to replace a planned structured workout with a non-structured outdoor ride BEFORE I do it, even if just 5 minutes before. It will then adjust the plan if necessary, and following the ride if it’s quite different to what I said I would do, adjust it again.
  • It does seem to take into account not just the overall TSS and duration of the ride but also time spent in different zones e.g. this week it had a 2 1/2 hour high Zone 2 ride planned for Monday and Thursday morning’s workout was to be a 2 hour sweet spot session. I replaced Monday’s ride with a solid tempo outdoor ride of 2 1/2 hours that included enough time in sub-threshold and threshold zones that it replaced Thursday’s planned sweet spot ride with a Zone 2 Endurance ride. Wednesday’s ride (strength/ low cadence and high cadence intervals) stayed the same.
  • Whenever I’m feeling 'blown" there appears to be a rest day after and I’m ready to go the day after.
  • Consistency will make anyone better and that’s what plans do so improvement is not specific to Join’s plans. That said though my progression is great (measured through how I feel as well as my metrics on Intervals.icu and FTP tests) and I feel good and healthy doing it.

No doubt a real life coach can be far more adaptive and I’m considering one for a specific event coming up. But for now this is proving to be a far better alternative than a fixed plan, and is a fraction of the cost of a coach. I’m sold.

9 Likes
11

That was an excellent explanation. It’s tough to make a decision (or even a comment) when you don’t really understand how an adaptive plan works, so this is helpful.

There are a lot of factors that go into how I use / enjoy / benefit from a training plan. Admittedly, I’m not completely convinced that change would be better for me but at least I’m better informed about it.

3 Likes
12

Got to think Wahoo are working on or planning adaptive training and AI input for the training plans for the not too distant future as it is clearly the way forward and what all the competition is doing. I used JOIN for a while too and really liked what it did (as explained above; though my only issue was I couldn’t see the plan for weeks and months ahead, even if it was possibly going to adapt - I still like knowing the full extent of the plan and not just the following week). Only left it as I didn’t want to pay for two, so hoping Wahoo get onboard with something similar as their next step.

2 Likes
13

They did have a link with Humango a while back - is that no longer a thing?

1 Like
14

Yep :index_pointing_up: :index_pointing_up:

15

Help me understand these AI platforms. All they do is interpret the data you provide from another source or sources and suggest changes to your plan to help you move forward more quickly. Sorry if I am slow on the uptake or just too damn old but I have way more questions than answers and having reached to a few, either I am asking the wrong questions or they are giving me answers that are not helping me understand. Let me see if I can synthesize this down.

All these AI Adaptive coaching sites do it is take the data you have from other sources and change your plan to better fit your progress goals. If yes then…

  1. Do you simply select one of their predetermined goals or is there something more scientific to it?
  2. What if you don’t capture all the requisite data, say on an outside ride, or Systm ride witch does not attempt to calculate elevation gain? How much does that impact the value of the AI platform, like if I want to train for a hard climb but have no elevation gain data?
  3. I am assuming you still need another platform to do indoor rides on. Is that correct?
  4. What if the ride they want you to do is not available on the platform you ride on? Do you just try to find something close?

I am sure I will have more questions but right now i am in the ‘I don’t know what I don’t know’ phase of trying to understand.

1 Like
16

I’m in the “All testing is training, but not all training is testing” camp.

I do a lot of polarized training with LOTS of long zone 2 rides and only a few hard occassional MAP/VO2 rides and a small smattering of FTP/sweet spot rides. Without the occasional testing, AI would have to do a lot of interpolation to decipher my training gains. And from what I’ve seen, most of the “adaptive training” platforms are simply machine learning rather than true AI and are not really capable of fully analyzing my data to determine my true fitness level without the occasional testing.

Being able to have a program create a training schedule based on user inputs beyond current fitness levels such as custom length of schedules, planned race days, and what days you can/can’t train isn’t really true AI or even adaptive training. Although, I wish a lot of that was incorporated into SYSTM - and it’s been some of the most commonly asked for calendar/scheduling features.

I can’t and won’t speak for everyone. I know I don’t know if I want or need true adaptive training, but I’m sure many would appreciate it if Wahoo SYSTM added a number of those kinds of features. Some seem like low-hanging fruit that could used to help the platform grow and adapt to users needs and make it more user-friendly.

4 Likes
17

Hi @Critmark, as below:

  1. Join Cycling has generic “goals” and also training for specific big events around the world. E.g. I did “Stamina builder” and am now doing “Improving long climbs.”

  2. Elevation gain isn’t captured so not taken into account. I use Intervals.icu as my training diary so capture that there.

  3. Nope, provided you have a head unit that can control your trainer you are good to go. Join Cycling will sync with it.

  4. As above. Occasionally I’ll supplement with a Sufferfest ride but don’t have to.

Hope that helps.

PS Not sponsored by Join Cycling - just one of the numerous adaptive training platforms out there but the one I’m using!!!

3 Likes
18

I’m with you Sir Evan on the testing - my training is similar to yours so I don’t even look at what Intervals.icu is telling me from an FTP point-of-view.

I also don’t think there’s much “AI” in what Join Cycling does - it’s a large database with good (I feel) algorithms and real life coaching expertise to guide it. (In fact, I think a lot of what people are generally calling AI just isn’t …) As far as adaptive goes - I mean adaptive to my schedule, ability to change rides and it will change suggested workouts according to both load (TSS) and type of ride, allowing for illness and changing plan to give me more rest and not smashing me on the first day back, and race day planning as you suggest. Being honest with how I am feeling and altering the plan myself if necessary is the same as for any other plan but these other components of adaptive just makes it so much easier.

4 Likes
19

Thank you Sir Craig. That is helpful.

1 Like
20

Pleasure Sir Stuart.