Watch our latest Xert Academy videos on using Xert to Improve. Get a perspective of how aspects like XSS and Focus all come together into the Adaptive Training Advisor to recommend the training you need to reach your goals.
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Great videos!
The improvement rate video made me think (again!) about maxing out available hours. When that happens is switching to maintenance the only realistic option, with the implication that improvement is no longer possible? But perhaps this is just the mathematical modelâs harsh reality that we need to accept? Not easy for someone who spends most of the year not too far from their maximum available hours. 
(Yes I realise intensity can be increased instead of hours but thatâs not something that can be done for too long.)
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They key thing is to allow a bit of ebb and flow. Allow time to recover and then adding back the strain is likely a better strategy than just keeping things the same all the time.
This are great videoâs. Ive watch all six of them. I found this serious to be the best explaining how Xert works. Im pretty sure they take a great deal of time to make. But keep them up please.
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Great vids I learned a lot watching.
One question I had⊠since I started I had the impression that stars on your profile were correlated to your fitness level. I got the impression in one of the videos that they were based on time spent training. Is there a place that describes this better? I get I need to train more if I want more stars, but I donât think if I simply ride slowly for many hours a week that would do it. It also seems more to it than suppose Iâm at two stars and run through a 4 star workout it wonât just move me to 4 stars I imagine. What is the magic formula to get more stars?
Hi Dennis,
I explain that in the first part of the âImproveâ video (Timestamped here: Mastering Xert - Improve - Quantifying Your Training - YouTube).
The number of stars you have is an EWMA (exponentially weighted moving average) of your XSS/day. The classification for star ratings is as follows:
- 1 star â 25 XSS/day
- 2 stars â 50 XSS/day
- 3 stars â 75 XSS/day
- 4 stars â 110 XSS/day
- 5 stars â 150 XSS/day
Assuming that an endurance ride is (on average) around 60 XSS/hour, this would mean averaging about 30 min/day of endurance for 1 star and almost 3 hours/day of endurance for a 5 star rating. Also keep in mind that high intensity training is a good source for XSS, since itâs very possible to accumulate a high amount of XSS in a 60-90 min workout. HTH
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Ok, so I understood correctly I think. It IS just time based as far as time translates to XSS. So if I did a lot of low intensity riding I might be able to achieve 5 stars even if I donât raise my TP a lot right? Likewise I might raise my TP significantly without achieving 5 stars.
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Youâre exactly right!
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Iâm curious why adding a workout to the planner does not seem to make it your selected workout when opening EBC or IQ app? Even trainer tab doesnât show it so what is the point ?
Workouts added to the Planner can become selected workouts if you configure Goals to reflect your normal start time for activities.
By default the Training Status/Advice of is set to end of day (11:59pm). Some users assign 1:00am for beginning-of-day but you could set a time to reflect a normal workout time such as 7am.
I forget what the time window is but if you start EBC within X minutes of that time your planned workout will become the selected workout.
Otherwise the Planner is just that. A âplannedâ activity but you always have the option to do something else.
I prefer end-of-day advice and like to manually select workouts which can include last minute changes. YMMV
EDIT: As @idefix mentions you can edit the start times for workouts added to the Planner. The default time is whatever your Status/Advice as of is set to.
When you start EBC within 2 hours of that time the app will recognize the planned activity as your selected workout. The actual start time is updated when the activity is saved.
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You can actually edit the time the workout in planner is supposed to happen (open it after dragging it into the planned day to set the time) and then when that time comes, or rather an hour before or something like that (canât remember the exact time) it automatically becomes your selected workout.
2 hours before* 
FWIW, I really only use the planner to give myself a rough idea of what my week might look like in terms of intensity/hours, planned recurring rides, etc. More often than not, I end up removing all the planned activities anyways and go for the day-to-day approach that allows for some last minute adjustments based on how I feel, HRV, etc. (similar to @ridgerider2 ).
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Same here. Sometimes I drop some ideas into the planner and check what could work (not too red) and then I remove it all and do whatever I feel like.
At least if Iâm not in a couch phase and wonât do anything that might be considered training at all 
âŠIâm still no athlete, just a fan of Xert smart workouts and all the data. I will get up off the couch sometime again and train on a bike for a few weeks or months or swim or run or whatever until I get bored or lazy again.
Iâm so bad at it that Xert should not even work for me but if the signature is correct it still does. Iâm a fan of âno decayâ mode as well because itâs nearly perfect in keeping the signature correct and I can do whatever I want, all out if itâs fun or weeks or even months without hard efforts as well.
But I know how to do what Mordy wants to do so I tried to help.
Could the videos be numbered as it is unclear, to me at least, in which order they are supposed to be played.
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Agreed. Best if they are numbered in some manor as I am sure people will stumble onto them searching YT and not realize they are meant to be watched in order by series.
Series 1 Discover: Mastering Xert - Discover Your Fitness - YouTube
Series 2 Improve: Mastering Xert - Improve! - YouTube
Series 3 Perform: (pending)
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So in the video about planning and adaptive suggestions, you talk about how if youâre tired you get a suggested endurance activity instead of harder intervals. But what if youâre always tired when train time comes because every day you ride the calendar then marks the next day as tired? Just curious I havenât used it long enough to see how things are changed up.
Also, this is more of a subjective answer depending on the person I suppose, but how do you figure youâre tired? Like I did a race yesterday but it was only 35 minutes. It was hard and all but I donât really feel that tired today. I know I can adjust the freshness setting, but this is more a question of knowing when I should adjust it. I can tell I did the race yesterday so maybe I am tired. I bet I could do a pretty good ride later today though too. So maybe Iâm not that tired⊠just a wee bit tired 
There is a BIG difference between saying that âyouâre tiredâ vs. âyou have tired statusâ. Our system only knows the latter and canât possibly know the former from just your power data. Hence, if youâre not really tired and wish the system to give you a more challenging workout, you can move the Freshness Feedback slider over or you could just pick and more challlenging workout. Itâs not uncommon to see several weeks of tired training status if you are apt to do intensity even on days when you should be riding easy. But from the calendar, youâll be able to ascertain that if youâve had many weeks of yellow, youâre starting to play with fire in terms of overtraining and you may want to pay more closer attention to the signs. Taking some recovery time or reducing intensity is something youâll want to do to avoid that.
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Yes I totally get that part. I already played with the freshness slider a bit to approximate how I feel.
I was more asking, if suppose I donât play with the freshness slider and the system is marking me as tired every day, would it never suggest hard activities? I think I can actually just go play with this in the planner and see for myself. Iâm just being lazy 
Google âxert training statusâ and you should see:
If youâre yellow, you should generally see Endurance workouts prescribed.
Yes thatâs what Iâm seeing. I experimented a bit with the planner and can see the same thing. So my question is, if youâre always yellow you never get the harder interval workouts. Is this just the Xert way of saying to take a day off?
Before I set my freshness level a bit differently, one of my workouts previously turned me yellow a whole week. I thought that was a little extreme so I adjusted the freshness in response. I think at the time my FTP was being estimated too low though. Iâm just coming back from off season and hadnât done much to try hard lately. So this last week I had two breakthrough races now that Iâve started up a bit more seriously. Maybe the long yellow week was a result of the hard effort compared to what the system thought my FTP was at the time.
Anyway, super fun playing with it. Iâll stick with it for a season! Just wanted to make sure I donât get assigned endurance training for the rest of forever đ”âđ«