MIcrointervals & Workout descriptions

[hyn]

I’m a little confused about workouts descriptions, specifically when I’m going to be riding outside.

Here is a clear example:

You're going to concentrate on manageable power to keep the pace high. Focus on maintaining a power you could hold for many minutes. With each repetition, your breathing should be increasing towards its max. Stay seated and keep a good strong cadence during each interval.
Focus on alternating your rest intervals with some easy and some at higher intensities near your lower threshold power (218.2 watts). This ensures you get a good mix of strain against each energy producing system.
You will challenged so be sure to be well-rested beforehand, fuel up and hydrate beforehand and maintain your carb intake and hydration during your training. Stay focused and motivated. It'll be worth it.
Interval Power: 426 Watts, Interval Duration: 28 Seconds, Recovery Power: 150 Watts

A power I can maintaing for many minutes is really not 28 secs. I understand that as long as I fill the buckets, I should be fine, but if I follow the description advice, I will never fill the Peak bucket in time, since an effort I can hold for many minutes (wtf is many, 5, 10?) will not be high enough to get peak XSS.

I can of course follow the suggested intervals, but then I will never really train longer intervals and I’m skeptical about that, considering I’m training for a Gran Fondo with 3k+ climbing.

Any advice?

[ridgerider2]

Training description vs suggested intervals

This issue has been reported where the long-form free ride advice (XATA) does not appear to align with the Magic Buckets guidelines. However, they are both correct. The goal for the day is a particular ratio of low/high/peak strain which can be achieved in numerous ways. Indoors this is evident by the variety of suitable workouts that meet today’s recommended XSS, Duration, Focus, and Difficulty. Some workouts will be closer to target values than others and they may have very differe…

426w @ 28 secs happens to be the most efficient structure to fill the buckets but no need to be exact. It won’t be outdoors especially as you adjust to terrain and traffic conditions.
You can experiment with the interval duration range possible at that wattage by viewing the Magic Buckets tab. Adjust CL and interval duration settings and watch what happens. This post describes doing that.

Target Interval Power not correct?

When going to the ‘Choose my training’ overlay, Xert gives a target Interval Power that seems way too high for the focus of the training. For example, I have a training sessions with ‘Polar Climber’ focus (10 minute power’) and a target Interval Power of 361 Watts (interval duration: 26 seconds). Howerver, my 10 minute power right now is only 269 Watts. This does not seem to make sense? [power] [2026-01-12 11_31_18-Postvak IN - tristan.hoorelbeke@vlaanderen.be - Outlook]

[klapaucjusz1 (TC)]

Take a look at this recent discussion:

Very short (15–20s) Smart Intervals for VO₂ work with high HIE — how should this be interpreted?

Hi all, I’ve been using Xert for a while and really appreciate the model and the concept of strain-based training. However, I’m struggling to understand how to properly use Magic Buckets together with the Smart Interval recommendations for high-intensity (VO₂-type) work. My fitness signature TP: 361 W HIE: 24.7 kJ Peak Power: 1182 W So I appear to have relatively high anaerobic capacity. The issue When riding with Magic Buckets and following the real-time interval recommendations o…

My takeaway is that you should not take the intervals prescribed by XMB too rigidly or seriously. If you need to do longer intervals for you goals, do longer intervals, XMB will adjust. The upside is that XMB will calculate your XSS no matter how you do your intervals. The downside is that you need to reach outside of Xert to figure out what intervals you need to train, if you are not happy with the short microintervals, which Xert seems to prefer.