I’m a trial user and really excited about the possibility that Xert can simplify my training planning and help me unlock fitness goals.
I specifically came to Xert to limit the amount of time I typically spend building custom training plans in Training Peaks which was too time consuming. I’m looking for simplicity in approach and I prefer to see my plan scheduled out for at least a couple of weeks to help me see how many days I’ll need to train to fit into my somewhat busy schedule. This led me to select Forecast AI over XATA. I initially started with XATA but did not like the limited view of future training demands.
I’ve been relatively untrained for the last year and started riding again on Zwift regularly for the last 3 months. I did an FTP test right before I joined the trial so I had a recent breakthrough and I therefore think my signature is probably reasonable.
In Forecast AI I chose a target goal of increasing 20 minute power from 224 to 240 in 4 months. I left specificity defaulted to polar more threshold. I set max weekly hours at 9 hours. I set weekly availability at 1.5 hrs Mon - Fri and 2 hrs Sat/Sun thinking that would give the plan flexibility to schedule. I left General Settings at default of 2.5% and 80/20. I left recovery demands as defaulted and adjusted xss per hour to 120. I’m unsure if that was a wise choice, but I’m somewhat time constrained so trying to increase the intensity of activities.
For the most part the plan looks ok. However it paid little attention to the daily hour availability limits I added. There are numerous days Mon - Fri where it has me over the 1.5 hrs I input in the weekly availability section, sometimes well over 2 or even approaching 3 hrs.
There are several occasions where the plan has back to back days of high intensity training. The workout descriptions for those workouts always say feel free to do more you’ll have extra time to rest. That seems at odds with the scheduled high intensity workout the next day. The last week of the plan has me scheduled to ride 13.5 hrs over 5 workouts with 2 sets of back to back days of high intensity training.
Maybe I was too aggressive with the goal of adding 14 watts to 20 min power in 4 months. Maybe the system does not have enough historical data to see how I adapt. But at the moment I am relatively untrained so I believe gaining 14 watts should be achievable.
How can I get the program to build a plan that follows the inputs I put in around daily/weekly hour availability? I’m sure there is some setting I need to tweak, I just don’t know what it is.
Is there an easy way to force it to not schedule high intensity intervals back to back?
Any guidance would be appreciated. Apologies for the text wall!
When you set your daily availability, at the bottom did you select “flex” or “fixed”? In my experience that needs to be set to fixed to force it to not exceed the limitation.
Under general settings, where do you have “recovery demands” set? Sliding that towards more will increase recovery time and increase time between intensity workouts.
First off you can change settings at any time and re-run a forecast with the default set to “Update existing plan”. For example, return XSSR to default or change some days from flex to fixed and recast.
You can view the changes on the forecast chart before saving including the ability to zoom in/out on portions of the chart and hover over each matchstick for details.
Back to back HIT isn’t what you may think of in traditional terms. HIT workouts can be relatively tame. Specificity matters as does XSS per hour. For example, a Polar workout is easier than Pure when it comes to HIT. HIT workouts can fall into the 60-70 XSS/hour bracket. For a quick assessment divide total XSS by the estimated hours.
Xert monitors low and high/peak stress to determine what you are capable of on following day(s).
As a result two or even three back-to-back HIT days are possible depending on your fitness level, TL (status stars count), and the distribution of high/peak stress over those days.
For example, my Polar back-to-back HIT workouts next week are 66, 70 and 64 XSS per hour. I.e. they won’t be that tough. Example workout selection –
On those days my form will go to red but only for a few hours following each activity before returning to blue/fresh. It is only after the third day does my calculated form (gradient bar on Planner) turn to yellow/tired. In my case back-to-back Rest days follow as I’ll also be tapering before by Feb 10 event date.
Had the workouts jumped into the 90+ Difficulty range it would have been a different story.
Viewing the thumbnail charts for the workout selection will clue you in on their severity. Note the MPA drawdown line and how often or deep it falls. Difficulty is also indicated by a diamond count and score which relates to XSS per hour. Note how long RIBs (rest-in-between) are and at what intensity level (blue/aqua ~LTP vs green tempo/SS). Many workouts also include lulls between sets (hydrate time) as in my example above.
