I saw a tweet yesterday for Kicker Endurance. Does anyone have any more info on this service? From what I can tell it seems to auto-generate training plans based on your inputs. At first glance it looks similar to Optimized Training Labs (http://optimizedtraininglabs.com), but this one has endorsements by some fairly well known pros – including Jordan Rapp.
There’s a free trial for a week. Check it out. It’s kinda neat
I’ve been using it for a few weeks. Is there any specific information you are looking for? It is exactly as you describe - training plans based on your inputs. So far I like it. I believe, as the other poster indicated, that there is a 10 day free trial.
I am proud to be a part of the Kicker team! Kicker makes customized training programs. You input your sport (i.e. triathlon, running), experience, skill level and season type to create a profile. Then, you pick the day you want to start training and the races you want to do and their importance and Kicker will make you a customized training program. It’s a great way to get on a customized, structured training plan at price that leaves you plenty to spend on race wheels, power meters or fine dining to keep your significant other happy!
Kicker employs my personal coach Kevin Cutjar as a full time coach. He has taken me from a beginner in the sport to the podium as a pro at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. He has also coached hundreds of age group athletes to successful Ironman finishes. He has gone through the Kicker programs and worked with the software developer to ensure that these programs are all optimal for the athlete’s needs. I have tested the software and the programs I generated were spot on to my actual training. It’s great to see my favorite workouts have all been included in the program.
Every Kicker workout has an instructional video that explains how to execute the workout to get the most out of it. The videos also get you thinking about good technique as you go into your workout.
There also a pro tip everyday. This is pretty cool. The team of professional triathletes including myself were filmed talking about things that have helped make us successful in the sport. The tips aren’t your usual, get stretch laces and have fun, they dig deeper into the mistakes we have made and the factors that have lead to success. I went through the program to watch as many videos as I could in order to steal the other pro’s secrets! It was time well spent. It’s worth signing up for the free one week trial for the pro tips alone.
Kicker is running a promo where the first 1000 to sign up will get 50 per cent off the annual membership with the promo code 3240158.
Here’s a link to an article Triathlon Magazine Canada put up today. http://triathlonmagazine.ca/news/top-pros-collaborate-kicker-endurance-training/
Check out the program and if you have any feedback or comments, fire me an email at jeffsymonds@hotmail.com or comment below and I’ll pass them on. The Kicker team is committed to continuously improving the program so that our athletes achieve their goals!
Jeff.
I signed up for a free trial last night to check it out. I really like the concept and it was cool to see how the plan differed when I changed the inputs. Video tips are nice touch.
But here are a few of my critiques. If I missed how to do something I apologize as I didn’t spend too much time on it but here we go.
- I don’t see it as truly customized. If 2 guys have same A race, and select the same levels of athlete for each sport I’m pretty sure the plan will be the same. Is there an option where you can select the day you’d like to do your long run on or long bike? It seems like all the plans I got went with the old school long bike Saturday long run Sunday.
- Hours trained per week. There is no input for this. It doesn’t ask what I’ve currently been doing or what I’d like to do per week. We all have different life situations. Someone like me with 3 kids could be tapped out at 10-12 hours while a single person may want to put in 20 a week.
- Zones. Is there some place that tells you what your zones are? I realize it’s just HR based, a power option would be nice as well, but I didn’t see anyplace where it shows you how to come about your zones. Again maybe I missed that part, or they figured since I entered certain levels I already knew the answer.
- Swim workouts. Now maybe this is based on my inputs but this is the problem I have seen. I put my A race as a HIM. It had me swimming a few workouts for 750m. With a 250-350 MS. My admin time of getting to pool and changing is a multiple of the time it would take me to actually swim. That isn’t efficient use of time. Again, back to my customizable point, it never asks what I have been doing, so if I’ve been doing 2000m+ workouts why not build off that?
I can’t imagine how difficult implementing this is so these are just a couple of my thoughts.
You can set your training zones by clicking the “Profile” link in the top bar and then clicking “Training Zones” on the sub menu. It auto calculates HR zones (for both cycling and running based on your entered age/max HR). It also provides fields for you to manually enter power values and running paces for each zone.
