- [Taren] Mornin' trainiacs.
Just a very smooth, cruise-y little 45 minute trainer ride.
Rest week, so
not a lot of reason to go ahead and kill ourselves,
but ironically,
following up on last week's
Zwift versus Full Gas video,
which was wildly popular,
today we're going to compare
Zwift to The Sufferfest
on a total recovery ride.
(energetic music)
Okay, so I wanna give you
just the Sufferfest version of what Sufferfest is.
"The Sufferfest is the most
comprehensive training app available.
In addition to a library of structured cycling,
running, and triathlon workouts,
we also have 30 yoga for cyclists videos,
a 10 week program to build metal toughness,
and a strength training for cyclists program.
All of these elements are integrated into our training plans
for road, triathlon, mountain biking, and cyclecross.
Our workouts and training plans are designed
by Neal Henderson and Mac Cassin
at Apex Coaching in Boulder, Colorado.
Neal has coached some of the most successful
endurance athletes in the world,
including Flora Duffy, Cam Dye, Taylor Neb,
Rohan Dennis, the current time trial world champion,
and Evelyn Stevens.
Sufferfest is the only training platform
that personalizes workouts
based on your complete power profile,
not just FTP.
Other training apps set power targets
based just on a percentage of FTP,
resulting in super threshold targets
that are either too high or too low
to trigger your desired fitness gains.
Last year, we released four dimensional power,
using a comprehensive one hour fitness test,
developed by Neal Henderson.
The app determines your neuromuscular power,
maximal aerobic power,
functional threshold power,
and anaerobic capacity.
Once you have your four dimensional power profile,
the app maps all of your power targets in your workouts
to your unique metrics.
This ensures that you're always working
at the exact intensity necessary to get faster.
This is especially critical for triathletes,
since map acts as a sealing on FTP.
If your map is low,
but you're only doing threshold work,
you're not going to get faster.
By providing insight into where
your strengths and weaknesses are,
and tailoring your workouts and training plans accordingly,
you can get more out of the time you have to train."
What does all of this mean?
Well, let me do a workout,
and then come back, and we'll talk about it.
(energetic music)
Alright, so,
45 minute little ride,
and I get it.
It's not too bad.
Let me jot down my thoughts on it.
I'll get back to ya'.
There's somethin'.
There's a reason it exists.
Alright, so,
let's talk about Sufferfest versus Zwift.
In general, Sufferfest is 50 or a little bit over 50
guided ERG mode workouts.
ERG mode is where you aren't interacting
with the ups and downs and gradient
in the virtual world, like on Zwift.
ERG mode is where your trainer is just controlled
by a pre set program,
and no matter how hard or fast you end up pedaling,
the resistance just follows the workout.
So if the resistance says
"Right now, we're just doing 200 watts.",
you can pedal 100 cadence, or 80 cadence,
you're going to generate 200 watts,
because the trainer is going to adjust the resistance
to get you to that wattage.
The cost of this is $99 a year,
or $12.99 every single month,
so think of it like the Zwift workouts.
If you are familiar with the Zwift workouts,
it's kinda like what this is.
In Sufferfest, which you don't have in Zwift,
is you have access to things like
a yoga program, a mental toughness program,
nutrition guidelines, and the thing about
the Sufferfest workouts that's different than Zwift
is that
the urge to work harder is build into the app.
In this case, the culture of the workout
is that the music is programed in,
the really intense video is programmed in,
and it all is designed to get the most out of you possible.
In addition to that, on the note
of getting the most out of you possible,
Sufferfest also has 4DP training.
That was what I talked about earlier,
and the guy from Sufferfest told me about.
What this is,
is everyone's power curve is a little bit different.
Let's say my 273 FTP
is not the same as your 273 FTP.
In your case, you might have a really good aerobic engine,
and chugging along at like 230 to 250 watts
totally easy four hours and hours on end,
but you don't have a really big top end
to get up to that 900, 1000, 1100 watts.
In my case,
getting up to that 8-900 watts
is fairly easy-ish.
That's a lot easier for me
than chugging along at 270 watts.
Frankly, FTP's are incredibly hard for me,
so that's what this 4DP training does.
From one analyzed workout,
they pull out what is your one minute,
your three minute, your five minute power,
your FTP power, your neuromuscular power,
I think it's from like a five second test,
and what they're doing
is they're creating a full profile
for what kind of rider you are,
and then the workouts are customized based off of that.
