Hey Everyone, new guy here! Got my first BT today on a workout I did (Ramp Test). Digging Xert so far and slowly getting up to speed on the new terms and acronyms.
Got a Breakthrough today on an outside ride. Did some threshold intervals on the trainer this morning and just went for a 42km ride by the river this afternoon. Decided to hit a few sprints near home at the end. I figured I would get a breakthrough for peak power when I saw the 1200W reading on the Wahoo, but I don’t understand why I got an 8W bump in threshold power. Or is that unrelated to the sprint?
Hey all,
On a related topic, I’m planning on doing a BT this week. Does anyone have any pointers about how to balance being fresh for the BT effort vs keeping up Training Load for the week?
What do others do in the lead up? A few days of Endurance/Blue rides - maybe keep my daily XSS in line with my current Training Load (rather than daily XSS exceeding Training Load)?
After the BT effort I usually get Red Stars so again more Endurance/Blue after? My concern with this is that it will make it hard to get back up to my target Training Load, or should I just change my mindset on this and expect it to be a lower Training Load week?
Cheers,
Si
Hi Simon,
I’m fairly new at this myself but from my understanding I would ask why specifically you want a BT? I would normally reduce my training load slightly before and after when going for a BT and while it’s great to get one the process will inevitably disrupt your training to some extent. Nice to break through but if you believe your fitness signature is pretty accurate/tracking with your improvement and your progression chart is looking good, why bother?
Simon
I got a nice one during the Breakthrough ride with Stephen and Scott yesterday. Although the algorithm adapting the signature continuously when analyzing the workout is a harsh mistress. I was purple during the 2nd and 3rd set also, but quite a bit off MPA it seems.
Now I’m curious if the my TP drops again significantly during my upcoming outside ride this weekend. I also feel my HIE is super high in relation to my TP.
Fun times though.
No time yesterday to join the group effort, but got my first gold BT in an outside activity today, cold and windy, but it was fun.
I typically wait until the stale signature warning appears (!) and I feel “different” before scheduling a BT workout. I usually do them on Tuesdays as I always take Mondays off.
By different I mean I notice a shift in workout intensity and LTP endurance workouts start to feel easier indicating a new level of fitness. I am curious to see how much and look forward to finding out on the next Tuesday.
As you start moving up that ladder towards Peak phase that feeling won’t be as strong or as obvious as it is in Base and parts of Build. As you approach your fitness ceiling for the season your BT changes can be minor. But you should still test yourself if the stale warning comes up. That warning may never appear if your other activities trigger BT events (Zwift race, hill climb ending with a sprint, group ride with hammering, etc.).
If you dialed up your IR to a level that has you tired most of the time you are best off dialing it down for a bit and taking some rest days.
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BT workouts can be short and sweet depending on which one you pick.
They rank from 2-1/2 to 5 stars and I’m not going anywhere near that 5 star one. 
All of them will contribute to your training load so I wouldn’t worry much about that issue.
Depending on how you feel afterwards you can continue riding for however long you’d like at a low intensity to meet your XSS goal for the day.
OTOH you also don’t need to be overly concerned about maintaining TL numbers day to day as any deficit is absorbed into XATA’s rolling seven day cycle.
If the pacer needle is floating between 11am and 1pm you are doing fine. If it drops lower a longer ride/workout in the endurance range will raise it back up. More low intensity base miles always help. But there is no need to try and wipe out a deficit every day. It’s normal to carry one forward.
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Modified ‘A Pain That I’m Used To’
I made my own copy and changed the first 12x 15s recoveries to ERG mode so that I didn’t have to change gears but kept the final 1x on slope to push through.
I was cooked for the 2nd set so just gave it a push when I thought I couldn’t do any more reps.
Here’s my recent BT. Decided during the beginning of yesterdays workout to give it a try and pushed up the Alpe on Zwift, BT during final sprint.
Had another one during a 30min Zwift race, this was truly all out for today 
Can’t wait to ride outside as soon as my fingers can hold the brake lever again.
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That looks like some serious punishment. Glad you got rewarded for the efforts. 
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You shouldn’t see much change from your new signature with that 11 watts bump other than normal decay over time, but that is gradual. Is your decay set to optimal?
HIE is more relational to PP than TP. How do your numbers look compared to this chart?
Are there errors in my Fitness Signature? – Xert (baronbiosys.com)
Yes, you are correct. This time there was no big changes other than decay. I set to optimal again a few weeks ago. I did do a longer ride yesterday and managed to stay mostly around LTP as planed.
My signature look a bit strange, I think: 237 TP, 26.9 HIE and 844 PP.
PP seems about right. My sprinting ability sucks and this is roughly my personal best that I managed during an outdoor ride a few weeks ago.
TP could be correct hopefully. At least it would be a nice improvement for me. 
HIE seems very high but I have no real frame of reference other than the chart you posted.
20 minute effort, reached MPA with 30s or so left, I think I ended up with around 90s maximal effort time. Looks like my sig is pretty well dialled in!
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A small one, but it was fun. Xert fitness test v3. Used automode switched to slope (2%) for the intervals with highest efforts. It will take a little time to get used to this,especially taking some more time to build up the power. Well, it was fun and not too hard for a beginner like me 
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Except for a couple of coffee rides it was my first ride outside since late fall. I Noticed the MPA dropping so I kind of went for it. Stopped pedaling due to traffic. The rest of the ride was getting lost in the woods, trying to find new trails.
Note that I had been using no-decay for several months (I’m lazy). Before the switch back to optimal the BT was reported as 15W, 0kJ, 21W. I was sure I could get a BT riding outside but I didn’t know by how much. Numbers seems quite reasonable.
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What goes up must come down, Shorter climbs this time with a long downhill recovery, so I pushed for a BT on the first climb
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That fitness test is too generous, but at least it has a positive effect on the satisfaction. For a few minutes. Then you realize that it doesn’t mean a lot.
Interesting that you find that the case. That’s certainly not true at all for me. I’ve had very good, consistent results (consistent with outdoor riding and other indoor workouts) having used this workout fairly consistently for 3+ years now.