Basic help needed: Availability Restriction, Forecast AI: Goal Program, Bar Colours, Polarization

[Maennlein]

Hi!

I´ve been running Xert in parallel to my main Training Program / Monitoring Tools (TR and GC) for quite some time and summer this year I would have said I almost understood Xert in a way I am able to use it for my daily training - unfortunately (for me) the new updates brought more questions .

I would just need some support on following items:

• Under the training tab and “Todays recommended training” its shown “Restricted” due to my availability. I have set my availability to 4 hours recently but it stills shows “Restricted”. What is Xert planning, hitting me with a 5h-workout ?
  

  

• For Forecast AI (FAI): Choosing Continuous Program and weekly improvement rate “Moderate -1” gives me an estimate onTP Increase of 8W (in 1 month). Choosing the Goal Program under FAI for same increase (even just with 1W increase) it says I will not reach my targets in even 1.5 months. Any ideas where I did wrong?
  

  

• Can someone direct me please to the colour code explanations of the coloured bars under the training and program tab? Both have the same start date but colour differently.
  

  
  
  
  

• Polarization under the “General Settings” option for the programs: Even choosing 5:1 Polarization left me with 3 High Intensity Workouts per week. This leads me to 2 questions: 1. What do I have to do to just get 2 HI Workouts and 2. Is HI in Xert the same as Zone 3 in the Polarization Model from Seiler?

Thanks a lot & have a nice day ahead.

Cheers
Chris

[ManofSteele (Scott Steele)]

Hi Chris! Welcome to the community! Hopefully I can help provide some general answer - thanks for posting screenshots of everything right away, it makes it a bit easier to answer everything.

@Maennlein

Under the training tab and “Todays recommended training” its shown “Restricted” due to my availability. I have set my availability to 4 hours recently but it stills shows “Restricted”.

It will show ‘Restricted’ any time that you have entered custom availability - perhaps we can improve the wording here to reduce confusion.

@Maennlein

it says I will not reach my targets in even 1.5 months. Any ideas where I did wrong?

Pay special attention on the right hand side to the changes in Training Load. The Specificity in your example is set to PURE GC Specialist, which will require you to almost quadruple your High Training Load in ~6 weeks or so (look for the red X by the estimated High Training Load). You could try dropping the specificity to ‘Mixed’ or ‘Polar’ and you’ll likely be able to achieve larger increases in your 8 minute power in that 6-week period.

@Maennlein

Can someone direct me please to the colour code explanations of the coloured bars under the training and program tab? Both have the same start date but colour differently.

Summary

From the Continuous Improvement document:

"When Continuous Improvement program type is selected, the Xert Adaptive Training Program – located under the ‘Train’ tab on Xert Online, or the ‘Train’ tab of Xert Player for iOS – will display how your actual improvement has looked over the last 6 weeks:

• Improvement Rate above 7: Red
• Improvement Rate between 0 and 7: Green
• Improvement Rate below 0: Blue
  "

Any subtle differences between the two could be due to differences in rounding & whether the last 7 days is used or Mon-Sun is used.

@Maennlein

Polarization under the “General Settings” option for the programs: Even choosing 5:1 Polarization left me with 3 High Intensity Workouts per week. This leads me to 2 questions: 1. What do I have to do to just get 2 HI Workouts and 2. Is HI in Xert the same as Zone 3 in the Polarization Model from Seiler?

In our case, 4:1 (or 5:1) polarization means that when possible, the optimizer will schedule your high intensity training with enough High/Peak XSS to keep you yellow for the following 4 (or 5) days, which is when low intensity training or rest will be recommended. Depending on a number of factors, Xert may not be able to give you enough High/Peak XSS in your available time, so the High/Peak XSS may need to be split across a couple of days.

If interested, Pro Tip Below:

Summary

A neat feature that you can use is to enable the ‘Form’ option under the forecast chart. The bottom dot on each day shows your form after completing that day’s forecasted training & by hovering over that dot you can see exactly how long you’ll be red status, which is the number of days for low system (blue number) and how long you’ll be yellow status, which is max of the number of days for high or peak system (yellow or red number). Below is an example from my forecast chart today - after doing ‘SMART - Born For Greatness’, my low & high systems will still be fresh (0 days recovery each), but my Peak system will need 3 days of recovery, so I’ll be yellow status for the next 3 days:

Hope this is a helpful start! Cheers!