I’m sure this happens frequently, but I am a new user coming from TR, and really struggling with understanding this new system. I am a recreational rider with no set event date, but I want some good workouts during the week to keep up my fitness. I’m not sure if I should pick Century Rider or GC Specialist - not sure how this changes things. Without a target date, it says i’m on Day of Event, and not sure if that is right. Should I just set something out in the future anyway? Can I still use this without a target date?
Next, I am confused by the Threshold Power calculation. I let it import my data from strava for three months. My last Ramp FTP Test was 268W, but Xert is calculating on 235W. was my FTP too high before? This seems so far off from what I was expecting. I want to export workouts to Zwift, so seems like getting this right is important.
I took last two week off, and it’s just suggesting Endurance rides - is that normal?
I tried to play around with the Improvement Rate, and on a lot of settings, my targets are going down - not up??? Also, I only have 3 hour to train and all the times seem longer than that.
Really unsure on how to proceed with getting this setup right or understanding how it works for someone like me.
First mosey on over to this thread and post your answers to my 11 questions –
We’ll help you from there.
As for quick tips choose GC Specialist to start, set an event date either in the past or far into the future if you just want to ride a few hours weekly without a phased progression.
Thanks I was on that thread earlier but didn’t know it was a general place to post questions from anyone. I stopped when I encountered german. I will add the questions there too.
My suggestion:
Set your target event date to something in the past, in this case you are in free training mode without a structured program. And get a mix of stuff to keep your fitness up.
Set your improvement rate to ‘maintanance’, so the training load won’t rise and the amount of time for training with it. If you end up always having a surplus (needle pointing right) you can change to ‘slow’ at any time, just change everything around whenever you feel like it, nothing is fixed in Xert.
Set your athlete type to GC specialist, it’s a good starting point in the middle, you can always change that as well.
And most important of all once you feel fresh find a ‘breakthrough’ workout in the library and perform that. Try to ‘fail’ as naturally as possible, when you run out of steam or your muscles won’t cooperate any more, Xert looks at how you perform in these last few moments. If you just stop it has a harder time extracting your signature as far as I know.
Xert works with three values (PP, HIE and TP) instead of just one (FTP) to determin your capabilities, they all have to be reasonably correct for the workouts to do what they are supposd to.
And try to use one of the Xert players (not Zwift) for the workouts or you are missing out on one of the most important aspects, smart workouts. You can still ride in Zwift, just do not let Zwift control your trainer if you have another option. There is a help page how to do it, I do not use Zwift.
(no need for exact age)