Pre-Base to TED; 120+ days; 100% recommended workouts completed at 100% difficulty

[ridgerider2]

Hard to say without knowing the bigger picture. Pacer needle and outdoor free ride advice weren’t shown, plus you’re familiar with your recent history to best weigh the options.
Looks like form went to green (very fresh) which explains suggested HI workouts. No doubt you could have found a more palatable option under Load More. Or the free ride advice to Focus Type or substituted a hard group ride to similar effect.
As you say, following the spirit of the advice works too.

Do you cycle year round without any particular off-season? I wouldn’t consider a TL of 75 as my downtime.

Reference –
Training Status and Form – Xert (baronbiosys.com)
Understanding ‘Focus’ and how to use it – Xert (baronbiosys.com)

[carytb (Cary Blackburn)]

@ridgerider2

o you cycle year round without any particular off-season? I wouldn’t consider a TL of 75 as my downtime.

Because I never really Peak I’m probably permanently a percentage down on what I could do. I’m retired and cycling is what I do either on my own or with 2 or 3 groups/clubs. Thought the year I actually have a number of weeks off as we visit our 2 children at opposite ends if the country. I treat those breaks as my down time. One of my riding chums is training to do the London Edinburgh London next August, so I’ve got to up my game if I want to continue riding with him

[ridgerider2]

@carytb

One of my riding chums is training to do the London Edinburgh London

That is definitely an epic adventure – About (londonedinburghlondon.com)

[carytb (Cary Blackburn)]

It certainly is. We all think he’s off his trolley.

[Chaser]

I notice it looks like you had one big jump in TP and then it stayed basically flat until you’re longer outdoor ride where it jumped again. So despite the progressive increase in stress, you didn’t seem to get much of an increase in TP. What conclusions do you draw from this or am I misinterpreting the results? Also, how closely did your actual results match the progressions from your goal? Example - I’ve set a TED for an event in June and the software is predicting an 89 watt increase (from 250 to 339) in my TP with a moderate -2 ramp rate. I would be ecstatic if those projections are accurate, but I’m skeptical. That’s a 35% increase when I think it’s generally accepted that single digit increases are all you can expect year to year in a well trained athlete.

[ridgerider2]

Depends on decay setting and how often you force BT events if they aren’t occurring while training indoors or riding outdoors.
During Base phase many users change to No Decay as they don’t expect to be testing themselves with any BT efforts. Any change to signature will be gradual and TL based (up as you increase training load or down if you take days off). However, with optimal decay (what I used for entire progression) your signature will trend downwards without BT events but TL is factored into the calc. So the graph may look fairly level while load increases until you test yourself again to validate any signature changes.

That’s what is going on here where 3 weeks or so into Base I purposely tested myself with a BT workout. A BT workout won’t show up in recommendations. You make that decision when you are feeling fresh and want to check on progress. In my case I achieved a Gold BT riding Under Pressure (revised) which is a BT workout I selected from the library. My next circle is a bronze BT from a workout on the recommend list during Build. Then I tested again shortly afterwards for my next gold (using same BT workout which is my favorite).

As you recover from recommended training load and feel stronger you may want to test more. You may also encounter BT opportunities during HI workouts from the recommended list. On these occasions if feeling good you can change to slope mode and go for broke with the goal of exceeding target watts and interval durations to force a BT. I didn’t try doing that on my first full progression because it was an experiment, and the HI workouts were hard enough during Build/Peak that I didn’t want to jinx my 100% at 100% goal.

As far as the predictions go those are relative to where you are now and what if you can achieve (mathematically) if you are able to recover from the projected training load increase over time. What will happen IRL is the rate of improvement will likely slow as you get closer to your achievable fitness level for the training block. XATA in turn will revise the numbers.

The prediction I refer to in this related thread was what was shown during Peak phase. I didn’t monitor prediction changes that occurred from when I started the progression. –
How accurate are the TP predictions for the training programs? I think mine is way off - General - Xert Community Forum (xertonline.com)

As far as year over year gains go, I guess I’ll know for sure by July 2022.
Currently I just started a new progression, but at a much higher TP than last December. I will have to blame Xert for that. I am not expecting similar results this time around.

BTW: Some experienced endurance riders who specialize in long events prefer No Decay or Small Decay instead of Optimal because they purposely don’t challenge themselves with HI during their training. This assumes signature is dialed in to start with (BT tested) and you continuously train without any major gaps. At some point though you will want to test your fitness levels to confirm status.