I, too, would like to see the interface updated to allow you to specify total training hours/week and preferred days for long rides/runs.
I signed up and played around with the 10 day trial last night and I think a number of your concerns are dealt with if you play around a bit.
- I don’t see it as truly customized. If 2 guys have same A race, and select the same levels of athlete for each sport I’m pretty sure the plan will be the same. Is there an option where you can select the day you’d like to do your long run on or long bike? It seems like all the plans I got went with the old school long bike Saturday long run Sunday.
You can drag and drop any of the workouts around on the schedule, but otherwise I agree it is not “truly customized”.
- Hours trained per week. There is no input for this. It doesn’t ask what I’ve currently been doing or what I’d like to do per week. We all have different life situations. Someone like me with 3 kids could be tapped out at 10-12 hours while a single person may want to put in 20 a week.
When I signed up it asked me if I had been doing at least 1 hour of training per week in each discipline. You didn’t get that?
- Zones. Is there some place that tells you what your zones are? I realize it’s just HR based, a power option would be nice as well, but I didn’t see anyplace where it shows you how to come about your zones. Again maybe I missed that part, or they figured since I entered certain levels I already knew the answer.
If you go into the Training Profile, there is a little “?” link that contains a profile for tracking your zones to profile. Essentially goes through a linking HR zones to power or pace exercise. (ie Bike a little bit harder until your HR hits top of Z1, record the power. Ditto Z2 etc.) You may have views on whether that is a good protocol (certainly different than what I am used to from my coach and how it has been described to me here) but a protocol is given.
My biggest concern with the program is that there is no data upload and no “magic sauce” being applied to ongoing training data to modify your workouts. Essentially its like getting a one time semi-customized training plan (although the pro videos and tips are pretty cool). I guess within my subscription period I can update and modify that plan, but it’s never looking at my training results and modifying that plan to optimize. I don’t have data on market pricing for all these services, but I don’t know if it’s a value proposition to pay ~$500 ($250 at the 50% off introductory price) for what would amounts to a one time (or a series of one time) training plan prescriptions.
My other hesitation on this is there is no way to upload data as a training log, even without analysis of the data. That’s a service I can get for free from a host of online sites. But If I wanted Kicker to be my “go to” workout plan and data log, I can’t. I still need a second site to view and analyze my data.
By comparison, I can buy from TrainingPeaks.com a Matt Fitzgerald 20 week Half-Ironman training plan for $74.95. It’s offered in multiple levels so I can basically gauge my fitness give or take on the same system Kicker uses, it plots my schedule into my Training Peaks calendar and I can then upload and analyze all of my data there. If I use the monthly subscription on Kicker, it would cost me $54 or $200+ - without the data logging ability. Once I finished this 20 week plan, I could re-evaluate my fitness and try and pick which plan is in accordance with where I’m at and where I want to be and re-up for another $74.95.
I love that someone is trying to do this, I am just not convinced that the ability to compress or extend the plan + the cool videos is worth the difference in cost today.
You can set your training zones by clicking the “Profile” link in the top bar and then clicking “Training Zones” on the sub menu. It auto calculates HR zones (for both cycling and running based on your entered age/max HR). It also provides fields for you to manually enter power values and running paces for each zone.
I, too, would like to see the interface updated to allow you to specify total training hours/week and preferred days for long rides/runs.
Ah thanks, as I said I’m sure I missed some things. Would love for a field to just enter an FTP and a race time for running and have it auto populate for you.
And it uses 220-age? Ugh.
I went to check out the Kicker Endurance site but followed the wrong link in the original post and signed up for the Optimized Training Labs free trial. Having looked at both the one thing I think that shines for the OTL site over the KE site is that you can just enter in your FTP and running and swimming times to set your zones. I also like how the workouts are based on the zones and not just a ride for 2.5 hours. Haven’t had a chance to check out the videos on the KE site yet so that might actually be in there, it just wasn’t obvious from the schedule it generated for me.
I signed up and played around with the 10 day trial last night and I think a number of your concerns are dealt with if you play around a bit.
- I don’t see it as truly customized. If 2 guys have same A race, and select the same levels of athlete for each sport I’m pretty sure the plan will be the same. Is there an option where you can select the day you’d like to do your long run on or long bike? It seems like all the plans I got went with the old school long bike Saturday long run Sunday.
