A simple Training Peaks alternative built with coaches in mind

We get asked a lot how Training Tilt compares to the popular Training Peaks and why someone would use Training Tilt instead of (or as well as) Training Peaks. Well in some ways they are similar but for the most part they are very different products.

I'll explain a little more about the differences and why you might consider Training Tilt as a Training Peaks alternative or as an addition for your coaching business. 

Coach Focused

There aren't that many Training Peaks alternatives around that cater specifically for the needs of coaches. Training Peaks offers free and paid options directly to athletes along side their Coach Edition. At Training Tilt we wanted to focus solely on coaches and helping them with both their coaching and their businesses. We don't offer any services directly to athletes. A coach can subscribe to our service and then invite their athletes to use the platform as part of their service. 

As much as it would be great to do our best directly for coaches and for athletes, their needs are very different and we didn't want to compromise our services to our coaches by offering a direct athlete service. As they saying goes "you can't be all things to all people". We love small business so helping coaches came more naturally to us. For us working with coaching businesses on a day to day basis is extremely rewarding.

The Training Tilt model vs TrainingPeaks also allows coaches to create their own customized version of a training platform that they can then resell to their own customers. For coaches looking to grow their brand and already have an audience this will allow them to monetize their business without compromizing their brand.

Business Tools

There is a lot more to coaching than training plans and exercise data. Training Peaks is a great science based product for athletes and coaches in terms of training plans and exercise data analysis. We felt that coaching businesses needed some business specific tools to help them with communications, e-commerce and day to day admin. There were already plenty of tools out there that coaches could use but none of them catered for the specific needs of a coach and to get a full toolkit a coach needed to subscribe to more than one product.

So we built Training Tilt as a "Coaching business toolkit" that just happens to have training plan and workout tools in it's feature set. Training Tilt also comes with a fully content managed website, an online store and payments, social features and customer relationship management (CRM).

The professional coaching industry has grown a lot over the last decade but we felt the tools required to help coaches manage their businesses were missing. Many innovative coaches were using various tools to try and meet their needs but there was nothing out there built specifically for them.

In our eyes the biggest challenge for professional coaches is the ability to grow their customer base and their revenue. The nature of one-to-one coaching services requires the coach spending a lot of time with each client. Our software has tools like "Membership Plans" that allows the coach to offer additional tiers of coaching services to clients and generate a more "passive" stream of income to go alongside their one-on-one coaching services.

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Complexity vs Simplicity

I've always loved Training Peaks and used it daily for years when I first started training and racing Ironman. I loved the data you see, I loved to compare my power over time on the same training sessions. It was great. I now train very differently, relying more on feel than on data and metrics. I don't check my data after each training session and I often don't even record it. I know I'm not alone with this approach.

There is a lot of complexity in Training Peaks which is good if you want to delve into every aspect of your workout including the weight of your bike or what shoes you were wearing. However in many cases complexity leads to confusion. The knowledge required to correctly analyze the vast amounts of data available in Training Peaks correctly is huge. And regardless of that fact, many coaches and athletes don't value the hard data as much as how the athlete "feels" during and after a training session. I don't think it's necessary to go into the pros and cons of each of these approaches as it's a very personal thing and I think the "whatever works best for you" is the best way to view this.

When we set out to create Training Tilt we intentionally kept our training plan tools simple and easy to use. We felt Training Peaks did such a good job of the complex analysis that it wouldn't be in anyones best interest to take them on directly. Those that love the complexity tend to love Training Peaks so we wouldn't be solving anyones problems. On the other hand there were many coaches out there that didn't use Training Peaks or were constantly wrestling with because they didn't require all the bells and whistles of the software and it was much easier to use an alternative approach rather than navigating around all the features and surplus (for them) information.

We wanted to offer an alternative approach that kept things simple but still provided what was necessary for a lot of coaches.

In saying that we think there is still room for more advanced analysis within our own platform but it's unlikely your athletes will ever be able to record what shoes they wore in a session.

UPDATE: Training Tilt now has a higher level of analytics and data tracking when this article was first published. Training Peaks is still a much more comprehensive analytics platform but the difference is now much narrower when comparing the analytics features of each platform.

The Goals of the Coaching Business are Important

When deciding whether Training Tilt would be a good alternative to Training Peaks the goals of the coaching business are also important.

Use Training Peaks if;

1. Your coaching business only does one-one coaching services.

2. You want an extremely high level of analytics to be able to drill down into the data of individual athletes and their workouts.

3. Branding is not particularly important in terms of a training platform for your clients.

4. You want to sell training plans in a marketplace and don't mind paying a large commission (around 30%) to a platform provider.

5. You don't mind if clients can move their accounts between different coaching businesses.

Use Training Tilt if;

1. You have built an audience of potential customers and want to monetize your business with training plans and online memberships.

2. You have one-on-one coaching but also online memberships as part of your business model.

3. Branding is very important for you in your training platform.

4. You want to integrate payments, an online store, website tools and training schedules into a single platform.

5. You want to scale your business and have hundreds of athletes and clients using your own branded training platform.

6. You want to sell training plans without paying a large commission to a training platform provider.

7. You want to offer extra resources like a video library, articles and training tips as part of the value you offer your clients.

8. You want to protect your Intellectual Property and not allow athletes to move their accounts between different coaching businesses.

Conclusion

You might have come to your own conclusions by now about the differences between the two platforms and whether Training Tilt might be a good fit for you (or your coach). I honestly think they are both great platforms and both do what they do well.

If you've been searching for alternatives to training peaks or if you want a complete toolkit for managing and growing your coaching business then it's worth giving Training Tilt a try.

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