I really want to start using Xert full suite of features, but I struggle with establishing a good signature. My threshold is around 295w, tested somewhat fatigued on a long test. I think this number is accurate and functional. However, whenever I do a 2-6 min effort, Xert recalculates my threshold to ~320w which is a completely unrealistic/unusable number.
So the issue I have is that the model can’t give me an accurate signature. How do I solve this?, I can’t be the only person with this problem. I specially want to dial up my HIE number, but every time I do a hard short effort, threshold goes up too much.
What’s your overall signature? And is your peak power accurate / reflecting your true max from an all out sprint, ideally outdoors. Don’t know all details but there is some linkage between PP and HIE so if your PP is too low, HIE will be low and TP high.
That said, if your 295w is fatigued (and hour power? You say long test) it’s highly likely your real TP is above that
Maybe you tested a different threshold. FTP and xert TP and CP is not the same. Ramp test and 20 min is not the same. Fatigued is not the same as fresh. Different tests give different results. Xert TP is by definition your TP in freshest condition, best weather, best day. It’s what math says should be possible, not what your body says is possible on each given day.
It is always the repeated results that give you a clue if you grow better or worse from training.
This being said: Xert breakthroughs will greatly overestimate TP over HiE if you backpedal right at the end of an effort. You should keep pushing until your power slowly drops close to your TP. It is not the raise but the decline in your power curve at 0% MPA reserve that will define your signature.
I disagree on this point, all you have to do is too look a the power curve generated by Xert. On the fatigue issue, it’s possible to surprise yourself with a bit of taper, but 25 watts is too much.
If you think PP (and HIE) is in the ballpark, there is not a lot to suggest it is unreasonable from what you’ve shared… when fresh it’s likely you can sustain more than 295w for 40 minutes and you said you could hold it longer but ran out of road… and it’s not necessarily a given you should be able to hold TP for 40 minutes straight, unless you’ve trained long threshold efforts specifically, are fresh. Riding at TP is supposed to hard. Many training programs I’ve seen (not Xert) start with e.g. 4x10 at threshold (or even less) with breaks for that reason. That said, have you checked how long you can sustain 317w, out of interest?
In your OP you said the signature was completely unusable - what training suggestions were you getting that were unreasonable? have you tried the high intensity workouts with that signature? Note that even if TP is a bit high (and HIE is a bit low) the work recommendations can still be reasonable, and actually better than just taking a fixed % of your 295w FTP estimate
Do you have some short duration eg 1-minute breakthroughs to show that the signature has it wrong?
Another approach is to do some MMP tests (eg sprint, 2 to 3 min, 20 min) and feed it into the power curve calculator… you can use those results as your signature. Does require true max efforts though. Am curious how different it is
Re LTP I hear you, also have a high LTP, but personally don’t use it for training… but note it is not meant to be LT1… I just ride endurance well below LTP which is fine. I think the power curve is more useful for high intensity efforts / workouts…
Nothing recent. Per WKO5 I need to do a 1min effort. Recent max or near max efforts are 5min, 40min, 30s
Yeah, I just have trouble trusting any advice of the system that has my threshold wrong. I don wonder if I’m overcomplicating things by trying to add Xert to the stack, and perhaps I should stick to Intervals.icu and WKO5.
I get the sense that Xert is better for high intensity workouts, as you mention. So that’s my impetus.
You can plug those and see what signature it generates? (Quite likely much lower TP if it’s the 295w 40 min effort but you said that wasn’t max). You can then type that signature into your latest BT and see how the chart looks / whether you still exceeded MPA
I probably don’t need to say but it depends what you want to do with it and your goals… I.e. will you use it to manage training, fatigue, workouts etc. or not… do you like the idea of quantifying training that can be less structured in a potentially more insightful way then just TSS and IF…or maybe use magic buckets to hit training targets with less structure… will it motivate you to ride more and ride harder when needed to achieve goals… do you trust the ideas behind it… the answer can of course be ‘no’
