Apparently I’m late to the party and just discovered Xert. Wow, what an amazing idea and especially impressive that it all works across so many devices! Many thanks to all involved.
I’d be grateful to anyone who could help with any of the following:
1.) I’ve been reading forums, blogs, and of course the Xert web site but what I’ve found seems to be high level details about the platform before I firmly understand the basics. Can anyone share a link comprehensive on-boarding resource that will help me understand the Xert vocabulary? I’m sure it’s on the web site, I’m just missing the link.
2.) As for the setup, I’m really interested in using the platform to maximize fitness for an upcoming event in April. I have a Wahoo KICKR trainer, cadence, and HR sensor that I’ve linked through the Xert Player iOS app. I realize this might be considered a minimal setup, but can I fully utilize the workout planner and smart workouts with just an iPhone and KICKR trainer? If so, cool!
3.) I’m really confused about getting a baseline fitness set on the Xert platform in order to produce maximum gains. I’m 9 weeks out from the target event which should be enough time to do some good work, but, garbage-in garbage-out. Will the platform adapt the difficulty of the workouts based on my performances on each ride going forward? I’ve synced about a year’s worth of activity off of Strava so Xert has some data to work with - except, and this is a big one - I don’t use a power meter for outdoor rides. Will the lack of power data on the road rides skew the Xert data?
Sorry for being so needy on the first post, but many thanks if anyone can help me out.
Welcome to the party! 1. We have a glossary too, if you haven’t seen that before. Link is on the left menu. 2) YES!!! 3) Partially. You should put in placeholders for the XSS you get for those outdoor rides as it will ensure the deficit/surplus calculations are more accurate. Click on the dates for them in the Planner and enter in the values or, alternatively, drag-and-drop some other similar activity with XSS info onto that date. You may also benefit from a bit of research on the concept of Focus if you plan on entering a lot of info manually.
Thanks for the great reply Armando. In reference to question 3 above regarding Xert Strain Score (XSS), I’m assuming that XSS is a trademark term describing training load similar to what other platforms might call TSS (Training Stress Score)? Would it be accurate to add a known TSS from a different platform (Training Peaks in this case) as the placeholder value or is there a correction needed. Thanks again for the kind welcome. Regards - P
Thanks again for the reply, “Paradigm Shift” is enlightening, although I didn’t see any reference to TSS. I still have a question about Armando’s response above to my question #3. Can I use TSS in place of XSS? Is there any correction or conversion needed?
User Tip: My first ride on Xert I couldn’t get Cadence data from the pod. After five minutes of messing with it, I got impatient and just did the ride on the power meter + HR. During the ride it occurred to me to delete the cadence sensor from the TrainerRoad app on the iPhone - which did the trick. Not a hardware guy so I’m not sure what was going on, but deleting the cadence pod from the TrainerRoad app worked. Hope that can help someone.
The KICKR broadcasts power and speed, although the Xert app isn’t recording speed even though it’s got a data field for it. Anyone know a fix for that?
@Hamrick, check the Blog “Fitness Prediction and Potential” for a good explanation as to the difference between Stress Score (TSS) and Strain Score (XSS) , “The scores are similar for durations greater than 40 seconds and less then 200 seconds”, for shorter and longer durations XSS is higher than TSS. In my experience, is that XSS is usually somewhat higher than TSS. For example, the Xert workout Sweet spot Classic 2x20 gave me a XSS of 85, GoldenCheetah (GC) showed a TSS of 70 for the same workout. Xert Workout 1hr at 95%LTP shows a XSS of 68, GC shows a TSS of 50. I hope that helps out somewhat.
2nd ride on Xert and I’m having doubts about the recommendations the platform is offering. I don’t question the science, I’m just not convinced that I’m starting out on the platform with an accurate signature. How would a rider establish an accurate Fitness Signature if no rides were available to import? (I’m still trying to wrap my brain around no FTP testing).
Also, I can live without capturing speed on the trainer workouts, but how do I record ride duration? I’m using the iOS app to control a Wahoo Kickr trainer. The app delivers the correct workout (duration and resistance), it’s just not saving the workout duration after I press the “save” icon. Am I doing something wrong or is this a bug?
For new athletes, the first few weeks should be either unstructured rides (use Zwift or ride outdoors if at all possible). On occassion, try and push hard to exhaustion. Ride as many hours as you would like to ride. This data is then used to establish your baseline fitness and training load. With this info, Xert can provide guidance on how you can improve from there. We can also assist at that point in getting your baseline information properly setup for your training.
For clarification, when you say new athlete are you referring to a new untrained beginner cyclist, or an established athlete new to Xert? I would expect different very different responses to exercise between the two groups.
I’ve trained and raced road for 20+ years and would consider myself “experienced”, but the last few years I’ve been drawn to XC MTB racing. I have a 6-Day stage race I’d like to peak for in April using Xert to train but feel that my starting fitness signature within the platform is wrong. You mentioned above that you can help assist me get my baseline training properly setup to hopefully maximize each training session before my target event in April. How do I get help?
New in terms of having power data. The software does have some intelligence built in to determine your initial baseline capacity to train… but it needs some data to determine that.
If there’s a better way to work through this process, like email or a service ticket please let me know. Otherwise…
Can you help me determine what data would best serve as a baseline for Xert to produce accurate recommendations? As I mentioned above, unlike many users, I’m only bringing power data in from the trainer and not road riding. My fear is that the lack of power data from the imported road rides that I do (again without a powermeter) have skewed the fitness signature. Is it recommended that I delete all synced rides from Strava and re-import only those efforts with power data?
No. Your lack of data will skew your Training Load and not necessarily your Fitness Signature. This affects the XATA recommendations typically, as you’ll have more fitness in your legs than what the system realizes.
Data may have spikes or errors. Extraction was not successful.
I received this message after completing a workout that exceeded Xert’s produced MPA on several intervals. I downloaded the .csv and see that there were a few speed fields that were missing, the rest of the data looks complete. My question is, errors aside, will Xert use the data that was extracted or is the entire ride discarded?
While. Service ticket probably gives a more personal touch, the pleabians out here have similar questions. So hopefully we can get that Vocabulary detail and additioNlnfindinggs from this thread.
I’m not sure if a service ticket is an option, the question is still open but I’m sure it’ll get answered time permitting (Armando has been very though and patient in my short Xert career). That said, from what I can tell the ride produced the error message due to 4 missing speed fields in the first 15 seconds of the ride. Otherwise it looks like the data was adequate for Xert to do it’s thing. All parameters moved in the appropriate direction and I’m going to guess the ride was used.
We had investigated the cause of the error message and made some adjustments both to words used and when it gets triggered since it was causing confusion. The system uses these no differentky than others. We’ve added an FAQ to help users identify and address issues that require intervention.
