This is my third time around with Xert, but the first two times were more flirting. with being confused the first time and going back / sticking to my personal coach the second time. This time it appears I’m full-in for reasons of saving money (over a coach), combined with and in addition to my substantial lack in year round - or even full slate of seasonal racing - race focus (still love to train though). I’ve started on the podcasts, but the past couple of weeks have brought up a few thoughts I’d like feedback on:
1, and most curious) I’ve been wondering what the best Improvement Rate to choose is. Dealing with early base season (~Nov - January) or even beginnings of some intensity or build phase isn’t too difficult and easy to handle after many years of training. But when things build towards a more typical Build2/Peak period is when I wonder what’s best when it comes to XERT recommendations.
As all the training stress builds on itself and the improvement rate of even Moderate-2 starts to materially accumulate with hours and suggested XSS, it seems to get to be quite a bit for this 43 year old father of two with substantial sports, balancing a wife, home projects, work etc. I jokingly tell people I’m a very good (really mediocre amateur) cyclist. It’s not really the setting aside of time to train but the number of hours per week and XSS needed that accumulate and deficit that lurks in the background. Again, while I love to train and be (small fish and small pond) fast., I only look forward to a few races a year now instead of ~20 (around 35 when I did CX) - waiting on ‘old man strength’ when the kids are out of the house. So I’m trying to balance being competitive and still pretty strong with as best I could be.
Does anyone else feel that after building up to your normal strong-ish signature, that simply choosing slow, or even maintenance, build at this point in your life is the best way to go for the remainder of the year? Sure it probably comes to personal preference and situation like most things, but I wonder if this approach works for others in similar situations.
In selecting suggested workouts, there are choices of standard, community, and personal. I assume personal is something I create (not about to do that, I’ll do free-ride stuff if on my ow), standard is stuff that comes from XERT creators/coaches/staff, etc, and community is user generated stuff. When I select workouts I have all three checked. Is the community selected workouts along the lines of Android App Store (a bit of a free for al wild westl) or the Apple App Store (stuff is vetted much more)?
My Peak Power is displaying at 1030 W. I haven’t hit that for a good while (3+ years…maybe for despise of sprinting and crits, or it’s accurate - who knows). A month ago I went through a number of files with bad power blips that was skewing my MPA to 1400+ W (I’m never hitting that) and also my HIE very high (34.X compared to 26.4kJ now). After lopping off those power spikes it lowered my number to the aforementioned and some workouts were much more reasonable. Should I manually reset my signature to a Peak Power reached more recently or let it ride? Just curious if it would give more, or slightly more, realistic and suitable workout parameters.
I usually run out of hours at some point during the year. My max with a healthy life balance is 6.5 to 8 hours. After that point, I usually hit maintenance or slow and will change my focus for the remainder of the season to mix things up. Sometimes focusing on extending TTE versus increasing power. Good luck, I’ve been using Xert solid for a few years now.
As you surmised you can only ramp up until you max out your weekly hours. When that happens, you’ll switch to Maintenance (ramp rate = 0) but you can still mix up the intensity over the week. For example, long easy rides on a weekend versus short and hard on selected weekdays.
No need to close a deficit (return to Noon position on Training Pacer) as long as the needle fluctuates between 11am-1pm position week to week. You may be down during the beginning of the week and back to Noon by Sunday.
Even with IR set to Maintenance and Continuous ATP you can dose yourself with 2-3 weeks of higher intensity than normal followed by a rest week, potentially timing that taper with an event in mind.
Standard folder is curated workouts while Community is both coach and user submissions. However, the way Xert is able to analyze strain against your signature gives you a good indication of what a workout will be like before you ride it. Plus. you can tweak any workout using Open in Designer, Copy button, and make custom versions of your favorites (Personal folder). For example, shorten or lengthen workouts you like most to fit your schedule better. Or import favorite workouts from elsewhere and “SMARTify” them on the way in.
In all cases, Xert’s analysis will locate appropriate choices for recommended lists based upon strain goals for the day and matching difficulty level (stars count to diamond count).
Your PP is both actual (based on power meter readings) and theoretical as predicted by your ability to sprint to whatever sub-PP value you can achieve while fatigued.
Most sprint workouts that involve PP switch to Slope mode, so the target isn’t so much watts based but maximum strain efforts. You get the intended effect regardless.
