I am looking for more structure in my training, so after a lot of contemplation I have found myself on Xert. Currently riding completely unstructured, and about 12 - 15 hours a week (Long weekend rides). I would like to use Xert’s structured workouts on zwift when I simply do not know what I should be doing on a day and continue riding outdoors when group rides are happening.
Any advice on setting everything up? A bit confused by the complete system but am working my way through each piece.
Also - I have loaded my Strava profile, but do I need to do a ride / workout for adaptive training advisor and adaptive training program to work?
First of all you need to set a event date and Athlete Type in your profile.
If you don’t have a specific event just make it up, let 's say 2 months from now.
Your Athlete type should specify what type of rider you would like to be on the event date.
Xert will work towards those specifications.
Furthmore connect with Strava and sync your data. Not sure how much data you have but if you sync the last year of data that should be fine.
Xert will now determine your fitness signature so you have an idea where you stand.
You can find them on top of the Xert Dashboard
These are my numbers:
Next step could be to do an workout advised by Xert (see “Training” tab).
You should determine where you want to do this workout. Do you have an indoor trainer?
Do you have a power meter on your road bike? Do you have a Garmin device?
The last two are required if your want to do an Xert workout outside.
If you have an trainer you can do your workout via the Xert player in the app.
You could use your Phone (IOS or Android) to start the Xert App / Player, connect it to your trainer and select and perform the workout.
Once saved Xert will process it and update your Fitness signature.
Hopes this gets you starting.
Lot’s of fun with Xert and feel free to ask if you have any other questions.
Hey all, I appreciate the help! Tons of valuable information in the link, I love the reading! I am really looking forward to using the smart workouts in my weekly training.
That may be the reason why, I have had a power meter on my bike for all rides for the past two weeks, but have been zwifting on a trainer with power since December. All outdoor rides besides the previous two weeks do not have a power meter.
That data should be sufficient for the current signature to display everywhere.
The calculator is not running in your browser as you switch views for some reason.
File a support request at: support@xertonline.com
What happens if you refresh (F5) the browser when zeros are showing?
You also might need to enable the " Heart Rate Derived Metrics" setting in your profile in order to assign XSS to the outside rides without power meter. But for that heart rate and cadence information should be available in those rides. If not then even " Heart Rate Derived Metrics" won’t work.
Nice TP btw
There needs to be HR and RPM - not sure if there needs to be some historical HR/RPM data only for this to work, or if Xert can also do that trick based on HR/RPM data from (indoor) workouts with PM…
Mmmm… that’s strange. Can you check in your activities overview page if the ride isn’t been accidently flagged? That happened to me on several occassions where I took a too long coffee with apple-pie break during a ride. Xert noticed the drop to zero in cadence and decided to flag the ride.
It probably shows best if you choose the “Table” overview from the Menu.
Be sure that the column “Flag” is selected / visible.
If all you are doing it flipping between Activities and Training ‘tabs’ on the home page, something is wrong with the calculator refresh. The Training Pacer is blank too.
Are you sure you have a target date and improvement rate defined under Goals? (right side button)
You might also check your table of activities by selecting Activities, Table in left menu.
See if any are wildly off in values and flag them (checkbox plus flag icon in upper right).
That will remove any flagged entries from calculations.
If that doesn’t fix it file a support request at: support@xertonline.com
I can confirm that you don’t actually need both cadence and HR. The minimum you need is HR. I use HR derived for MTB rides and have tried both with and without cadence sensor. I actually found without cadence to be more accurate on the MTB (e.g. I’d do easy rides with HR around recovery levels but with varying cadence, and it would classify the workout as a difficult sprinter workout). Have been in touch with support and they said due to the highly variable nature of MTB rides it can be better not to have cadence… cadence is good for activities that are more like road biking e.g. commuting. Just thought I’d share
The resolution was not to use cadence data for MTB rides
Yes they were very responsive as usual, but weren’t about to prioritise a review of their algorithm to ‘fix’ the issue. If the algorithm is trained on steadier road bike efforts I can see why 1) it’s less accurate for MTB rides and 2) it’s not necessarily easy to modify the algorithm without a lot of MTB specific (and flagged) data
