2PEAK has a new product manager to help lead the future development of the program. We caught up with him quickly to see what his ideas for the future of 2PEAK.
Tell me about yourself and your connection to 2PEAK
My name is Jan, 26, sport scientist, film-soundtrack lover, keen on numbers and performance parameters in different sports and interested in both the physical and psychological aspects of training. My background lies mainly in team and ball sports, that is why I am intrigued in comparing different training philosophies and tactics also in endurance sports.
2PEAK combines and prioritizes what I consider the most important factors in training: customized and adaptive training, continuous target-performance analysis, recovery-based and goal-oriented training.
My job at 2PEAK is to interface manage, develop, communicate, and support. In the latter you might hear from me from time to time as well.
What changes or updates to 2PEAK are coming soon?
I do not want to give away too much, but cyclist can really look forward to what is up to come!
What recent feature updates are you most excited about?
I am thrilled about our beta version of automated zone calculation for cyclists and runners. It combines knowledge from diagnostics, human physiology, sport science and physics and optimizes your training zones. Even with some limitations it is a step forward from common models like FTP-zone-estimations. We are still gathering more information and data and hope to improve this feature over the upcoming weeks and months. Feedback is highly appreciated.
What struggles have you faced in this new role?
After my third week as product manager, our server host has caught a fire which had a major impact on everything – 2PEAK website, 2PEAK apps and even our email-program. Long story short, we had to adapt quickly. Thanks to some nightshifts of our developers, we could recover in record time and improve our backup strategy to be ready for similar events. Like in training, things do not always go as planned. In training you might get injured and must find other solutions to reach your goals. The most important thing is to handle it properly, learn from it and always fall forward.
What successes have you had?
As always, success definition is multifactorial and depends on whether I answer from an employee’s, an online coach’s or from an end user’s point of view. Personally, I value seemingly small wins like a satisfied customer feedback highly. I see it as a result of several contributing factors starting in development and ending in communication or support. It is the goal of our whole team to create dynamic, individual and success proven training in order to help you reach your goals.
What do you see as the strengths of 2PEAK as a product and what can be improved?
The biggest strength in my opinion is our approach, to see each person as an individual athlete with its profile and circumstances and therefore its own “optimal training”. One-size fits all training plans may work for some but are definitively not the perfect fit for everybody. The dynamic method of 2PEAK requires some innovative solutions which we try to provide with our recovery battery, the automated interval detection, and our zone calculation to name a few.
On the flipside I see potential in the user experience and user guidance. This is a difficult task given the complexity of the technology behind. Training with 2PEAK should be fun, easy to follow along and both effective and successful. So, the goal is to combine high tech training with user-friendly interface to assist your training in the best way possible.