Reference –
What do the coloured circles on my XPMC mean? – Xert (baronbiosys.com)
Xert’s Magic Setting – Signature Decay – Xert (baronbiosys.com)

[Mordy111 (Mordy E)]

@ridgerider2 when choosing the suggested workout, did you choose number one or any of the first four? Curious.

[ridgerider2]

All workouts were selected from the Load More recommended list of twenty during Base and first half of Build. Then I switched to picking from the top four selections for remainder of Build and Peak. I used Filter on a few occasions to fit duration to schedule (shorter or longer workout).
Since you can bend Xert to your will based on your selections and feedback, I avoided workouts that aggravate a chronic issue that affects my cycling. As a result I reduced my HI minutes, but there were plenty of tough workouts during the latter part of Build into Peak.

Keep in mind there is no #1 entry. Automatic, for example, randomly selects from the top four. Load More displays a full list of twenty options where top four are closest to today’s recommendations based upon target focus, deficit/surplus, and XSS goal related to what you did last week on same day. As you move further down the list they drift further “off target” but they are viable workouts. IOW you have options on how literally you want to interpret the guidance.

This year I am being even more flexible. While I have predominantly selected from the top four (so far), I also check group sessions on a next-day or last-minute basis and join one if it fits my schedule, suitability is rated Good, and I manage to wake up at the right time.

The more you learn how Xert works the more you appreciate what you can do with it.
Something else I’m doing with my latest full progression is manipulate IR. I set a TED of April 11, then lowered IR to off/season and taper when I started (Dec 11) because I wanted to reduce my hours/week commitment. I’m currently at Maintenance in the 6 hour range. I will move to Slow or Moderate 1/ 2 next and begin an actual “progression”, but a progression doesn’t have to be constantly moving up. You can manipulate IR to match your life schedule, recovery form. and desire to improve.

I assume you’ve watched the Academy videos by now, but in case you haven’t IR is discussed in Episode I2 here –

Episode I2 - Mastering Xert - Improve - The 3 P's of Training

[wbezerras (BEZERRA Wagner)]

Hi all,

Thanks RR to taking the time to write this amazing post. Found it when searching for a season assessment done with XERT as I’d like to improve what I’ve done in 2021.

Well, felt the need to share mine with you all :

Athlete type: Rouleur (6 min power)
Start date: January 3rd 2021(*).
Improvement Rate: Kept it at Slow ramp rate for the most part of the season
My background: casual riding without following any plan. In 2020 I started getting interested to triathlon and did some training. It didn’t lead too far and decided to focus only on the bike. I took a license for the first time in a local club.

*I was targeting a decent amount of races (~10) from Spring to Summer (in Europe) but with COVID restrictions and races being canceled, I ended it up extending my TED by a few days (April 15th) in order to complete a race simulation from my club. First race came only in June 5th (stage race, 2nd overall in my category ).

The experience with XERT in the beginning was, as expected, a little bit challenging as there are many parameters to be dialed out and the continuously need to be changed in order to adapt to your available time for training, freshness status, etc. Sometimes, form status had good correlation with my HRV values and there were some days where I decided my session upon the later.

I followed the plan roughly at 100% including the outdoor rides (except when doing long easy rides where I didn’t look to my power numbers).

In terms of improvement, my signature changed as follows (to a peak condition):
TP/LTP: +44W
HIE: -2kJ
PP: +135W
Reached Training Status of 3 stars
Training Load: +34

STRESS: note the ramp rate until March where the TED arrived. Also, in order to peak for the first race beg. of April, I changed my TED accordingly. (note the increase in the High and Peak stresses while Low Stress was kept constant).

The decrease in the training load from mid June correlates to me stop training and travelling. The huge drop late July is where I did my first bike packing trip (3 days, 624km, 5700m D+).

XMPC

Training Hours

Trying to find the training distribution, I used the planner tab and did the ratio of Low, High and Peak Stress throughout the season:

My personal opinion: having not followed any proper training plan before, I am very happy with what I was capable of doing together with XERT and I believe in what the system has to offer in terms of improvement.
I was able to race and be at the level of the riders with much more experience than me.

I seek a better improvement in 2022 and defined some key points to achieve it:

• Add more strength training throughout the base and build period varying number of sessions and load
• Increase the IR to Moderate-1 or even 2
• Increase the High and Peak stress ratio (@ManofSteele , @xertedbrain your thoughts here are highly appreciated)
• Plan rest weeks after long period under high TL and start again

The goals are:

• To go beyond the TP and 5 min power achieved last season
• Level up from Cat5 to Cat4 (a win is required here)
• Two peaks along the year: Road season then CX season
• Finish Top10 for at least 5 races (road and CX each)

Open to your suggestions and questions

Cheers

[ManofSteele (Scott Steele)]

Wonderful @wbezerras ! Happy to hear about users’ success with the Xert platform. Love to see people starting to see that there is a ‘plan’ with Xert, even though you don’t see weeks and weeks of pre-arranged workouts for you to follow! Once you have a basic understanding of the 3 principles to Improve (as I’ve tried to outline in the Mastering Xert - Improve video), it’s hard to not have success with Xert!

