Just curious.
How stronger have you gotten from using this Xert platform.
I am about to sign up for a subscription after using the free trial. I really never did any type of structured work outs before. Just the usual “ride hard all the time”.
What are your results?
Keep in mind I am old, had trouble completing any plans with TR, and started at one and a half stars for that progression experiment. The lightbulb moment for me was – geez, I can complete ALL the workouts with Xert because they scale to your fitness signature, status, and form.
This year I expect more modest gains because Xert left me so much higher this past November than in years past on other platforms. I am also manipulating IR as I progress this season including downwards or steady when I want to change hours per week. YMMV
Your improvement is going to depend on where you start from and how much TL you can handle (hours and intensity) over time which is primarily controlled by IR (improvement rate) and athlete type (focus) plus the selections you make based on recommendations (riding indoors and outdoors).
As far as my general advice goes – You need to accept the fact going slow is a contributor to going faster later. If you go hard all the time, you are sure to top out and plateau.
Yes that is true as my research has suggested that. It is hard to go slow outdoors.
I am also old (63), and plan to race in the spring when the racing season starts. I’m in Toronto, Canada. My current TP is 226. I would love to see it go up close to 250 for race season start. I hope that is a reasonable improvement in four months of indoor work outs. Not sure if it can happen but I’m trying. I looked through your thread above RidgeRider. Their is a lot of stuff, actually most of it I don’t understand. Their is so much to learn. If I don’t have correct settings maybe I won’t reach my full potential and this would be a turn off for me. I will try it this season for the next four months and see how things go.
Since you are just getting started, I suggest you read through this long thread that has lots of tips for newbies and hopefully answers more questions than it generates.
There is a profile questionnaire on that thread. You are welcome to post your answers here as that will give us the framework to guide you the right directions (setup, goals, athlete type, etc.).
When you see posts in German you want to translate, highlight the text, then right-click and select Translate.
It does take some time to learn all the ins and outs of Xert, but you can do that as you ride indoors over the coming weeks and months. For example, listen to a podcast or watch an Academy lesson video during a low intensity endurance workout.
2 Seasons ago I was able to move from 3.4 w/kg to 4.0 (my goal), I attribute a big portion of it to Xert. TrainerRoad is the next closest and if you ONLY do indoor training, it’s probably equally as good.
Last Season I was injured, This Season I’m closely following the Xert recommendations. I do believe it’s getting me stronger without reinjuring, which is my main concern.
For $10 a month, it’s hard to recommend anything else.
For context, I’m not competing / serious, and in Northern hemisphere so am at lowest fitness in December and highest mid-year. Here’s a summary with a bit of additional context to my training approach and loads (with the usual caveat that it’s not ideal to look only at TP without HIE, but it’s the easiest to see from the progression charts…):
Really started Xert End 2018 ca. 270w TP with TL of 15… (prior to that I’d done one season of structure with TR and improved significantly, but that was also coming off a zero baseline due to injury so hard to compare…) then with training --------> Peak 2019 300w TP with TL of 39… mostly following Xert though with less rigour for intervals in summer
End 2019 ca. 290w TP with TL of 24 --------> Peak 2020 330w TP with TL of 57 … mostly following Xert with a little bias to lower intensity (again with less rigour for intervals in summer)
End 2020 ca. 320w TP with TL of 40 ---------> Peak 2021 345w TP with TL of 57… following much more polarisation… i.e. much lower intensity endurance than Xert’s typical endurance workout (which also means more hours for the same TL). Part of the bump in TP was offset by reduction in HIE that year, and power at lower heart rates improved significantly.
Now I’m way back down after a break and easy end to the year. Starting to train a bit more now. Not sure if I reached my limit given available hours last year, but time will tell. May try a more pyramidal rather than polarised approach next year out of interest
As you can see, I started by largely following Xert but over time have focused more on lower intensity endurance rides vs what Xert prescribes. Not because of any issues I had, just out of curiosity and based on research suggesting the value of polarising training. I’d also suggest that part of the improvement year to year is also from a) consistency within a week and from week to week and b) training through winter, rather than having very long periods completely off the bike. Would say Xert has helped on that journey hence still with them
WOW, nice improvements @wescaine .
I would love to have that type of fitness improvement.
Yes I have read a lot about doing more base training to help raise FTP. Looks like you proved that. I don’t know how to interpret HIE, as I am new to Xert.
I should say I’m not super light so numbers are less impressive per kg, but yes, still happy with the improvement - generally only really compare to myself eg on local climbs (where I’m nowhere near KOM!)
If you train consistently you’ll also improve, and often when new to structured training (like I was) the gains can be large. For sure there’s individual variation… age, muscle typology, starting fitness and training history, but if you intelligently increase load with enough time for recovery you’ll get closer to your potential without overtraining
Re HIE, it’s essentially capacity to ride above threshold / how long you can sustain those efforts. I think my 6 minute power didn’t change much in 2021 vs 2020 (maybe a few watts) despite the 5% increase in TP, but my ability to ride at higher powers up to threshold increased (lower HR for same endurance efforts, or easier feeling long moderate rides for example), if that makes sense.
Would be good to see how you get on in a few months - good luck with it!
I’m 68, at 3 stars, way overweight with climber as an athlete type. I have found Xert quite useful, can’t explain in terms of fitness gains as yet though. I started using Xert regularly late last year when riding mostly outdoors. I was doing a lot of solo rides (due to covid) usin Xert outdoors and could see my speed increase over time but my TP barely increased. Late fall resulted in more indoor riding and I found the recommended rides either too hard or too easy. I asked for support to look at my fitness signature to make sure it was correct. They did make some minor adjustments and all has been well ever since. I just move from base phase with maintenance decay to build phase with slow decay and will see how it goes. I do have a team/club traing camp coming the end of March which will involve a lot of climbing and that will be the ultimate test. I am also working on the overweight issue