Showing laps in activities

Support
14

Thanks Jonas.

The people that we talk to that come to Xert without any preconceptions, looking a laps and intervals never enters their mind. Breakthroughs and fitness signature changes provide everything they need to understand what’s happening. It appears to be more of a remnant of how things have been done in the past when “breakthroughs” (i.e. improvements in performance) only ever occurred in intervals that you needed to review to see. How these performances related to training is something you had to try and piece together yourself. Understanding how intervals were influenced by different systems (low, high and peak) was something only the best of the best coaches could ever infer from your intervals and only when they are executed with consistency (which coaches demanded!!). Hence, marking intervals helped identify both the intensities and the consistency so that you could compare and then evaluate how your fitness might be improving. With Xert, all this goes away. Everything is black and white without any intervals needed. The system determines what you can do ride-by-ride rather than what you/your coach can infer from your intervals. All this analysis becomes obsolete.

I would love to understand how seeing intervals/laps lends additional value to understanding your fitness that Xert’s methods don’t already make obsolete. I think there are some good applications of them but would like to hear what the community thinks first.

Btw, it’s no small effort to do this so would really like to know how much additional value they can provide the community. Keep in mind, that reviewing laps/intervals is something you can do on other systems that are free. If our resources were free and unlimited, it would be nice feature. But as it stands, it would appear to be a big replication of effort for us and would tie up resources to do this without clear understanding of how much real value it would provide our user community at large.

Feel free to start a debate on this. It’s an interesting one. Open to new ideas.

15

hey @xertedbrain,

well, i’ve just said what i think. if you guys think of xert as just the tool for us to check when a breakthrought happen or not. it’s done.

apart from it, the activities, primarily the outdoor ones, are messy long files, with hours of endurance and peaks of high energy efforts. everybody, anyone uses a platform like xert, strava, etc to go through them like to scrutinize it and, for that, we need tools to navigate them. navigate the stream zooming in and out, trying to pinch several pieces, doesn’t help. it’s lame.

in front of all the engineering that’s xert, there’s the interface. if it doesn’t help, what’s behind become useless, because people cannot access it. don’t you like the easy quick access, multi ways and shortcuts your phone has to access the same things fast and clutter free? everybody does. because is useful.

what’s being asked is not about fitness, you are already delivering that, is about usability, accessibility.

it’s not a waste, it’s not aesthetics. in the end, if xert doesn’t want to do it, for now that’s fine. in my case i use strava for that. if it’s not an activity that has some kind of BT effort and i just want to know about the ones i did when in front of the last group ride and relate to how that feel (which is the majority kind)… they do a better job. you guys keep being just the analysing thing that i plug with the place i can get around more easily. just come here once in a while to check weekly strains, BTs and export some workouts.

and it’s ok! there are all kinds of “engines” in all tech industry that lives like that successfully.

usually someone will come and make the sense from it for the majority, like the intervals online service somebody posted. usually it’s the place where the thing itself escalates… just like happened with smartphones.

and that’s all i have to give about laps.

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16

“You just don’t get it.”
“Go listen to 17 podcasts.”
“You need a lesson…first one is free.”

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17

in fact you get it. but not from me. doesn’t need to.
i’m just externalising my frustration.
i don’t do podcast.

18

I was just being sarcastic, hence the quotes. Mods: I will now recede (slither) into the background again,

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19

Potentially where you want to analyse efforts that are below TP and so don’t draw down MPA i.e. endurance rides, which are 80% plus of what many do. For me, MPA analysis is only relevant for a fraction of my rides.

Can be useful to compare power vs HR for dedicated steady intervals throughout a ride (climbs or long uninterrupted stretches)… identify drift (how that looks for an interval early vs late in a ride)… identify improvements in efficiency or accumulation of fatigue over time (even if there are many factors affecting HR day to day) etc. There’s a huge amount of data and potential insight from endurance efforts which it feels like Xert ignores (other than including in training load) due to the exclusive focus on MPA.

To be fair, I think that’s not solved by adding laps alone though. E.g. ideally you’d have some kind of power vs HR (or HR reserve or more sophisticated) metric as well. The lap just helps the visualization and drilldown, and may make it easier to compare. I’d prioritize the HR insights over laps.

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20

Again, anecdotal example of where this would be useful for future training improvements if that’s what you need Armando.

I go back to my initial reason for requesting.

I have a 10-12 min climb I use sometimes to gain some real world long climbing before I head to the alps (albeit not recently…). I ride out for and hour 15mins, ride it tempo (or thereabouts) 5,10 maybe15 times then ride an hour 15 back.

I would like to easily isolate each of these climbs and their impact on my MPA to maybe see if my effort could be increased next time or adversely to see whether I hadn’t got my calculations correct and should ease off to try to achieve the goals I set before I start the ride.

Same could be said for intervals out anywhere on a road ride?

I can find these laps easily in Garmin, Strava etc as they correspond to me pressing the lap function on my head unit. Unfortunately these platforms don’t tell me the metrics that we pay Xert for.

21

Are you able to provide a visual example? If you use the MPA datafield on your Garmin, you’ll be able to see MPA data in Garmin Connect so perhaps use that to explain together with the lap indicators.

22

Just curious to hear what you would find more helpful for learning or understanding Xert. We’ve made efforts for users who are genuinely curious and interested to learn more.

Unfortunately, human physiology is quite complex, so creating a tool to help understand it isn’t exactly an easy task.