So if it was just an ERG mode workout,
it probably wouldn't have a reason to exist
because Zwift also has the ERG mode workout,
but in addition to that,
it has that massive amount of immersion
from the community, from the races,
from the conversations that happen while you're in Zwift,
from having to shift while you are on Zwift,
so Zwift is all of that plus,
but it's the interface that this is designed
to get the most out of you possible,
in conjunction with that 4DP training.
Add on the yoga program, add in the ability
to download a training peaks plan,
there's a few template training peaks plans
that you can add in,
that the yoga program, the training peaks plan,
it all appears in your training peaks account,
and this whole interface is designed
just to push you to the absolute max.
All you have in the interface is a target for cadence,
a heart rate guidance in the middle,
and a power indication for what the target power is,
and what your power is,
which is just going to follow along
with the ERG mode workout that's on the bottom.
If you start to slow down,
it'll recognize that, and it'll say
"Hey, let's go."
Or in my case,
I would just want to do a 45 minute workout
in a 60 minute workout and it said
"No, you can't give up now, keep going."
so it is going to be customized for you,
to get that maximum amount out of you possible.
Setting it up is very easy.
The first time that you go to do a workout,
it will prompt you to pair
any of the devices that you want to pair to.
Your trainer, your heart rate strap,
your cadence meter, your power pedals,
whatever it might be,
and you also have to go into the back end of it
to add it your FTP, your height, your weight,
your birthdate, all of that.
You don't have to do the 4DP workout right away,
but if you want to start getting the most
out of your training immediately,
you do have to do that workout right away.
Let's talk about Zwift versus Sufferfest,
and some of the differences,
but also some of the similarities.
Like I said, price of Zwift, 18.99,
price of Sufferfest, 12.99 a month.
In Zwift, you have a very easy ability
to upload your own workouts,
or go and find workouts out on the internet
that are often free, and upload them to Zwift,
and complete those.
On Sufferfest, you don't.
They both have plans that you can go and access,
and upload into your training,
so it might be an Olympic triathlon plan,
you can go and get that through their system.
Zwift is very very immersive, like I said,
you have to shift if you aren't in ERG mode,
but you have the choice of ERG mode
and that fully immersive mode.
in Sufferfest, you don't have that immersion.
You don't have that sense of community.
The only thing that you've got
is ERG mode and hurt.
Sufferfest has that absolutely maximum
customized 4DP training set up,
whereas Zwift does not.
It's just in relation to all of your FTP numbers.
Built in to the system on Sufferfest is all those prompts
to get the absolute most out of you possible,
whereas Zwift, some of the workouts might have it,
but it's not with the same design scheme in mind
that Sufferfest has to really really push you
and give you an awesome workout.
Those prompts, combined with the 4DP,
I think is the secret sauce of Sufferfest.
If you don't like the constant price bumps of Zwift,
from 12.99
to 14.99
to 18.99,
and you just want the 12.99 and the ERG mode,
and you just wanna get a really good workout in,
Sufferfest is pretty good for it.
It's just as tough, and your probably going
to get a better quality workout
that is more exactly what you're looking to do,
whereas Zwift is like a very good workout,
and you can do that ERG mode,
but it's not designed to have like,
the best workout that you possibly can.
Personally, I like this, however,
I really like having to shift on Zwift.
Even if I'm doing a structured workout,
I find that all of that that shifting
is much more realistic than ERG mode.
While I'm not necessarily getting
the absolute most out of that workout,
I do think that it's probably a more realistic workout
to some actual races,
because in races, we do have to shift unexpectedly.
It's not just putting out a certain wattage
for bam, five minutes,
then a certain wattage for bam, three minutes,
so I like having to mentally think about that,
and I think that mental switch up of having to shift
is what's so mentally engaging about it,
and makes the workouts go by really quickly,
but if that's not your jam, that's not your jam.
If it is your jam, go follow me on Zwift
at T is the first name,
last name is Riathlon, space Taren,
so it shows up as inside as Triathlon Taren.
So there you go trainiacs,
that is Zwift versus Sufferfest.
Both very good things depending on what you want,
and thanks for lettin' me give this a try here, Sufferfest.
Alright, later trainiacs.