Advice sought on the best way to use Xert

I’m looking for some advice on how to use Xert going forward in my particular circumstances.

I’m 70 years old and don’t compete . I ride/train with a few fellow septuagenarians, all with Threshold power around the 200W mark despite being different rider types and weights.

We ride consistently through the winter doing 2-4 hour endurance rides with occasional efforts during them depending on how the mood takes us. We all supplement these rides with solo rides outside or on the turbo with varying degrees of structure.

All this is to enable us to do weekly long hilly road and gravel rides when the clocks change. These rides challenge us not only in duration but also in intensity on the hills.

I destroyed myself in the late April and early May as I wasn’t properly prepared due to some unavoidable inconsistency and possibly the wrong type of preperation during the winter.

I’m looking for some advice as to how to structure my preparation for next year.

Looking at the rides from this year the Focus of them varied from Rouleur to Climber.

If thinking of setting the system to Continuous Improvement and cycling through 6 weeks each of 20 min Time Trialist through to Rouleur finishing with Rouleur just as the clocks change then hoping I can hang on to the required fitness until the middle of August by prioritising recovery between the rides during the summer.

Any criticism or suggestions would be greatly received.

Sorry about the long post

Your plan has merit as long as it includes some downtime and preferably a seasonal progression or two.
What does your XPMC look like when you select Forever and drag cursor to display last five years with only TL enabled or TL with Low, High, and Peak strain shown?
What do you attribute being “destroyed” by? Too much or too little and too late?

Here’s the chart you requested. As to why I felt destroyed I put it down to being under prepared for the 4 or 5 weeks of hard rides with a lot more (low cadence around threshold) climbing than I was used to. I hit a training load low after being away during March. That in itself has never been a problem but due to those rides, I think I ramped the load up far too quickly - I ought to have taken more rest in between those rides.

That’s a solid five years of consistent training. :+1:
Was the long ride in July last year a targeted event or special group ride?

Everyone’s XPMC will be differ depending on their goals and how much they can ride each year, but patterns and trends are useful to compare.
Here’s mine for the same period.

When you zoom in on one of your training blocks or progressions, how prevalent are your rest days?
Any time I’m feel stretched during a block of training I’ll take two days off in a row after an especially long or hard ride. I feel much better for it when I do that.
I do monitor calculated form on the Planner, but I don’t necessarily ride on yellow days.
During build/peak weeks I may ride every other day to ensure full recoveries.
Plus, I’ll scale back for a week or more at the end of a training block.
Example of a seasonal progression:

Once you build year over year resilience, I don’t think you lose much fitness by taking breaks even extended ones as long as you’re not sitting on the couch the entire time. :smiley:
Fitness builds back quickly when you resume training.

All of my first-of-year progressions (mid-Dec to mid-April) have been with XATA Base-Build-Peak, GC Specialist, at a Slow or Moderate-1 rate.
While I’ve successfully reached Goal targets on 60-day XFAI plans, I much prefer the freedom and flexibility of XATA.
I control the progression day-by-day which may result in a single weekly HIT workout during Build/Peak. I can also decide to go with a different Focus Duration target on HIT days. For me that’s usually a sprint workout (20-30s secs max effort, full rest, repeat until I can’t do another without quickly fading). Or I might do hill repeats or on/offs during a 10+ minute climb.
If falling behind Pacer needle-wise I’ll put in a long easy ride (4-6 hours) making sure to fuel every 45 minutes. That normally triggers red form, but I’m likely taking two days off in a row anyway. YMMV

With XMB I really love the ability to head out the door with the option to vary how and when my buckets get filled on HIT days.
I can front load the interval portion of my ride or execute late in the game.
If I’m feeling strong that day, I’ll crank up the CL. If not, I’ll spread out the effort with full recoveries. Or a combination – start strong then ease up if I can’t maintain the level.
Either way, buckets get filled.

