Hello
I’ve been using Xert for about a month now, just got premium. What I’ve noticed I am only getting real easy trainings as recommended (1 star only), mostly ironman 30 on fresh status or easy flat endurance ride on tired days. I’ve tried using bucket challenge level 9 which still was fairly easy.
I can manually select a harder workout, but I’d assume Xert would recommend more difficult ones after a month. I have previously completed Hardness workouts levels 10 through 14, which were more of what I’d expect on fresh days. My improvement plan is continious improvement at Moderate-2 improvement rate but my daily xss target is only 40xss which is like an easy 1 hour endurance ride.Am I doing something wrong?
The Workout Library choices expand once you reach 2 stars status.
The majority of workouts are in the 45 min to 2 hour range.
What is your weekly hours limit and duration range for workouts?
The Training Pacer needle reflects an average weighted XSS over a 7-day rolling window.
Deficit/surplus indicates a value in relation to the Noon (neutral) position on the gauge.
That number can jump day to day depending on what you normally ride on that day of the week in recent past.
It’s likely your signature is understated.
Challenge Level 9 should not feel easy and a Hardness Test rated 4 diamonds should be hard to complete.
How many BT (Breakthroughs) circles are shown on your XPMC during the last 6 months?
In either case you’ll want to validate your signature by aiming for a BT on your next HIT day
See this post – From old trainer to smart trainer. Set FTP - #5 by ridgerider2
In general, your status stars status count will equate to diamond level difficulty.
IOW at 2 stars a HIT workout rated 2 diamonds will match your current training load capacity.
That doesn’t mean you can’t select a 3 diamond workout when you’re at 2 stars, but workouts above status level will be harder to complete at 100% compliance.
it shows 170xss weekly deficit even though i am doing more than daily 40 xss every day, but i assumed that is because 2 weeks ago i was doing hardness 10-14 every 2 days and have skewed my weekly xss a bit. I have not once seen a breakthrough actually, i assumed that is also because of hardness levels.
Should i just reset my progress? I possibly messed it up because i went straight to hardness levels and was only doing those until i ran out of energy after a week. I was just so hyped switching from dumb trainer to a smart one that i might have overdone it a bit.
i found the issue… it seems 3 of my very first activities were locked. I removed them and my tp went up by almost 30w and my HIE fell a bit.
Locking can cause issues since Xert assumes the locked signature is valid as a reference point moving forward. Unlocking an old activity triggers a recalculation through today.
See how things go with your updated signature.
If you still have doubts about your signature, you can always verify the numbers with a few sprints and some maximal efforts under fatigue to failure.
Try one of the Hardness Test workouts again but don’t select too high a level to start with. 
If you don’t plan to test your limits often you can also change Signature Decay Method under Profile Settings to Small.
The weekly deficit/surplus value does not carry over from one week to the next.
Rather than chase down a deficit the goal is to keep the needle between 11am-1pm to stay within range of your target improvement rate.
Watch what happens to the gauge if you lower IR to Moderate-1 or Slow and back again.
You can change ramp rate at any time to reflect a change in your schedule or desire to take a rest week or boost training load for a limited time (aka training block).
Since it’s a 7-day rolling window with advice that reflects what you’ve done in recent past, it takes a couple weeks to establish a new pattern.
cl9 was appropriately hard now, i’m quite impressed with the generated workout. i was on my last fumes at the last high interval. i’ll just stick to alternating cl9 and recovery days for now then i’ll see what i get as recommended.
FWIW, I’m not sure I’ve ever completed a Hardness Test Lvl 12 or higher (I guess I’m just not tough enough 
).
If you find yourself easily completing lvl 10+ hardness test and/or getting to CL 10 with Magic Buckets without too much difficulty, that suggests that your signature is likely underestimated (perhaps it’s been a while since you’ve really had a ride that pushed you to the limits). On one of your next high-intensity days, consider adding some effort that really pushes you to the limits: hammer a favorite Strava segment, hop in a Zwift race, or keep hammering your last interval until you can’t pedal any more!
You might find this article helpful/interesting.
How many stars do you have in your profile, @krvavec1992? As your star count goes up, you’ll need to do more training to maintain (and improve) your fitness.
as i wrote in the previous reply, my first three workouts were locked, I was probably messing around with statistics when I got xert and I didn’t know what I did. After unlocking, my ftp went from 230w to 260w and the next challenge level 9 autogenerated workout was appropriately hard.
Luckily I noticed soon enough, I got Xert at the end of july. Training for a couple months and then noticing the locks would probably make me give up 
EDIT: I have 1 star only (just about full), with about 20 workouts between 30 and 60 minutes done.
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