After listening to part 2 of the Steve Neil interview on the Jack Burke podcast, I really want to start using XSS buckets within Xert.
I’ve searched around the forum and FB group and seen some people mention how they love using this great feature, but I think it would be a great idea to have one place where people share how they are currently using XSS Buckets.
I can also start by asking if people solely try filling up the buckets during a ride or do you also keep in mind the focus duration and/or specificity.
As a mountain biker I find buckets a great feature for outdoor rides. I can use climbs to fun descents to fill the buckets and stop when they are full. I did a ride at one of our local trail centres just after Christmas and did repeats of two of the best descents to fill my high power bucket on the climbs to them. Without buckets, I would have done the last descent maybe two times, but to fill the buckets I had to ride up the climb to it five times! More tired afterwards, but had a lot of fun seasoning the descent :). On LIT days I just spin around the country lanes and easy off-road sections until that bucket is filled. It does make training more fun.
I did wonder about the way I filled the buckets, in that, does a 3x10 minute at VO2 make a difference if I go and do a ride with 4x2 minutes and 4x3 minutes at the same power. But I realise that XERT increases the amount of time in those buckets as you progress through your plan, so you are subjecting your legs to increasing amounts of load. And, I do have two routes local to me, where one has 3 x unto 15 minutes of climbing and the other plenty of 2-4 minute climbs so I can alternate if It think it is making a difference.