@wbezerras

Increase the High and Peak stress ratio

One way to do this is to (manually) select a HIIT workout about 1 to 2 times per week, even during periods of lower-intensity riding, such as Winter season or base phase, for example. You could even mix in a Zwift race in place of a structured HIIT workout. Xert will adjust the days following your high-intensity day anyways, and that’s a great way to work in some extra HIIT before you’re farther along in your training program (Build/Peak phases). Hope this helps/makes sense!

That being said, great work last year! Hope you have another good season this year!

[ridgerider2]

Thought it was a good time to update this thread with what happened during my 2022 season and where I’m at so far in 2023.

My aspirations fell a little short in 2022 as shown in this XPMC chart from start of my TED progression in Dec 2021 through October last year. Even so, I consider it a good year for riding with a number of short climb segment PR’s during mid-summer into fall even though TP drifted downward.

The first silver BT was at beginning of TED Base to get my bearings. Decay Method was then set to No Decay for remainder of Base. The second silver BT (deliberate attempt during start of Build phase) was 10 pts lower than highest TP achieved the year prior. The bronze BT and slight upward drift three months later gave me my highest TP so far on Xert (5 pts higher than TP in 2021). The downtime gaps and TL reduction brought things to a halt of course and initiated declines.
The first gap in Feb was unintentional due to another melanoma, this time on my right calf. If you’ve had one of these before you know the divot they remove down to your muscle isn’t small. Result was I had to sit with leg raised on an ottoman for two weeks waiting for the hole to fill in enough to ride again. (Netflix binge time.)
Jumped back into training and reached a decent TP ceiling (for me). The other gaps were travel or family related. I ended up taking November and part of December off the bike.
This year a more even attempt is in progress starting mid-December at a Moderate-2 rate, Slow Decay, and TED of April 17.

At the moment I’m 15+ pts shy of TP high of last year but plenty of time to get there by summer with hopefully fewer gaps and perhaps a second peak effort for late August.
I don’t compete so I’m not challenging myself with frequent BT efforts. I’m happy with how well Slow Decay has been tracking my fitness as confirmed when I do insert a BT workout.

I’ve had a few failed workouts during Build/Peak this year. I edit the title afterwards and insert SORTA or NOPE as a prefix so I can glance at the activity table to see which workouts they were. I’ll circle back and try again when I reach 4 stars status (currently 3 plus a smidge).
SORTA means I went into Slope mode for some portion of the workout and gave it my best.
NOPE means legs said “no way!”

I’ve got some new ailments to deal with this year but I’m hanging in there and still enjoying it.
Biggest disruption has been to my sleep cycle. I’m no longer up early to jump on the trainer at 6am or ready to head out the door at sunrise.
One downside to tracking data over years is you get to monitor any declines as you age.
For me the most obvious drop is to PP over the last three years plus a lowering of average speed on regular routes. Sarcopenia (muscle loss) is a bummer. OTOH I am a lot lighter going up hills (muscle is denser than fat) which are the only segments I hunt.
One of my goals this year is top five age group results on longer climbs in my area. I’ll likely go for one after my TED progression ends and treat that ride as my “event”.

Hope everyone has a great season whatever their goals and however they like to use Xert to reach them. Enjoy the ride.

[oldcyclist65 (George Anderson)]

Nice job Ridgey. And big respect on overcoming the melanoma Sir. From one cancer beater to another

[ridgerider2]

UPDATE 2023 – Here’s my YTD XPMC chart.

You can see my mostly indoor springtime TED progression that ended April 17 after which I rode a bit more hours per week with a TP decay setting of No Decay/TL Matched.
End result was highest TP I have reached in last 3 years by a few points. Felt stronger too.
Then I faltered a bit after setting a second TED of Aug 19th for an actual event – MWARBC.
Too many ailments bothering me to ride consistently so I adopted an every-other-day routine with occasionally two days off in a row. TP declined a little but climbing times held up and I started doing repeats on steeper climbs as I got close to my event.
My outdoor rides are all HRDM as I kept futzing with equipment honing the setup I wanted for the climb. I didn’t have time for a factory installed crank meter. Gears, crankset, wheels, handlebar, and more were changed out. I even messed with cleat placement two weeks prior. I’m dialed in now.

