What Sets FasCat apart from TrainerRoad & Carmichael?

Hello Mr. Overton and FasCat Team,

I’ve been listening to and enjoying your podcast for quite some time. I am considering a training plan if my budget will allow and had some quick questions:

1) What do you think sets your plans/approach from other online competitors, most notably TrainerRoad and Carmichael?

2) For someone who has been doing sweet spot and looking to increase FTP, as a general approach, would it be better to:

- Increase interval length from say 3x10 to 3x15 while maintaining wattage, then try to increase wattage from there… or

*- Increase interval wattage (i.e. 210 up to 215) and try to do 3x10s at the new higher wattage rather than increase the interval length. *

Keep up the great work. FTFP.

Hey there Daniel - thanks for the questions.

So I cannot speak for TR or CTS but I do know you can do our plans indoors or outdoors and we have put a significant amount of time and effort into designing training plans in TrainingPeaks because TrainingPeaks is the best. And because we give you a free PREMIUM TrainingPeaks account we are giving you a superior training resource and tool. I think CTS’s plans are in pdf format??

  1. For someone that has been doing sweet spot and has built up sufficient base now you should move on with your training to an interval plan. This is what we call switching from base to race March 2019 podcast.

To make your ‘switch’ choose the interval plan specific to the discipline for which you have goals such as ‘hill climbing intervals’ or road racing intervals:
https://fascatcoaching.com/training-plans/hill-climbing-intervals/

This will increase your FTP and race specific power output.

Hope that answers your questions (love the FtFP reference) and remember all our plans have a 100% :moneybag: back guaranteed so ‘you have nothing to lose’. Not sure if TR & CTS have that…

1 Like

I’ve been on TR for the last 15 months. FTP has gone up from 175 to 265, essentially couch to racing. Racing crits has been fun the first year and somewhat competitive although I viewed it as more of a learning period for a couple years before I’m in M40+. TR is a good tool to gain fitness.

Having said that, I’m starting Fascat’s plans after a break this month. Far as I’ve heard, TR says it’s not needed to train more or longer durations close to your event length, just follow their plan. My experience hasn’t shown that to be the case. Last year I rode a lot in the recovery zone and will likely need to again this weekend for a 2 century weekend benefit ride. This event was the training focus all year. Any more than 3 hours, being all in the endurance zone, is a pain in the ass to get through the past couple of weeks. It’s not a lack of motivation or ability to suffer.

I’m looking forward to Fascat’s plans and possibly coaching as things move along.

1 Like

I’m not the most experienced user, but I have done a 3-month training plan at Trainerroad, and just bought a plan on Fascatcoaching.

I would say it comes down to:

  • Trainerroad is more restrict. Their plans are for the most part suppose to be done indoor and all their workouts have very specific targets.

  • Trainerroad offers a indoor platform to train. With Fascat you still need to subscribe to zwift/other software to train.

  • Trainerroad focus A LOT on their sweet-spot plans. Even their podcasts for example are 90% oriented to their initial recommended plan, which is the sweet spot plan.

  • Fascat seems to be more flexible. At least the plan i bought. Some days are based on specific intervals, some days are more flexible and only ask you to reach a specific TSS, with some recommended focus (ex: Reach 100 TSS on a sweet spot group ride/workout).

I would say that this structure makes it more fun, it gives you more freedom to choose what you want to do at least 1 time/week, while still following the objectives of the plan.

Disadvantage: For new riders (such as myself), you might become a lost on those sessions. For me a 2h session of sweet spot is difficult to plan.

  • Fascat has products that you buy and own. In Trainerroad you need to keep paying the monthly fees even if you reach a point where you rotated the plans that interest you.

Any athlete I coach of their goal is to ride a fast century or two I would expect them to be able to ride them in zone 2 for the whole ride. It’s your all day pace. We would accomplish this through the training. Slowly building the ability to ride, 3, 4 and finally 5 hours. That is what the FasCat plans do. It’s hard to sell someone on 2+ hour trainer rides. Long quality weekend rides will really be beneficial.

2 Likes

Can one get away with a free TP account though?

All one needs to do is get the workout to a head unit for the targets and durations. I just have TP Premium and nothing else, I’m able to complete workouts with a Garmin and KICKR…Netflix might be involved but not required.

You can upload the workouts from TrainingPeaks to your Garmin, wahoo or etc. don’t need Zwift or any other software.

4 Likes

Had no idea you could do that.

Does not impact me, but i thought you needed some sort of paid software to use ERG mode for example.

1 Like

You can also use the Free Wahoo App with the KICKR’s . Yea Zwift/TrainerRoad any app is not necessary to #FtFP.

Me personally, I go old skool on the trainer and modulate the power myself with my brain. They say cycling is a cerebral sport - you gotta think and I think you should be able to raise and lower your power output by knowing your zones (in your head) and also knowing what that feels like, By doing so when you get in a race situation where tactical decisions need to be made you will be able to make them base on your ability to feeling what zone you are in. Just for example!

The workout export feature is super nice tho if you are putting time in the saddle and watching Netflix

5 Likes