Whet' Next For Zwift Academy? And Life/Channel Updates

[@richardhowarth4230]

Glad to hear that you will be creating more content in the future. You are incredibly talented at explaining and sharing your knowledge.

[@EricMichaelManuel]

What I'd like to see. 1. Keep the assessments. 2. Do some basic analysis of those assessments. 3. Provide a suite of plans that target specific areas associated with the program (that anyone can use) But the academy provides you a hint on things you can improve on, and maybe a blended plan for people that want a good balance. 4. Definitely add in a 'racer-lite' bot version of the races where you can jump in and have a fun group ride, maybe with little timed segments like they do in some fondos. A sprint segment, a 3-5 minute roller, an 8 minute climb (depending on duration of the ride). Halfway between a group workout and a pacer bot. Thanks for the great work on the videos, I always enjoy watching them, good luck with the new job and I look forward to more content (if the fancy strikes you).

[@EricMichaelManuel]

Really like the Academy pacer bot idea.

[@2007irongirl]

Thanks for the life update. I really did miss seeing you outside of ZA in the last few years. Good luck with the new job!!

[@SignorLuigi]

1) I like the three "3 levels of challenge" proposal. The more Zwift can embrace all the different communities that use the product, the better...especially for the OFTEN overlooked age 65+ community. 👵👴 2) I wasn't a big fan of the "modified" rubber band for the workouts where you only stayed with folks who were at the same "workout percentage." I don't see why folks who needed/wanted to ride at 75%, 90%, 100%, 125%, etc. had to be separated from each other. It wasn't a race. 3) Races were a turn off for me. Luckily, I was recently demoted from Cat A to Cat B on Zwift. 🙌 But still, it appeared I was competing against Wout Van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard as folks were often pushing 6+ W/kg for extended periods in my races. So, I love ❤ your Modified Pacer Bot idea as an option for those who just don't want to deal with the whole race "thing." 4) Like others, I hope your new job affords you the opportunity to "respread your wings." I think one of the first things to go in situations like the one you were in is CREATIVITY. And life without opportunities to be creative is one of the quickest ways to get stuck on the treadmill to oblivion. I am guessing that in addition to your KZbin videos requiring a lot of work they are a lovely way for you to express your creativity. 🌸 I bet you miss that. 🥰

[@djrlloyd]

You are my ‘go to’ channel for ZA. Thanks for all the fantastic advice and guidance. Good luck in your new job, and from a selfish point of view, I hope it means more content from you in the future. All the best.

[@zwiftingwithdemonhunter]

Teddy is always the star of the show. Go ahead and take the time you need. We will still love you and await any videos you post.

[@NathanLipkeEvilN8]

Thank you for being honest and vulnerable. It’s great to hear life and training isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

[@edengel6480]

Where to begin, first of all. Thank you ❤ for all your hard work and dedication to these videos. I find them humorous, informative, and encouraging to continue to stay with Zwift and have fun! With so many life challenges thrown at us and trying to keep our heads above water. It's necessary to step back from the chaos to and evaluate and prioritize our general physical and mental health. Proceed with your new plan that will bring you joy and fulfillment. If you stop making videos about zwift, that's OK with me. If you continue, I'll be right here waiting. For the Academy 2023, it was boring. I agree, unlocks (yawn) halfway stats interesting. Final stats, upcoming, I hope. Finishing off, I wish nothing but success and an extended healthy life. Love you ❤

[@timverkoyen8742]

Your videos helped me tremendously in understanding the added value of the workouts. With your videos I liked it a whole lot. Even though I am not experienced at all. But still liked doing the long variants of the workouts. Thank you for creating all the videos ! Hope to see you (and the cat) regularly! Good luck with your new job and hope you will have time to spare!