You can always try the forecast before you decide if it’s too much. If so you can change settings and recast.
An XFAI plan is not written in stone and can be tweaked and adapted along the way based on your needs and how you are responding to the plan. A recast recalculates the plan from today through the target date. Adapt Forecast (red dot warning under your control) looks to rebalance the week ahead by default.
Fixed will instruct Forecast AI to limit the duration to the amount of time throughout the training plan. Flex (Flexible) will instruct Forecast AI to increase the time in line with the increase in demands for training from progressive overload.
Note: The actual duration of the activity/workout you choose to complete the training with is up to you. Outdoor rides typically take longer than indoor workouts.
Thanks Garrick! I did have the daily availability set to flex which was causing the issue. Once I changed to fixed the daily workouts are in line with what I expected!
Thanks for the help ridgerider! What you are saying makes sense regarding xss per hour. I’ll take a look at the workouts with back to back (to back) HIT days to see what the hourly rate is and mess around with changing the XSS slider back to 100.
I was also wondering if Forecast AI automatically builds in workouts over the course of the goal period to test my fitness signature and see how I am responding to the work. Or do I need to periodically replace one of the HIT workouts with a workout designed to elicit a breakthrough or maximal effort?
Xert doesn’t typically require fitness test type activities. Do you ride indoors or outdoors?
If you ride outdoors it’s usually just a matter of using a day with high intensity work on your calendar to push especially hard on a few efforts to elicit a breakthrough. Pick a hill on your route and give it your best effort for as long as you can (or until you run out of hill) and that should work.
If you ride indoors, it somewhat depends on what you do. If you ride in Zwift or a similar simulation you can pick a hill / climb activity and as with outside, give your best all out effort on a long climb.
If you use structured workouts with the Xert EBC app, just pick one that has mixed mode where the interval efforts are in slope mode. You then adjust your gearing in the interval to give it your best effort (you ignore the workout target watts and go all-out).
There are also a few workouts in the Xert library labeled fitness or hardness test that can be used.
One of the things I really like about Xert is there is no more need to do FTP tests, which I hate.
Thanks Garrick! I’m mostly riding indoors right now on Zwift. I agree that I hate FTP tests! I will do what you suggest and every once in a while do a unstructured ride on Zwift and give a couple of climbs a maximal effort.
Some users end up generating BTs routinely during their ZRL events on Zwift or on hard group rides outdoors or a tough hill effort like @Garrick describes.
Once your signature is dialed in it will track closely based on changes in TL alone. BTs are not absolutely necessary but chasing down a BT on occasion will validate where you’re at.
Here is a post where I describe the different fitness tests in the Library – From old trainer to smart trainer. Set FTP - Training - Xert Community Forum
These workouts won’t show up on recommended workout lists but you can pick one any day you’re feeling fresh and rested and want to validate your signature. Even if you don’t generate a BT or Near BT you’ll know how close you were by the MPA graph on the activity chart.
Being new to the platform I’m still learning so appreciate the help. I had a high intensity workout prescribed today. It was Nothing Else Matters. Far more challenging than I expected! I failed on the last ramp down from the highest watts. I expected when the activity loaded in Xert that it would realize I failed or put in a maximal effort but it didn’t. Should it have? I still finished the workout and even did a bit more, but the one interval zapped me.
I was hoping that the analysis post workout would compare against the actual workout but it didn’t. In fact, I had to go to Zwift to even find out the name of the workout since it wasn’t my activity name or maintained on the planner in anyway. Is there a better way to run workouts so that it will actually compare the effort to the workout? I let the workout today load to Zwift and then let Zwift handle it. Maybe I should let the Xert app control the trainer?
Is there a preferred feed of activities back to Xert? I record my workout both through Zwift and Garmin. Both feed into Xert right now but I typically delete the Garmin workout. I only record that for Garmin Connect really.
I did have the magic buckets fields on my Garmin and that was really a neat feature to watch them fill up.
I’ve definitely recognized you as a high contributor as I have browsed through the forum. Appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge.
