I know JOIN has some similar features with an adaptive plan. But JOIN is very simplistic and too much of a black box for my taste. You cannot see where you are going in the long term (with Xert you can see you calendar for as long as you want and see your your fitness will develop based on Xert’s model).
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That doesn’t sound like a feature gap to me, but a difference in philosophy. “Simply making the next workout hard” would screw up the cadence of workouts. If you do 5 workouts per week, the cadence is Hard-Easy-Hard, followed by a rest day and a Hard Interval day and a Hard endurance workout. If I skip my first workout of the week and Xert moves that to Tuesday, I’d have two hard workouts back-to-back, which in my experience does not work well. Now it could also change other, subsequent workouts until you arrive at something like Skip-Hard-Easy-Rest-Hard-Hard endurance.
In any case, such scheduling decisions should be made by the user and is easy enough with TR: just move the workout you skipped to the next day and adjust the rest of the
If it works for you, cool 
I’d need to stick to the cadence for more reasons than one.
I think the idea of “being behind the plan” is already problematic, both, for psychological reasons and I question whether this is the right metric to begin with. I think encouraging consistence is much more important than “having to catch up, because life happened.”
You can do this on a per-block basis with TrainerRoad. Otherwise, you just have to use the Alternates feature. You can do this in advance, too. If this is due to a one-off occurrence (e. g. because you have visitors at home), it sounds as if you can do the same thing in a different way.
It might seem that I am nitpicking, but I think there is a difference between “this feature does not exist” vs. “it does not work as I would prefer it to work.”
Neither does TrainerRoad under-the-hood to determine e. g. fatigue or workout volume/intensity for the reasons you have given. It will still display TSS, though.
I think this is super important to keep in mind: it isn’t just whether a feature exists, but how well it works.
Xert doesn’t use a fixed cadence of hard/low intensity workouts. Is is based on a planned increase of the load of low and high intensity work form the start of the plan to the end of the plan (acute vs cronic training load, but for different energy systems).
I have used TrainerRoad for many years (and still do). Two challenges I find are that:
a) TrainerRoad only have low, medium, and high volume training plan. I train much more than the high volume training plan, and then I am really on my own.
b) I did not buy a bike just to be on TrainerRoad. When the weather gets nice, I enjoy long endurance or tempo rides outside in the weekends or on vacation. But TrainerRoad doesn’t really tell me what is the best to do after such a ride. Typically TrainerRoad will just tell me to adapt the Tusday’s VO2Max workout to a short endurance ride, but not to make Wednesday a VO2Max day. Xert is able to help with this.
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Its that time of the year im hampering for a bit of structured training - Its a small fleeting window when it happens, but I would be buying a year long membership from TR, if, they would just integrate with Zwift.
I really CBA with having to run dual set ups or look at blue blocks in 2024. So any chance this coming soon before I lose that want for structure and go back to smashing myself in races a couple of times a week.
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Yes, and that seems to be a difference in how you implement training principles rather than a limitation of the software.
Personally, maintaining this cadence helps me stay consistent. I have tried “making up my homework” in the past and it never worked for me. But if it does for you, more power to you.
That’s is outdated. The current version of Plan Builder is dynamic: after telling it how aggressive you want it to be, it will suggest a volume and intensity depending on your training history, and it doesn’t have to fall within the previous low/mid/high segmentation. You can also toggle a Master’s plan switch if you want/need more recovery and limit yourself to two hard workouts higher in the zone spectrum.
You can completely customize this suggestion. E. g. I went from 5 days to 4 as I spend 6+ hours per week on the bike commuting in zone 2. Of course, it will tell you when your selection is outside of the range it recommends to you. You can customize the training times later on for each training block if you so desire, overriding the global preset. The philosophy behind their volume and intensity suggestion is the concept of minimal effective dose.
It does have some limitations, e. g. it does not automatically take my commutes into account when it plans rest weeks. (I just replace each workout with a short, 30-minute workout so that I maintain the rhythm.) Whether Join or Xert could do that automatically, I am not sure.
Like I wrote above, I think this is not a limitation, but a difference in opinion and training philosophy. The option that TR offers is what TR thinks is best for you in that situation. In recent years, TR made many changes that in my experience have made it easier to stay consistent with the training plan. (E. g. it made the second workout in polarized plans easier and made rest weeks easier to name two.) This cadence of hard and easy workouts is hardly specific to TR, I have seen this in many places (including people who have coached themselves for decades).
Xert seems to have some strict goal in mind and tries to keep you on the path. That sounds great in theory, but just unforeseen circumstances like illness (your own or someone in your family) can easily derail you. I’m not sure what guardrails are in place to keep users on track and encourage them to only select things they can actually pull off.
People biting off more than they can chew was (and likely still is) a really with TrainerRoad and many other training platforms. What Xert does in this respect? (I’m genuinely curious.)
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There are many workouts that are in TR, such as cadence instructions such as Baxter, but what would that look like in zwift?
Yep, that wouldn’t work for me. Far prefer the TR approach, and it’s literally drag and drop (on desktop) or change dates (in app calendar) to swap days when I need to. The days I have for structure are generally set, as I have a job and a family!
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See the Zwift Intergration thread, the Nate P screen shots have in the instructions on screen
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I’ve been quite excited by this , as an ex zwift user who wanted the training potential of TR or others it seems like a great idea. But I recently tried the TR entertainment mode with the bars and info overlaid on my choice of videos and actually it works really really well doesn’t it?!
If I had to pick one for cost purposes I’d stick with TR for sure and zwift is the luxury item I don’t really need at all. Those moving arches though… they’re a powerful target aren’t they? Tempting!
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!
Up up up, you can make it 
Any news on this???
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January is close to end….
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Over a week remaining > 25% last I did the math 
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Dry January is taking forever
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A poem:
Mnemonic
Thirty days has September, April, June and November.
Unless a leap year is its fate, February has twenty-eight.
All the rest have three days more, excepting January, which has six thousand, one hundred and eighty-four.
Brian Bilston
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I am sure we’ll see it next week
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Hopefully. In the meantime I’ve been creating approximations of the workouts in intervals.icu. It takes a minute or two and integrates flawlessly with Zwift. Then associate after the ride.
I only went the Zwift route as I wanted a dedicated indoor setup and was torn between the Zwift Ride and Elite Square. Plumped for the Ride as the Square release was delayed and it looked like TR integration was imminent. Turns out it looks like the Square might be released before. Live and learn.
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The fact that the Zwift ride is at present erg mode-only is an immediate no go for me. The Square also looks more adjustable.
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