[@LuukeyB]

Great video, as always. I came across your channel while doing some investigation for the Zwift Academy and I think your points are all extremely valid. I’m a newbie to Zwift so was a little hesitant signing up to the Academy but I found it fantastic to work through. Gave me a real sense of direction WRT winter training. Being new to Zwift, I found the unlocks a real incentive, however, I’m sure many seasoned Zwifters might not be quite as incentivised by this as they may have unlocked the majority of the gear already. One thing I agree with you in particular on is the length of the workout. A 60 minute iteration would be a ‘sweet spot’ in my personal opinion. 45 mins was sometimes a little short on some workouts but I probably don’t have the fitness for the full 90 minute version. Another point you made was regarding the races; I’d never raced on Zwift before the ZA and never had any intention to TBH. Before the 1st race, I thought I’ll just treat it as a gentle Z2 ride and what will be will be. However, during that 1st race, I found myself in the lead bunch with 1.5kms to go so I thought to myself that I might have a crack at a sprint finish and somehow managed to sneak over the finish line in 2nd place (to my amazement!) I thoroughly enjoyed it despite not being inclined to want to race beforehand so I think they should definitely keep the race element as maybe 1 compulsory race then maybe as a pacer for the 2nd race next year (or something similar to that). Finally, a slightly longer duration of the overall Academy would be on my wish list for next year. I really enjoyed the whole thing and wish it was a little longer to keep me motivated! Thanks again for the video and please keep doing what you’re doing.

[@geraldinecoupland4162]

Congrats on your new job. Hope life turns in a good direction for you and enjoy 🙌🏻🚴‍♀️

[@KdM_BigRingBubba]

Congrats on making the change and good luck with the new gig! I'm happy to hear that you've made the call to find something that allows you to have that work-life balance again, but also selfishly that we'll get more content...

[@harrygrey1625]

Thx for this detailed and relevant video. Can’t comment too much on this year’s Academy as other outdoor activities totally encroached on my indoor riding.Love the idea of keeping the content relatively the same each year, especially if they could show YoY comparisons. Also in favor of the 60 minute workout. That seems to be a pretty standard time block that is short enough to work into a life schedule and long enough to be impactful to your training effort. Congrats on your professional change. Balance is always elusive and requires ongoing adjustment, worth it just the same. Not interested in the tombstone that says, “here’s the guy who worked his @ss off. “ 😂. Keep up the awesome work and best of luck in your next stop along the way.

[@laurippt]

I’ve really enjoyed your videos recently for ZA, and in the past when I first started zwifting I found your videos to be so very helpful! I’m glad you’re back and I wish you well in the future with your new job and am definitely looking forward to seeing more videos from you in the future!

[@tjohnson200]

I am a sucker for the Zwift gamification. I think it is a good space for them. Glad to hear you might do more videos.

[@michellesgoldberg]

Thanks Sarah. Congrats on the new job, hope it's all you're hoping it to be. I will miss your snark, but most of all, I will miss Teddy. Maybe a short video every so often, featuring Teddy?

[@htukmumfie]

i liked the assessment idea, but would like feedback on my critical power curve, and to then be directed to a plan to address weaknesses. ideally they could do the 4dp test as workout 1, then direct you to a series of workouts for the remainder, and finish with a 4dp repeat.

[@GregoryNash]

I think training with stress and training with travel are intersting topics. I've definately seen work stress mess with training motivation. Also saw fitness improve after COVID affected travel.

[@guystevens311]

Good luck in the new role. Great to hear the intention to produce more regular vids once you get settled.

[@lastpme]

Congrats with your new job…I hope it is a healthy environment 👍🏿

[@zentouro]

i still find the number of typos in the onscreen prompts absolutely hilarious. how so many made it thru (and didn't get fixed) is wild to me.

[@davidwalton3291]

Good luck in your new job! Hope you find happiness and more time to do this KZbin which you do so well.

[@Rachel24171]

This was my first year doing the academy, but it’s also my first year on Zwift! I enjoyed it and enjoyed assessing my abilities. I would do it the same next year, but agree that to keep it interesting they should offer additional incentives to those with differing abilities or first timers like myself.

[@saintuk70]

Good luck with the new job. I can empathise with the work/life balance - my downfall is I like the area of work that I do (GIS) and work long days and nearly 7 days a week. This had led to a massive reduction in my cycling, to the point where, before 2020, I was cycling 35 miles every day to work and a longer cycle at the weekends - to now I've not been on my bike for months.

[@lazzaboyman8003]

For me, in the UK, it was difficult to find a good slot to do the ZA races as they were not scheduled well for me and it seemed that there were not many per day.