There were ~635 entrants for the 50th anniversary Rock Pile climb. However, the event was cancelled 5 minutes before the 1st Wave start at 8:30am. I would have been in Wave 6 starting 25 minutes later. Too windy, raining, and low visibility above tree line. 40-50mph with gusts in the 70s. Wind chill was below freezing. They cancelled Sunday’s rain date later that afternoon as the forecast was grim. Winds were even higher the next morning. Multiple SARs for hikers that weekend. You have to be prepared for Mt. Washington, even if it’s mostly sunny and in the 60s at the base. It was drizzling and breezy that Saturday morning. I was warming up on a trainer under a cluster of conifers when they called it. I was kinda relieved.
7.6 miles averaging 12%+ is one thing. Doing it under stressful conditions takes it to another level. Above treeline would have been brutal for the unprepared, yet a number of riders were wearing SS jerseys and bib shorts. Perhaps first timers but don’t you normally gear up for where you’re going? I was layered head to toe with gloves stashed if needed. Was bummed I didn’t pack my Merino baselayer as that is the best thing to have in the rain.

Hard to say how I would have done. There were a few heavy hitters in the 70+ age group. I think Top 5 was doable. There weren’t that many of us.
If I look at my times for other climbing segments in the Mt Washington area and where I had been riding in southern NH, I’m top of the list on some climbs and top 3 on most others (70-74 group). You have to factor in attrition plus many aging cyclists are JRA for fun and not trying to push things.

All I can do now is wax poetic about my only other climb up Mt Washington. That was 49 years ago with a time of 1:16. It was mostly gravel back then. Fully paved now. I remember clouds scampering by in cross winds above treeline, brief moments of sunshine, pockets of ice along the shoulder, and the blanket they throw over you at the finish line (22% pitch!). Perhaps next year…

[teddygram]

Super interesting!

Thanks for sharing Ridgey!

First year on Xert and it has impressed the heck out of me - I looked at my YTD XPMC chart and am ticked with my progress on such a limited amount of time. I highly doubt I will see this again next year but who knows.

I followed Xert to a T until about April - then it was outside with loose workout guidelines to Xert but following its Tired Status like a religiion.

I was pretty much goal/race driven all seasons with benchmark races throughout the year, each event I did very well at and was on the podium 3 times this year (2 for AG and 1 for OA).

[jjamesv (Jesse Vernon)]

This thread has highlighted to me (a relatively long time user of Xert), that a bit of pre-planning, even just the week ahead, would do a better job of keeping me on my target Focus for that week. What I’ve found is that going day by day is cool, and unique to Xert, but it can leave you at the end of the week, either way ahead or way behind on XSS, and too far from the Focus you want.

[traveller]

Decided to try your method as we seem to be of a similar age and health situation.
Just trying to understand what you meant by “Decay method”?

[ridgerider2]

@traveller

trying to understand what you meant by “Decay method”

In the past I have used the Signature Decay Method (Account Settings, Profile) during periods when I wasn’t concerned about max efforts generating BTs with associated signature adjustments. For example, using No Decay for an extended Base phase of strictly endurance level rides/workouts.
With No Decay your signature changes are tied to increase/decrease in TL only.
With recent updates to Xert the recommendation is to leave the setting at the default (Optimal) for most users. That’s what I’m using now.

Reference –
Improvements to Fitness Signature Tracking – Xert (baronbiosys.com)
Improvements to Fitness Signature Detection – Xert (baronbiosys.com)
Signature Decay Method – Xert (baronbiosys.com)

[traveller]

Got it. I had already left at default optimal.
Originally, I had thought of carrying on with aerobic workouts at what I thought was my FTP, but after reading your TED 120+ I’ve decided to give Xert a real trial and follow the recommendations.

[traveller]

Another quick question.
Did you include strength or endurance workouts at a gym in your training and if so how did you account for it in Xert?
I have found Armandos template but having difficulty in editing the XXS.

[ridgerider2]

I don’t do gym equipment training. I believe the “weight workout” is designed to emulate the strain from that. IOW something that trashes your legs the next day, enough that you’d want it on your Planner to push form to yellow for a time.
I do bodyweight, resistance bands, and kettle bell workouts, irregularly. Not enough to affect me the next day.

You can open the “weight workout” in Workout Designer, select Copy button, then edit and save changes. For example, to lower the strain score increase MMP incrementally (.7 to .9 or 1.0).

If you do enough strain work outside of cycling and want to include it, you can add the activity manually with estimated XSS. Easy endurance for an hour would be in the 45 XSS range.