If you suspect historical data on file with errant Max Power entries isn’t being caught by Xert’s algorithm filter, here’s how to flag those entries – Auto-flagging bad data Peak Power bug? - #2 by ridgerider2
Lots of tips posted here – Beginner questions
Academy series videos are the quickest way to get up to speed – Discover + Improve + Perform
You’ll learn more during the second or third viewing once you have more experience with Xert.
FAQs here – Support Home – Xert
Hi @MacGiro - Welcome back to Xert! Hopefully you’ve seen us continue to pour more time & effort into the platform each time you’re back I suspect there are many like yourself who might take a few tries with Xert before feeling they have the ability to take control of their own training (with the help of Xert of course )!
I don’t think there’s a best setting for Improvement Rate (IR)… What works for @ridgerider2 or me might not work for you. I think there is some judgement needed on your part. Xert does try to help you out with this by estimating the weekly training time at each improvement rate (calculated simply by looking at your average XSS/hr and the XSS needed to meet the selected IR. If you only have 8 hours to train, then selecting the option that will result in ~8 hours would be a good place to start - you can always adjust up or down as needed. As you mentioned, as your fitness continues to build, you will very likely need to invest more time to continue meeting the selected IR. If there’s no more time to invest, then the Slow or Maintenance options will probably be your best bet.
Also, if you’re looking to mimic an older 3/4 weeks build, 1 week rest, you can do that with Xert… use Moderate 2 for the build weeks & maintenance or taper for the rest week
Community options are based on which community/communities you have joined. If you join a coach on Xert - their workouts will be placed here. The SHARED workout community & Basic Workouts Library are available/free for everyone if they’d like. The SHARED workouts aren’t fully vetted, but as @ridgerider2 mentioned, Xert will only recommend workouts that will deliver the recommended strain at an appropriate difficulty level. There are plenty of ‘bad’ workouts in there, but those are not likely to be recommended because their (most often) too hard.
Might be better off to just let the data be for the moment. Peak Power actually has very little influence (overall) on the data analysis. For example, if two athletes have a TP of 250 W and HIE of 20 kJ but one has a PP that is four hundred watts higher (1200 versus 1600) their projected time to exhaustion at 350W for both athletes is within 3 s (3:10 for 1200 W PP… 3:13 for 1600 W PP). That’s still in the margin of error for most PM’s these days
On that note, when’s the last time you committed to an all-out 10-15s sprint? Could be worth trying on one of your next outdoor ride
Thanks Jack. That’s a great corollary. How do you focus on increasing TTE versus continuing to increase TP power. Or do you just assume the maintenance and slow phases do that naturally?
As you mentioned, as your fitness continues to build, you will very likely need to invest more time to continue meeting the selected IR. If there’s no more time to invest, then the Slow or Maintenance options will probably be your best bet.
Great, and this is what I was thinking, but needed to talk it out to realize ‘of course.’ It’s not the physical ability to do big hour weeks (40 hour / week riding the entire TdF route hasn’t been an issue), but when at home and the constraints of family life are present. When family activities sometimes ax the ability for a long, less intensity ride that is more easily recoverable and the following suggested workouts try to make-up that XSS in the week to keep up with the IR (with still restricted hours per day), is when it gets
Also, if you’re looking to mimic an older 3/4 weeks build, 1 week rest, you can do that with Xert… use Moderate 2 for the build weeks & maintenance or taper for the rest week
Might be better off to just let the data be for the moment. Peak Power actually has very little influence (overall) on the data analysis. For example, if two athletes have a TP of 250 W and HIE of 20 kJ but one has a PP that is four hundred watts higher (1200 versus 1600) their projected time to exhaustion at 350W for both athletes is within 3 s (3:10 for 1200 W PP… 3:13 for 1600 W PP). That’s still in the margin of error for most PM’s these days
You’re right. I played with the calculator and values, and it adjusted HIE very little - around .1 kJ I think. Although removing the bad error PP data prior to the specifics of this question, (which gave me MPA of 1470ish W) resulting in a MPA of 1050W, substantially changed my HIE by 8.6 kJ.
On that note, when’s the last time you committed to an all-out 10-15s sprint? Could be worth trying on one of your next outdoor ride
You’re right. I assume indoor would be fine too. Best to do it after a short warm-up and while completely fresh? I have not noticed any difference between indoor and outdoor power numbers for me (while riding solo/training).
Let me back up, no expert by any means. I really just switch focuses. Maybe 2-5 min power for a bit then switch back to 15-30 min power or so. I dont have a plan, but it keeps me from feeling stagnant.
I suspect there are many like yourself who might take a few tries with Xert before feeling they have the ability to take control of their own training (with the help of Xert of course 
