Training guides

How to use ChatGPT as your cycling coach

ChatGPT explains training terms, works through pacing and fueling calculations, and answers follow-up questions. Give it your recent training and available hours, and it can draft a plan you can question and revise.

The brief and prompts also work in Claude and Gemini. The Claude training guide covers its data connections.

Write a brief with your numbers and constraints

A brief keeps your training numbers, goals and limits together. Replace the example details with your own, including test methods and dates.

Here is what you need to know about me. Refer to it every time and never ask me for it again. Rider: 42, 78 kg, riding six years, 6 to 8 hours a week. Weekday sessions are 60 minutes on the trainer, one long ride outdoors at the weekend. Numbers: FTP 265 W, set on 14 August from a 20-minute test with a five-minute hard effort before it. Max heart rate 184. Threshold heart rate 168, the average of the last 20 minutes of a 30-minute solo test. Resting heart rate this month 48. Goal: a 140 km gran fondo on 18 April with 2,400 m of climbing. I want to finish under five hours; last year I did 5:20. Constraints: Tuesday and Thursday 60 minutes maximum. Sunday up to three hours. Monday is always off. My right knee complains after three hours in the saddle. How I respond: two hard days in a row leave me tired for the rest of the week. I recover quickly from long easy rides. I sleep badly before work travel. Last six weeks: [paste your weekly hours and training load here, or attach the CSV] Rules for you. Never assume a number I have not given you. Show the arithmetic behind each number. When I ask you to change the plan, change only what my constraint touches and tell me what moved. Do not add sessions to make up for ones I missed. If something I describe sounds like an injury, say so instead of coaching around it. If you are unsure, say you are unsure.

Update the brief when your FTP, race or availability changes, roughly monthly. Paste it into new training chats. Memory remembers details across chats when enabled, but OpenAI says it "does not retain every detail from every conversation".

Share ride screenshots, files and recovery data

Start with the ride and recovery screenshots you already use. ChatGPT accepts images, spreadsheets and PDFs on free and paid plans, within plan limits. Include sleep, HRV and resting heart rate alongside your usual values.

For detailed ride analysis, attach a CSV with time, power and heart rate. FIT is not on OpenAI's supported-file list. Ask ChatGPT to read the CSV with code and report its row count and time range before calculating anything.

For a season question, supply a weekly summary with hours, training load and best 20-minute power. If an export includes other sports, select the activities relevant to your question.

ChatGPT Health reads Apple Health for eligible US users aged 18 or older on Free, Go, Plus and Pro. It works on the web and iOS; connecting requires an iPhone. Access is read-only. Other apps' data arrives through what they write into Apple Health, and some proprietary scores may not transfer. No Android Health Connect route is listed.

ChatGPT's directory lists third-party fitness plugins, but no Strava or Intervals.icu plugin. These features were checked on October 9, 2026.

Ask for a calculation or a specific decision

After a long ride, check aerobic decoupling (Pa:HR): how the ratio of power to heart rate changes during a steady effort.

Attached is Saturday's ride as a per-second CSV with time, power, heart rate, cadence and altitude. Read it with Python and tell me the row count and time range first. Then find the longest steady segment after the first 20 minutes with no stops. Compare power to heart rate in its first and second halves, give me the aerobic decoupling (Pa:HR) as a percentage with both averages shown, and say whether it is under 5%. One thing to change next time. No praise.

After missed sessions, give the remaining hours and the week's purpose.

I missed Tuesday and Wednesday, work. I have 40 minutes Thursday, an hour Friday, three hours Sunday. This week's purpose was threshold volume, week three of four before a rest week. Repair the week: keep the purpose, move what you must, drop the rest, and list what moved. Do not add sessions to make up the lost ones.

Before a hard session, include recent training and your usual recovery values.

HRV this morning 61 ms against my 30-day average of 68 ms, both from the same watch; my usual day-to-day swing is about 6 ms. Resting heart rate 52 against 48. Slept 5 hours 40 minutes. Yesterday 90 minutes easy, the day before 4 x 8 minutes at threshold. Today's plan is 3 x 12 minutes sweet spot. My legs feel heavy. Before you decide, state the rule you will apply, then apply it to these numbers and my legs, and decide: as planned, easy, or rest.