You can drag and drop any of the workouts around on the schedule, but otherwise I agree it is not “truly customized”.
- Hours trained per week. There is no input for this. It doesn’t ask what I’ve currently been doing or what I’d like to do per week. We all have different life situations. Someone like me with 3 kids could be tapped out at 10-12 hours while a single person may want to put in 20 a week.
When I signed up it asked me if I had been doing at least 1 hour of training per week in each discipline. You didn’t get that?
- Zones. Is there some place that tells you what your zones are? I realize it’s just HR based, a power option would be nice as well, but I didn’t see anyplace where it shows you how to come about your zones. Again maybe I missed that part, or they figured since I entered certain levels I already knew the answer.
If you go into the Training Profile, there is a little “?” link that contains a profile for tracking your zones to profile. Essentially goes through a linking HR zones to power or pace exercise. (ie Bike a little bit harder until your HR hits top of Z1, record the power. Ditto Z2 etc.) You may have views on whether that is a good protocol (certainly different than what I am used to from my coach and how it has been described to me here) but a protocol is given.
My biggest concern with the program is that there is no data upload and no “magic sauce” being applied to ongoing training data to modify your workouts. Essentially its like getting a one time semi-customized training plan (although the pro videos and tips are pretty cool). I guess within my subscription period I can update and modify that plan, but it’s never looking at my training results and modifying that plan to optimize. I don’t have data on market pricing for all these services, but I don’t know if it’s a value proposition to pay ~$500 ($250 at the 50% off introductory price) for what would amounts to a one time (or a series of one time) training plan prescriptions.
My other hesitation on this is there is no way to upload data as a training log, even without analysis of the data. That’s a service I can get for free from a host of online sites. But If I wanted Kicker to be my “go to” workout plan and data log, I can’t. I still need a second site to view and analyze my data.
By comparison, I can buy from TrainingPeaks.com a Matt Fitzgerald 20 week Half-Ironman training plan for $74.95. It’s offered in multiple levels so I can basically gauge my fitness give or take on the same system Kicker uses, it plots my schedule into my Training Peaks calendar and I can then upload and analyze all of my data there. If I use the monthly subscription on Kicker, it would cost me $54 or $200+ - without the data logging ability. Once I finished this 20 week plan, I could re-evaluate my fitness and try and pick which plan is in accordance with where I’m at and where I want to be and re-up for another $74.95.
I love that someone is trying to do this, I am just not convinced that the ability to compress or extend the plan + the cool videos is worth the difference in cost today.
Yes I know you can drop and drag but I wouldn’t want to do it for every week of the plan.
Yes it asked if I did at least 1 hour a week. So? My point was if I’m limited to 10 hours well it should ask that. If I can do 20 it should ask me that and adjust accordingly.
Yes I thought there had to be something showing you how to set zones, test etc. I only spent a little bit playing around and figured I missed some stuff. Maybe during account setup they should direct you to setting zones? And it would be nice to also put your zone metrics in the plan description of each days workouts.
I agree with about everything you say. It’s a cool concept and I hope they can nail it down. Especially with some pros involved.
Thanks for the feedback everyone! I’ll pass this thread on to Kevin and the rest of the team. He knows a lot more than I do about where things are at with improvements, development and plans for the future.
Thanks again for taking the time to check it out and posting your feedback, keep it coming!
Jeff.
I signed up for a free trial last night to check it out. I really like the concept and it was cool to see how the plan differed when I changed the inputs. Video tips are nice touch.
But here are a few of my critiques. If I missed how to do something I apologize as I didn’t spend too much time on it but here we go.
- I don’t see it as truly customized. If 2 guys have same A race, and select the same levels of athlete for each sport I’m pretty sure the plan will be the same. Is there an option where you can select the day you’d like to do your long run on or long bike? It seems like all the plans I got went with the old school long bike Saturday long run Sunday.
- Hours trained per week. There is no input for this. It doesn’t ask what I’ve currently been doing or what I’d like to do per week. We all have different life situations. Someone like me with 3 kids could be tapped out at 10-12 hours while a single person may want to put in 20 a week.