If you run the workout on EBC (or Connect IQ player) the target values are maintained so when the activity details are viewed in Xert you can enable Target Power on the chart to see how well you complied to each target.
It appears you lose that function if a workout is pushed to Zwift. When you push workouts to Zwift they are dumbed down work in ZWO format as %FTP blocks.
This works fine in most cases to achieve the low/high/peak strain goals for the day, but if the workout contains dynamic power intervals, you lose that functionality on Zwift. Target %MPA intervals in particular won’t function like they would on a Xert workout player (EBC or Garmin Connect IQ player). A quick way to ID those intervals is check for curvilinear entries.
This only really matters for HIT workouts. All endurance level workouts and SMART workouts with MMP and other types of Xert SMART interval options should run fine on Zwift in ZWO format since the values are snapshot numbers based on your current signature.
Running the workout on EBC (or Connect IQ player) doesn’t mean you can’t ride around in Zwift world at the same time if Zwift is connected to Power only via BLE while EBC (or the Garmin Player) controls the trainer.
I should point out dynamic duration (another SMART interval option) was changed to dynamic power in most instances. Users were freaking out that interval countdowns would speed up or slow down during the interval, plus a 60-minute workout might end up 70 minutes long if you consistently undershot the targets. With dynamic power intervals it’s the power that fluctuates so you might feel an interval easing up towards the end if you overshoot the target or get a bit tougher if you undershoot the target. Of course, Zwift and other platforms can’t control the interval like this.
BTW If you have a KICKR or SNAP trainer you want to disable Power Smoothing in the Wahoo app so you can see these fluctuations on the activity’s chart.
Dynamic types can be defined for both work and rest intervals where the rest interval ensures you receive enough recovery to tackle the next work interval and the work interval tailors itself to push you hard without crushing you. That’s not to say you won’t fail some tough dynamic power intervals but in most cases, you’re pushed right to the edge. One more second would have been too much.
When I hit something too tough to handle in ERG control (AUTO) I’ll switch to Slope mode and do the best I can. Often times it’s a matter of slightly shorting an interval, adding some extra rest, or a combo to successfully complete the workout. Not 100% compliance perhaps, but close enough.
In Slope mode you can also add a “make-up” interval into the mix and extend a cooldown if you’re concerned about hitting all the low/high/peak numbers for the day.
SMART - Nothing Esle Matters is a hard workout especially at the end where MPA draws down repeatedly and never fully recovers before cooldown.
Thanks again! I hope they give you a free membership at least!
I just found out my old hammer trainer isn’t supported with ebc so I’m going to try the Garmin IQ player. I read a few of your other responses and saw your workflow using remote viewer. Looking forward to trying that.
An old iPhone SE (2016?) controls my Hammer 1 (aka The Howler) whenever I want to ride a workout under ERG control in AUTO mode on EBC.
Works fine although the phone battery is iffy so I have the charge cable plugged in.
OTOH I have switched to riding most HIT workouts in Slope mode (gears/cadence) so it doesn’t matter if I run EBC on my Pixel Android phone connected to power without trainer control.
You don’t lose SMART interval functionality but it does mean concentrating on the EBC or Remote/Session Player rainbow gauge arrows to match targets during intervals.
You avoid any trainer transition timing issues on HIT intervals. For example, instead of this under ERG control –
Ha, The Howler! I like it. Mine gets fairly loud as well. I just imagine it is the crowd!
I’ll give riding in slope mode a shot next time just to see how I like it. I’ve always just used ERG mode. But the thing I hate about ERG is it is hard to stand up for some relief every once in a while. Slope would fix that problem too.
Funny that a 2016 iphone works and my Samsung S24 doesn’t.
The story on that is H1 was one of the first smart trainers on the market which relied on a proprietary BLE protocol for trainer control in use by several brands.
Once FTMS was introduced as the BLE industry standard, Xert switched to that.
The old protocol happens to be supported on the iOS app which predates EBC.
The iOS app will see the old protocol being broadcast and connect to the H1 for trainer control.
The Android app is looking for an FTMS connection.