Riding similar hours month to month likely leads to plateauing even if your mixing Focus Duration during training blocks.
IME if you want to the best peak experience, start off in a valley. :smiley:
TL-wise you’re hovering between 50-80 while I’ll dip below 40 and rise as high as 120+ during Peak phase.
Do you have the capacity to do that?
E.g. execute a full 120-day progression, potentially tripling TL during the term, then take a break.
If you feel that’s too much TL – or too high an increase – keep the ramp rate at Slow and target a doubling of TL during the term.
E.g. start with a dip, say ~35, and shoot for 75-80+. I.e. ~10 TL increase per month over 4 months.
Your reaching ~80 now but notice your TL pattern compared to my five pronounced progressions during the last 5 years.
Note: The slump at the end of my chart is because I’m mostly off the bike currently. Too much “stuff” going on this year for my usual progression. :frowning:

My takeaway is you obviously have good riding habits with solid base built each winter but consider how long you’re ramping up and managing recoveries along the way.
That sudden jump to weeks of low-cadence grinding and the aftermath is a lesson learned. :smiley:
Whether you plan to use Continuous blocks or a B-B-P progression next year consider incorporating some low-cadence/high-torque sessions on HIT days by end of March.

Finally ponder this –
We are already members of an elite club.
My guess is 70+ represents less than 1% of riders on any training platform.
Just showing up each day is a win. :laughing:

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Hi, thanks for sharing — I always like reading practical tips about using Xert and then thinking about how I could adapt them for myself.

You mentioned that during the Build/Peak phases you often do only one HIT workout per week. I’d be interested in how you handle that in practice.

Once you’ve completed your weekly HIT session, do you simply ignore any further High/Peak recommendations from XATA and ride Low/Endurance for the rest of the week? Or do you somehow steer XATA — for example via the Freshness slider or your targets — so that it offers more low/endurance workouts instead of high intensity? Does that also affect the recommended XSS/h?

I’m also wondering whether this approach works well for specific events. During the season I like to do a few “races” where I try to perform as well as I can, while also enjoying regular group rides where the goal is just to stay in the pack. When you have an event, do you set a Target Event Date in Xert and let it build a progression around that, or do you rather use Continuous and just “fit” the events into your normal routine?

I’m asking because I need to keep my training adaptable. I have multiple sclerosis, so a rigid plan with several fixed high‑intensity days isn’t always realistic, but I’d still like to use Xert to maintain a sensible progression over time. This season I tried setting up an XFAI Race plan for an event, but it didn’t really suit me. I always spend a long time tweaking the settings, and then when unplanned situations come up, I feel like the plan is no longer heading where I wanted it to. It tries to make up for what I’ve missed with more intensity, and sometimes it feels like the plan is trying to destroy me :smiley:

What suits me better is what XATA offers: “Today I have this many hours, I feel fresh/tired, recommend today’s workout.” The only thing I struggle with in XATA is managing things during the active season — what and how to do so that it still aligns with my goal, but remains flexible enough.

Many thanks for your detailed and thoughtful reply. My apologies for the late reply but I’m on holiday in France at the moment and mobile and WIfi coverage is a bit flaky where we are.

The ride in July was an annual 125 mile ride we do up to a place called Silverdale in the UK (Ironically it’s a place where elderly people of our age go to retire). How hard or fast it is depends on who decides to join us. Fewer and fewer sadly do.

I like they way you seem to plan for 4 peaks in a year interspersed with periods off the bike. In contrast I ride all the time with with periods of reduced volume and intensity.

It’s difficult to see when my rest days are because I include my walking on the chart and I try to walk every day, but nowadays I try to have an easy day (walking only) and a complete rest day every week. It seldom works out like that though. Downtime off the back tends to be when we visit our children as they live away from us.

I noticed about 18-24 months ago I didn’t seem to be recovering as well from my cycling and I put it down to some lingering effects of my last bout of COVID. Thinking about it I suspect it might have been more with age finally catching up with me.

I don’t think I hve the capacity to get as high as 120. Between 80-90 seems to be my limit. The type of riding I do with my friends limits me to a a certain extent. The big weekly ride takes it out of me and I therefore need more recovery which leads to ia certain amount of inconsistency which limits TL growth I think. I’m also a far more glycolytic animal than my mates and the long rides with lots of climbing makes me very tired, despite eating 2 or 3 times more than them on the bike. Looking on the Intervals.icu age comparison charts I’m distinctly average at all power durations except the 5sec sprint where I’m in the top 5% - and I don’t even do anything to work on sprinting.

After reading your post I think I’ll try doing a couple of Base Build Speciality cycles up until March April next year then when the big rides start in the late spring/early summer just forget about TL and concentrate on recovery and easy riding between the rides.