A first week with any training app is mostly about learning where things are and what the numbers mean. This one is no different. Below is what the seven days look like, what to expect on each, and one tip a day. None of it needs you to be a data person. It does need you to be honest about your hours.
Day 1. Set up
Sign in with Apple, Google or email. Then connect Garmin, Strava or Wahoo. This step is optional. You can skip it and come back to it from the You tab. Connecting on day one is worth the two minutes, though, because everything downstream is better with real rides in it.
If you connect, import your history. Fitness, Fatigue and Form then start from what you have actually done rather than from a guess. If you have the numbers in another app, you can type them in instead. If you have neither, three questions about how often, how long and how hard you ride give a rough starting point.
FTP works the same way. Enter it if you know it, or have it estimated from your imported rides or from your weight and experience, then test later.
Next, pick the days you can ride and how many minutes you have on each. The day with the most minutes becomes your long-ride day. Choose how quickly you want the load to build, from conservative to aggressive. Finally, set a goal, whether an event with a date, general fitness, raising your FTP, or simply riding more. The plan is generated from all of that. If you gave it an event date, the phases are laid out backwards from that date and finish with a taper. Without one, the plan ends on a consolidation week, with an FTP test if you ride with power.
Tip. Give it the hours you actually have, not the hours you would like to have. A plan built on a fantasy week is wrong from the first Tuesday.
Day 2. First workout
The Today tab opens on today's workout and your Fitness and Form. Longer plans start in a base phase, so the first workout is most likely an endurance ride. Ride it outdoors with the workout sent to your connected Garmin or Wahoo calendar. Or ride it indoors on the workout player, with a smart trainer, power meter or heart-rate strap connected over Bluetooth.
When you finish, do nothing. The ride imports on its own and is scored for Weighted Power, Intensity and Load. If your Load, measured from power or heart rate, lands within 10% of the target, the coach says so.
Tip. Resist adding an extra loop because the first workout felt easy. It is meant to.
Day 3. What do Fitness, Fatigue and Form mean?
Fitness is the long-term average of your Load. The Fitness Explorer guide goes deeper. Fatigue is the short-term average. Form is the difference between them.
As you train, Fitness rises slowly and Fatigue rises quickly, so Form dips in the first weeks of any block. That is expected. It is not a sign that something has gone wrong. The 30-day forecast on the chart shows where the plan is taking those three lines, which is the part most riders find useful.
Tip. Look at the trend, not today's value. A single day's Form number tells you very little.
Day 4. Talk to the coach
Open the Coach tab and ask something you actually want to know. Ask why Thursday is a rest day, or whether Saturday's ride is too long for how you feel. The reply is built from your plan, your recent rides, your Fitness and Form, your availability and your goal, so the answer is about you rather than about riders in general.
Telling the coach something can also change the plan. "Move my long ride to Saturday" or "make today a rest day" is carried out in the plan, with a record of what changed. The coach also remembers between conversations, so you do not need to explain your knee again next week.
Tip. On the free tier you have five coach messages a week. Spend them on decisions, not on small talk.
Day 5. Miss one
Life will get in the way of a workout this week or next. When a workout is missed, WattPlan looks for a slot to move it to and recommends one, with a single tap to apply. If there is no room, it says so, and letting the workout go is the right call. Here is how the week gets repaired. Either way the week stays sound, with no two hard days back to back, no two rest days back to back, and nothing scheduled on a day you said you cannot ride.
Tip. Do not cram. A missed workout is an event, not the end of the block.
Day 6. Long ride
Your long-ride day. The target Load is on the workout, and the aim is to land near it. Go well over, by both 30% and 30 Load, and WattPlan notices the same day and, when the rest of the week has room, names the change to make, with a one-tap Apply. It also checks the ride for personal bests across nine durations, from five seconds to an hour, and tells you if one fell.
Tip. A long ride is for time on the bike, not for testing yourself. Save that for the workouts that ask for it.
Day 7. Look back
Check the week on the Plan screen to see what was done, what moved, and what is coming. On the free tier you can see the next two weeks of workouts. If your FTP looks like it has moved, you will be prompted to confirm the new number, and your zones stay as they are until you say yes.
Tip. If the week was wrong, fix the cause in your training schedule, under You, rather than fighting the plan day by day. Change the days or the minutes there.
What is free in WattPlan and what does Premium add?
The free plan gives you one plan and the next two weeks of it, five coach messages a week, seven days of Fitness history with a 30-day forecast, unlimited ride imports, device sync from Garmin, Strava and Wahoo, and workouts sent to your Garmin or Wahoo. Upgrade when you want the complete plan and Premium coaching tools.
Premium is US$9.99 a month, bought in the app through the app stores. It opens up the whole plan, unlimited coach messages, a full year of history, a 90-day forecast, a missed key session moved for you automatically, with a one-tap Undo, a coach's review of any ride you ask about, route analysis with power targets, durability analysis for long rides, and W' analysis in ride review.
How WattPlan handles this
Onboarding collects your platforms, starting fitness, profile, availability and goal, then generates the plan. Rides arrive by webhook from Garmin, Strava or Wahoo and are scored on import. The coach reads your plan and your rides, and can move, swap or lighten workouts when asked. A missed workout gets a recommendation and a one-tap button, and on Premium a missed key session is moved for you, with Undo.