Due to various reasons, I was only able to do indoor Z2 rides from November to February. I then slowly started adding intervals and riding outside more. None of these were all-out, although I did have a few punchier climbs and sprints.
Now that I’m back to training with Xert, my problem is that I can “easily” hold power targets that are below threshold and complete all the intervals. However, above thresholds intervals are simply not achievable a lot of the times. My legs just give up, even though MPA is showing I still have a ton of headroom left. I actually lowered my FTP by 10W after a few workouts, and that helped a little, but I feel that’s the wrong approach to take.
Todays workout, for example, was over-unders. Since I lowered my FTP, they felt a tad easier than I’d expect. However, towards the end, there were a few 150% intervals and I couldn’t do them. After about 15, 20 seconds, my legs just wouldn’t turn anymore. I then stood up and used my arms to really push myself and finish the intervals, although I couldn’t reach targets even then.
I expected Xert to detect that I couldn’t complete them properly and adjust something, but nothing changed at all. In fact, it’s now adjusted my training plan and added a second hard day tomorrow (vs. it being a rest day before I did todays workout).
So now I’m in this weird place where some workouts are scaled properly and some that I can’t finish even though Xert thinks I’m barely touching the MPA.
Is there a sensible way to somehow try and fix this? Like I’ve said, I don’t want to just randomly change my fitness numbers.
why should manually adjusting TP be a bad thing necessarily? First of all: you say that your Fitness Signature is way off and does not work for you. If you say you can hold power below TP “easily”, that means you should have at least a feeling for your M(aximum)P(ower)A(vailable) for certain durations. If so, you could just guesstimate where your TP might be. I would just set it there - rather lower than higher - and ride some hard intervals or even a hardness test. That way you can dial in your fitness signature again and be fine to go on. If you do not create breakthroughs with that, it’s maybe a smidge too low, if you do, you got your current signature right
On another note: what in the world was the workout if the over in over-unders is @150%? Or was that a typo? @ridgerider would certainly ask for the fitness chart of this ride and maybe that helps here, too
I think lowering my TP would make sub-threshold intervals too easy, even if harder intervals might then be more in line of what I can achieve.
The workout was called Nothing else matters. You’re right, over-unders were definitely not at 150%, but it has two or three hard spikes towards the end, those were at 150%.
Good idea about the chart! Here it is, and I’m also enabling cadence to make it easier to see my problem:
As you can see from the intervals towards the end, my cadence basically tanked (ignore the first cadence drop, my phone fell off). The only reason why it’s not zero is because I then went out of saddle and doing 30rpm just to get some power out. It was under the target, but still, I thought better than giving up completely.
Lowering TP is not to make things easier, but for allowing you to generate realistic breakthroughs to dial in you Fitness Signature.
Also: easy rides should be exactly that: easy! So you have enough energy to do the hard rides really hard. Just like you did with this one! The MPA-curve looks almost like it should look and you even finished it. I would say everything done right here
That’s good to hear, thanks! I just assumed that all the intervals should be doable at my current fitness. As I’ve said, if I haven’t gotten out of the saddle, I’d have to stop in the middle of an interval.
It is not just about whether you have sufficient MPA vs power target but also the difficulty score, which in your case gets quite high at around 100. This assumes you were fresh and fueled going into the workout too.
Also, that workout is kind of unusual for Xert in that the harder efforts are back end loaded / when you are already a bit fatigued. Depending on your training level it’s normal for those late very high intensity efforts to feel very tough, especially when they are hard anaerobic efforts.
It appears you have power smoothing enabled on your trainer. If so, you’ll want to disable that function.
Nothing Else Matters includes an over/under threshold set in the middle. Did the first set feel that way too?
It’s one of the few SMART workouts that includes back-to-back dynamic power intervals and they occur at the tail end of the workout. Those intervals will be even tougher to complete since the power target will increase if you’re not matching it.
Other alternate workouts will be the opposite with interval sets that taper down in intensity as the workout ends.
If you continue to have issues with particular workouts you can dislike them and they’ll be pushed down on recommended lists.
You could also switch to Slope mode during difficult intervals. That will give you the control you need to avoid any death spirals.
The Cadence Optimizer (CO) gauge on the Remote or Session Player warns you to spin up to a target rpm before a tough interval kicks in. If not using the CO gauge you want to spin up during interval transition beeps.
Thank you for the feedback. My trainer sadly doesn’t have the option of disabling power smoothing.
The middle set of actual over/unders felt fine, had no real problem completing those. It was only the “sprinting” intervals that were unachievable for me.
I did increase my cadence beforehand, I always do that since it’s near impossible to spin up otherwise once the interval starts.
What you could also try is to disable ERG and do workouts in slope. There are plenty of threads online with people struggling to hold intervals in ERG mode. You wont have the cadence problem this way, too, since you’ll decide when the interval starts/stops
and they’ll be pushed down on recommended lists.