[@dixonlaaron]

Absolutely the same here, really struggled to do the ZA races. Ended up racing at 11pm 🙄

[@jackiegerwitz-dunn4046]

John here. First off, thanks so very much for these outstanding ZA videos. You inspired me to complete my first ZA! I really enjoyed doing the assessment style workouts and learned some new things about my profile as a cyclist. The ZA coming later in the season helped as well. I only had two cyclocross races to compete in during the six weeks of the program, so the timing was near perfect. I would love for Zwift to offer a sixty minute variant next year. That would be a real sweet spot for me. More compelling unlocks would also be nice. Finally, congrats to you on your new employment and wishing you the best in this new endeavor. I am also very pleased to hear that you may be bringing us more content. Your videos on indoor training are the most relatable for me. I think they are the best content in this class IMHO. Happy Holidays and Cheers!

[@NathanLipkeEvilN8]

Congrats on the new job. Hope it’s what you’re looking for.

[@Chris-dw3xl]

Good luck with your new job and have a great Xmas for me I moved over to ROUVY

[@chrisbailey1966]

I did not complete the Academy this year, done it a few years in a row before but could not see the point in doing all the elements this year. I'm only back cycling on the trainer a few months and generally in a getting fitter phase (many years of club cycling in the past). For me the gamification helps to keep me interested in regular training, so after I got the Academy kit this year what was the point of doing all the rest for a paint job when I use my Tron bike most of the time. I like the idea of more feedback of each element/power over time output. I tend to limit my efforts to 60 mins at the moment but have done much longer in the past for route badges, so again yes 60 mins for most would be good. The idea that completing Academy would get you into some longer term training plan based on results/areas you want to work on would be good. They have all the workouts already so it would be linking them together with a virtual coach that gave you a bit of encouragement each week or milestone, it must have potential. Good luck with the new job.

[@NathanLipkeEvilN8]

When I used to travel more, spin classes were a good way to get in a quick on bike workout. You don’t need to do what the instructor says and can focus on what you want to do training wise. The bikes are generally better than the hotel gym’s.

[@MichaelThorne_za]

Great video! Good luck with your next job.

[@pierroulechou]

the cat is so cuteee :O

[@madiantin]

Congratulations on the new job! I hope it's a more supportive work environment and the hours are less insane. Love seeing Teddy! He clearly thinks you're fantastic. =) I must admit I phoned the academy in this year. I was hit with a bunch of health challenges that were unexpected and not fun. Finally got on the bike on the last day of the academy and zipped through the final two workouts and race. Not in the spirit of how it's meant to work but eh, you do what you can. Yep, the unlocks were boring enough that I paid zero attention to them. Didn't even look at what they were as they were so snooze-worthy. Re: the emails - I haven't received any. Not one. I am a very very back of the pack slow rider, so I will never "win" anything in the academy. That's certainly demotivational. It would be nice to have something available for us really slow riders. But eh. For me the academy is more something else to tick off rather than something that motivates me.

[@sccxvelo]

Hope the new job goes well. ZA ran smoother this year. Like the periodization to ZA with race block as the pro contender qualifier. Agree with needing better unlocks. Barely use the canyon aeroad frame in game much. I understand it from proteam sponsorship but not on fame where there are so many much better than it on zwift. Different levels of of difficulty can be a good but still limited so it is still challenging. Mixxing the power tests with workouts was a good idea.

[@kevinderung8524]

great assessment and ideas!

[@neilveitch5761]

All the best for the new job. Hope it works out well for you. As for the ZA, I have to say I wouldn't have got so much out of it without the valuable foresight that your videos provided and whilst I'm no expert I'm no novice either. I didn't enjoy ZA like I enjoyed the 2021 version ( couldn't do 2022 as I was away for the middle two weeks), but I did feel that given your analyses of workouts it helped me assess where I'm at and as such it was a valuable experience. The races were a bit of a red herring as I take part in the zRacing monthly league anyway, so added nothing really.

[@Wyliedawg]

Hi Sarah. Thanks for that very detailed, and as with everything you create here, a perfectly explained recap of the academy, Zwift's possible next direction and your own life update all rolled into one informative package! In the context of "timing is everything" I'll add one more thing... I hope you have a wonderful Christmas season and wish you the very best in 2024 in ALL of your endeavors. Your channel is always a #1 source of information and logical content for me. - Bob (Toronto)

[@vincecaito6985]

Congrats on the new job. Glad to hear there might be more videos in the future as I think you’re really good at it. Honestly, the ZA stuff isn’t all that exciting (to me) - I’d rather see more endurance sport oriented content from a personal perspective.