23

I can understand the well made arguments for adding interval information. However there are tools that do that already and I doubt that there are many Xert users who do not use an additional product in conjunction with Xert.

24

A few weeks ago I sent an email to Support and posted in this forum and facebook that the calculation of the avg interval power by Xert Player was wrong. And still it is. I do not understand why the problem is not solved yet. I sent a second email and nothing. The problem is that the software takes 0 watts as the first value of every interval to make the average, which seems easy to fix. I recognize the high value of MPA analysis and I like it very much but monitoring the avg interval power is very useful to me. I do not use ERG mode and adjust manually the resistance as riding outside.

25

I don’t compete but I’m all for something that can boost your performance or help you climb faster. :smiley:
Please explain how comparing laps/intervals will lead to positive changes in your performance and fitness level.
Other than “handy”, “interesting”, “cool to see” or “potential insight”, what are some real world examples with actionable benefits?

Lap analysis sounds more useful when you actually ride a closed course consisting of X laps where you tackle each lap differently and compare the results. I suppose that could apply to hill repeats such as “lap 3” was faster than “lap 1” possibly due to cadence change or MPA drawdown difference. However, there could be other factors not necessarily captured in the data such as wind change, temperature drop, traffic interference, flatulence, etc.

As far as analysis of long outdoor rides, I don’t understand what practical benefit you could achieve through lap/interval analysis. There are too many variables, plus what would it prove and how would the results affect future training?

Assuming there is some value to it, implementation could consist of displaying a lap analysis button for those activities that include lap markers in the data. When you tap that button a special chart/table is displayed that magically makes you go faster next time. :wink:

26

Actually you can say the same about MPA, or XSS or TL or other metrics - none make you faster on their own; training does.

Intervals are just a convenient way to make analysis and comparison easier - within a ride or between rides.

For base rides (80 to 90% of rides) it’s about power vs HR… within a ride laps can help identify drift (ideally you compare two similar efforts, to avoid the other variables you mention… eg power vs Hr for the last 5 minutes of a steady 8 min interval, early vs late in a ride), or over time similar intervals can be compared to show changes in efficiency. These indicate quality of aerobic base, which can inform training focus and even intensity of endurance rides. That analysis could be done manually, but it’s cumbersome in the existing Xert set up, so I go elsewhere for those insights.

So I also agree with @johnnybike there are other platforms - though not all are free, and I suspect many would appreciate a way to save some money by having a one-stop shop (or be happy paying the same overall to a single company for that convenience = more money for Xert or whoever does it).

(Also appreciate Xert’s resources are not unlimited)

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27

I agree with this.

The point also is we’re invested in the unique way that Xert works and measures metrics so jumping to another platform to view laps is redundant as the Xert data doesn’t carry across.

It’s whether or not you view it as fundamentally useful is subjective, but it’s something that seems to be widely implemented over other platforms, would be nice to see here at some point in the future

1 Like
28

“Cool to look at” is fine and dandy if it will boost subscriptions. :slight_smile:

HR drift is quite apparent in the current Xert chart format and easily isolated against power using the chart’s key icons. It’s easy to see differences between interval sets indoors, but I’m not sure how well it works for outdoor rides.

@xertedbrain is asking someone to provide an example of what you want lap analysis to look like along with an explanation of what it does.
A mockup, screenshot from another app, or whatever visual example you can come up with would be helpful.

I have never used laps in the past so I am not sure what you are expecting, but my thought was there would be a lap analysis button on the activity’s chart view that is normally greyed out if no lap markers exist in the data. If markers exist then vertical lines would be shown on the chart to easily ID lap sections for the entire activity. If you click the analysis button a new view would pop-up that overlays (or stacks?) the laps sections and displays comparative stats. I think an overlay would be the best option with a key below labeled Lap 1, Lap 2, etc. so you could enable/disable which laps you want to compare. The default view with all laps enabled would indicate the overall pattern and variance. You would also need ability to select which data sets you want to compare (Power, MPA, Cadence, HR, anything else?).

If this feature is viable to implement then EBC needs a lap function as well. :slight_smile:

29

Agree with this proposal/idea. I regularly do some uphill sprints with a lead-in, repetitive on the same location. Would be nice to see what the lead-in does to your max power output looking at MPA every lap. But also see if/how the starting MPA is declining after doing the effort for the 4th of 5th time.

30

Hi @jacksedgwick

As an update to this thread, you are able to view your activity lap information using the ‘Advanced Stats’ tab. You’ll be able to see all the relevant information about the lap (power, speed, etc.) but we’ve also added starting/ending MPA and the lap focus/specificity information, to provide an Xert twist on what’s already available elsewhere. Hope you get a chance to test it out! Cheers

2 Likes
31

Hi @ManofSteele Thanks for the Lap function. Couple of points.

  1. Can you incorporate Average Heart Rate in the info please?
  2. Slight Bug I think I’ve found
    Open Activity- Advanced Stats- Segments to Laps - Lap details show.
    Back to MPA Activity - Back to Advanced Stats - Lap info has disappeared - Refresh - Still not there- Change Laps to Segments then back to Laps_ Hey Presto its appeared.
    Cheers
    cary
32

Thanks Cary,

We’re investigating - should have it sorted soon :slight_smile:

33

So sorry.

Have been raising children / starting a business so haven’t ridden for a while let alone trained,

Thanks so much for listening to feedback and taking it onboard & implementing this. Appreciative of the service.

J

1 Like