More cycling training prompts are grouped by what riders ask.

Transfer a workout through Intervals.icu

ChatGPT does not send workouts to a bike computer, watch or trainer by itself. Some third-party plugins advertise workout sync.

For a manual transfer, ask for Intervals.icu's text format: one step per line, repeats under a header, intensity as a percentage of FTP.

- Warmup 10m 55% Main set 4x - 8m 100% - 4m 55% - Cooldown 10m 50%

Add the text to an Intervals.icu workout, then use its workout sync for connected devices and apps. The workout transfer guide covers the device routes.

Check the hours, session lengths and arithmetic

Check that the weekly hours match your brief and the key sessions last as long as requested. Confirm that the plan respects your days off and limits on consecutive hard sessions.

Language models are conservative by default. In training, that means weeks that are too light and key sessions that are too short. RestOrTrain's own tests found these shortfalls; it is tuned specifically for endurance athletes to make the right training call.

Check the sums, too. You still maintain the brief, supply the data and arrange workout transfers. ChatGPT can run a scheduled prompt, such as a Sunday review. A new ride upload does not trigger a conversation.

RestOrTrain calculates training numbers without AI

RestOrTrain calculates every number it can without AI. Training load, power estimates, FTP from your power curve, fitness and fatigue are calculated the same way every time, before the language model reads them.

A general-purpose model works those numbers out again with each answer. Its results can vary, and it makes arithmetic mistakes. RestOrTrain leaves far less room for error by calculating those numbers before AI reads them. It also has guardrails built specifically for assessing and recommending endurance training load. General-purpose models do not have those guardrails.

Its language model was selected after testing on endurance training decisions. Its recommendations draw on current endurance training science.

The prompting is already done and tuned for world-class endurance coaching. You write no brief and need no special wording. Ask in plain words and get concise, concrete recommendations for your performance.

Ask how to pace the climbs at your gran fondo. The answer draws on your whole history as an athlete: your strengths, weaknesses and power profile, ride notes and conversations. It also considers your sleep, HRV, resting heart rate, training load, plan and calendar, and explains the recommendation.

Tell it about your available hours and how you respond to hard days. It learns from every conversation, activity note and post-workout response, keeps those details organized for training, and uses them when building workouts and answering questions.

In RestOrTrain, rules such as "no praise" go in Custom Instructions in its Settings.

Your season, calendar and workouts stay together

Rides, sleep, HRV and resting heart rate arrive automatically from connections including Garmin, COROS and Intervals.icu. Planned workouts go straight to your Garmin Edge or Garmin watch, Wahoo ELEMNT, Hammerhead Karoo, COROS, Zwift and Rouvy. Sending workouts is free.

It plans the season toward your goal in phases such as base, build and taper. Each phase has dates, a range of weekly hours and a reason. It builds every workout for you and the day, then keeps the coming sessions on your calendar.

You can request another workout or adjust one in the chat. Tell it a work trip has changed your available days and it adjusts the plan immediately, with your approval. Updated workouts reach your devices.

It plans for one sport, running and cycling together, or triathlon, with structured cycling, running and swimming workouts. Gym sessions have exercises and sets written out.

Ask for a chart of weekly training load over the last six weeks. A bar or line chart appears from your computed data, with nothing to upload. ChatGPT can chart files or connected data with code. Here, your training metrics are already calculated.

Your power bests from 5 seconds to 60 minutes also have percentiles against other riders and an estimated racing category. ChatGPT has no data for that comparison.

The free indoor workout player runs planned or requested cycling workouts on iPhone and Android. It connects to a Bluetooth smart trainer that supports FTMS, the standard used to control the trainer. Every step needs a power target. ERG mode adjusts resistance to hold that step's watts. A heart-rate strap is optional, and the ride continues with your phone locked.

GPX routes, photo and PDF uploads, and ride weather require Pro, which also includes more questions.

The app requires iOS 18 or later or Android 8 or later. Its iPad app also runs on Macs with Apple chips. There is no web version. Apple Health and home-screen widgets work on iPhone and iPad, and Apple Watch works with an iPhone.

Frequently asked questions

RestOrTrain plans your season and puts today's session on your trainer or Garmin.

A few questions a month are free.

Published September 15, 2026, updated October 10, 2026