[@williamtaylor5899]

Hang in there.

[@jamesmckenzie3532]

Love your "child". A possible reason for moving from Stress Score to TSS is legal. Zwift was using a copyrighted and trademarked process but not paying for it (license) and after the Wahoo debacle, I think they wanted to stay out of the courtroom a second time. So they paid the fee and used the trademarked process and name. Keeps them out of the courtroom and out of bad press.

[@richardvaughn168]

Hope 2024 and the new job are what you want and need to be happy!

[@erinclaudio9211]

Yes love it more content. The travel/work/training grind would be interesting

[@patrickj4747]

A couple of random observations. I liked the 'free ride showing avg power" format to test your 5 and 20 minute power. Using a hill with approximately 5 or 20 minute completion time is not quite as good because terrain can change the stress and ease which can effect power. I know you can use trainer difficulty to offset terrain changes but seeing that avg with no change in terrain helped me a lot. As far as the races go, I thought of them more as a stage on the ToW - an event rather than a race. Some people are racing and some aren't. In a race, everyone is racing. Does it matter what they call it? No, not a bit. If you want to do a race effort you can. If you want a group ride then that's an option. 8 requirements in 6 weeks was perfect.

[@danielwnorowski2553]

Great review

[@x9lp4hh]

I did the shorty version…found it a good intro to structured training and its application. I honestly dont know what that had to do with elite riders vying for a contract.

[@LeeBoris974]

Good luck in the new job! Hope you aren't going to have to travel too much, for Teddy's sake. My work travel is stressful, just because I have to leave my cats.

[@valiantabello]

This channel needs more Teddy. Everything else is superfluous.

[@matlindell5022]

Could you make videos when testing zwift workouts from the get go to the end of the session ?

[@fwschnaar3179]

I did one of the Training Programs… Got all screwed up trying to get my Trainer to work properly… Something to do with Erg Mode? … Anyway got frustrated, suffered through it…Did one Academy Race… Got my Kit and Helmet, and moved on… For most of us that have a set Training routine, I just found the Academy Programs unnecessary, and not suited too my style of Riding 🤔👍🚴‍♂️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♂️🚴‍♀️

[@401SNelson]

In your travels if you are in the Tacoma Olympia Washington area let me know, we have a really nice gym in our garage. If you bring a bike we can go riding!

[@lastpme]

The one thing I didn’t care for was the races since it wasn’t really a race. Since it was basically a training plan based on FTP then a free ride at the end what was the point.

[@tubbytoast2]

In the end i don't actually know why i bother with the Zwift Academy , it really just needs to be for young guys and gals chasing a contract deal !!! Maybe if they had some kind of age group category's call it the Zwift fondo Academy and run it concurrently with Z.A and give out some kind of real prize ,, like maybe you get to design your own Jersey for ' winning ' your category, or 3 months free subscription, what about entry and plane tickets to a grand fondo event some where in the world, what about winning actual socks with Z plastered all over them?? Anyway enough bleeting! All the best Sarah with your new path

[@ADKMZ1]

Thanks for this video and the tips, good luck in your next job , by the way I suggest you to have a brodacast about cycling in general

[@simoncbr900rr]

Just left Zwift. I cannot take the non-existent new roads/worlds content anymore. Gone to Rouvy,great breath of fresh air

[@thomaspeterman3073]

The best move that Zwift could make would be to hire you.

[@rogerbloom9721]

I have not interest in Zwift academy just from the time of year they have it. I’m not looking to increase my fitness to racing level in October- November. For me personally it would be better timed in January February as I ramp up for the next season and the holidays are past.

[@xsubsquid]

I'm going t

[@Milo-wl2if]

I lost interest in Zwift Academy as it just seemed to encourage the worst behaviour on Zwift. Completely pointless for amateur riders who take their training seriously to be the best they can be.

[@detlefkaufhold9106]

Zwift Academy is merely a competition marketing thing which has nothing to do with real structured training…

[@roadcyclist1]

I dont think this person actually ever rides a bike. Anytime i have ever clicked on a video it is just a bunch of monologue.

[@dietcokeheadd]

First year participating in Zwift Academy. Is there really no rider assessment or analysis? My understanding is for deciding on the finalists they compare rider data. I was expecting to be informed how well I stacked up relative to the other riders, but turns out that's not actually a thing? 🤔