- Zones. Is there some place that tells you what your zones are? I realize it’s just HR based, a power option would be nice as well, but I didn’t see anyplace where it shows you how to come about your zones. Again maybe I missed that part, or they figured since I entered certain levels I already knew the answer.
- Swim workouts. Now maybe this is based on my inputs but this is the problem I have seen. I put my A race as a HIM. It had me swimming a few workouts for 750m. With a 250-350 MS. My admin time of getting to pool and changing is a multiple of the time it would take me to actually swim. That isn’t efficient use of time. Again, back to my customizable point, it never asks what I have been doing, so if I’ve been doing 2000m+ workouts why not build off that?
I can’t imagine how difficult implementing this is so these are just a couple of my thoughts.
You do realize that this is an automated system? You won’t ever be able to get the customization that you would from a real coach.
Jeff.
I signed up for a free trial last night to check it out. I really like the concept and it was cool to see how the plan differed when I changed the inputs. Video tips are nice touch.
But here are a few of my critiques. If I missed how to do something I apologize as I didn’t spend too much time on it but here we go.
- I don’t see it as truly customized. If 2 guys have same A race, and select the same levels of athlete for each sport I’m pretty sure the plan will be the same. Is there an option where you can select the day you’d like to do your long run on or long bike? It seems like all the plans I got went with the old school long bike Saturday long run Sunday.
- Hours trained per week. There is no input for this. It doesn’t ask what I’ve currently been doing or what I’d like to do per week. We all have different life situations. Someone like me with 3 kids could be tapped out at 10-12 hours while a single person may want to put in 20 a week.
- Zones. Is there some place that tells you what your zones are? I realize it’s just HR based, a power option would be nice as well, but I didn’t see anyplace where it shows you how to come about your zones. Again maybe I missed that part, or they figured since I entered certain levels I already knew the answer.
- Swim workouts. Now maybe this is based on my inputs but this is the problem I have seen. I put my A race as a HIM. It had me swimming a few workouts for 750m. With a 250-350 MS. My admin time of getting to pool and changing is a multiple of the time it would take me to actually swim. That isn’t efficient use of time. Again, back to my customizable point, it never asks what I have been doing, so if I’ve been doing 2000m+ workouts why not build off that?
I can’t imagine how difficult implementing this is so these are just a couple of my thoughts.
You do realize that this is an automated system? You won’t ever be able to get the customization that you would from a real coach.
Quote from Jeff above:
It’s a great way to get on a customized, structured training plan at price that leaves you plenty to spend on race wheels, power meters or fine dining to keep your significant other happy!
And I’m pretty sure I’ve seen training plan systems where you can specify when you can ride long, run long, etc…
And I also know coaches who say customized but they really just churn out a stock plan. I think there concept is good, just trying to give some feedback. Maybe some is good, maybe some not. I know I don’t think of everything and sure most are like me, so I’m trying to throw some ideas out there for them.
Not to hijack a tread about a competing product, but thanks for trying us out even if it was by accident. I really like the look and feel of Kicker but as people have mentioned it’s not truly customized (neither is OTL for that matter). I believe that it is a re-brand (or license) of the Trident Triathlon system from a couple years ago, but that is purely speculation based on the look and feel.
One thing I did try to build with OTL though was a way to adjust a plan for missed workouts, known group workouts, vacations (where you might not have your bike a pool…etc). Originally I built the math model as part of a Ph.D. project for busy triathletes (mostly just built it for myself), but others wanted to use it so we developed the web app for it. The goal was to have a good plan that could adjust as need when things popped up. So if you miss a workout it may change your next weeks worth of workouts (if it was a key session), it might make it up later, or if it wasn’t that important skip it all together. If you were going on vacation and would not be able to bike it may pre load bikes before your trip (to a point) and increase runs during the trip (as long as it makes sense in the overall scheme of your training). We have had OTL out for over 3 years, but in the past year have been spending much more time on Best Bike Split. I wish all the luck to Kicker I think there is a niche for this kind of system but it is hard to compete with personal coaches, free plans, self coaching…etc. On a different note if Kicker is interested in teaming up and using our back end optimization engine with their slick user interface I’d be happy to help with that too 