Compared with a human coach, and with the generic apps.
Plainly: an AI plan is cheaper and faster than a coach and more specific than a template. It cannot see you. Here is where each one sits.
| Loadout Solo | A human coach | A generic app | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who writes the plan | An AI coach, from your goal, questionnaire and wearable history, in about a minute. | A person, usually over a few days, from a call or a form. | A fixed template for a distance or a body part, picked from a list. |
| Built for your test | Presets for P Company, PRMC, RFT(E), AOSB, ACFT, police JRFT and more, with the standards as the targets. | Depends on the coach. A good military-prep coach knows the test; most general coaches do not. | Rarely. Military tests mix loaded marching, calisthenics counts and running that generic apps do not combine. |
| Daily adjustment | Every morning from HRV, sleep and resting heart rate: scale, swap or rest, one proposal you accept or decline. | When you tell them, if you tell them, and when they are awake. | Usually none. Some apps show a readiness score but do not change the session. |
| Week-to-week progression | Rewritten from what you actually logged, every week, automatically. | Yes, by the coach, usually on a weekly check-in. | A fixed progression regardless of what you did. |
| Watch and platform data | Reads intervals.icu, Strava, Garmin, Apple Health and Health Connect. Pushes sessions to Garmin and intervals.icu as structured workouts. | Varies. Many coaches read your Strava or TrainingPeaks by hand. | Usually one ecosystem, often the one that sold you the watch. |
| Judgement, injury, life | Rules and models. It will scale a session for poor sleep; it will not notice you are limping. | The reason to hire one. A person sees things data does not carry. | None. |
| Cost | A 7-day free trial, then 19.99 USD a month or 119.99 USD a year. | Typically many times the price of an app, per month. | Free to a modest subscription. |
When to hire a coach instead
If you are coming back from injury, if you have failed a course before and do not know why, or if you need someone to answer the phone the night before a board, hire a person. Loadout Solo is built for the athlete who knows the test, wants a plan that is specific to it, and wants it to adapt without a conversation.
Where the generic apps fall short
Most running and strength apps are good at one thing. Military and police tests ask for several at once: a loaded march, a bleep test, a two-minute press-up count and a timed run in the same week. The plan has to balance them, and it has to know which one you are short on. That is the whole job here.