Fitness Signature Accuracy - Test?

[ridgerider2]

@TwentySpokes

Am I supposed to change through my gears and push on to maximal fatigue?

Yes.

@TwentySpokes

Are these Test Workouts meant to be done with ERG mode off? Or does the Trainer in Auto mode disable ERG Mode according to the nature of the interval?

Auto will switch between modes automatically depending on how the interval is defined in the workout.
If you ride a breakthrough test in ERG mode and your signature is not already dialed in the workout can end up too easy. You want too hard so you are best off riding breakthrough workouts in resistance or slope mode so you can max out the efforts. .
Which mode works best will depend on your trainer.
During warm-up you can experiment with a resistance % or slope starting at 0.0 and get comfortable. Then be prepared to spin up and/or switch gears to hit your target intervals and exceed them if you can. Go all out on the short sprints including jumping out of the saddle.

[TwentySpokes (Martin Jones)]

Thanks for this reply. I usually ride ERG mode in a very low gear to avoid ‘bottoming out’ so when Auto switched modes I spun out and missed out on my gains!

[ManofSteele (Scott Steele)]

@TwentySpokes

Are these Test Workouts meant to be done with ERG mode off? Or does the Trainer in Auto mode disable ERG Mode according to the nature of the interval?

I’m a huge advocate of doing any sort of maximal efforts in SLOPE mode with the gradient set to 2.0-2.5%. This allows you full control over the effort, and makes sure that you don’t get bogged down by an interval in ERG mode. Also, you can keep pushing past an interval if there’s more to give, whereas ERG mode will simply end the interval when it’s told to.

We also learn much more about how you fatigue (and therefore your fitness) from seeing how your ability to generate power changes when MPA has been drawn down very low. For example, if you did a 20 min test, Xert doesn’t really care about what average power you did for 20 minutes… Xert is going to look at what power you were generating in the 19th and 20th minute, relative to MPA. And if you finish the 20 min test by continuing to pedal all-out for another 30s or so, you’ll get much better results from the system than completely stopping after the 20 min effort. Hopefully that makes sense.

[jyhudon (Jean-Yves Hudon)]

@ManofSteele

And if you finish the 20 min test by continuing to pedal all-out for another 30s or so, you’ll get much better results from the system than completely stopping after the 20 min effort.

Absolutely true, I did a workout with a 5 min focus. At the end of the session, my MPA was at 60%; I had the energy for a few more 30sec sprints. Which led to a breakthrough. the lesson, it pays to push at the end of a hard workout if you have some energy left in the tank.

[ridgerider2]

@TwentySpokes

I usually ride ERG mode in a very low gear to avoid ‘bottoming out’ so when Auto switched modes I spun out and missed out on my gains!

IME one workout that works well in Auto mode is Fitness Test for BT Version 3.
I start to falter during the 5 minute effort but if you muddle through that you get a 19 min reprieve before the final challenge.
I can never wrestle this workout to the ground. It just spits me out.