Xata Base Recommendations

Hoping for a bit of advice regarding the Xata workout recommendations for my base phase. I seem to be getting pretty much all sweetspot style workouts recommended, having been down that route before (it didn’t end well) with another app, I’m wondering if there is something I’m missing?

This is typical of the sort of workouts I am getting recommended each day so far, am I best only choosing one of these workouts a couple of times a week and the rest of the time either riding outside, or more likely given the rubbish weather here in the UK at the moment free riding on Zwift at a lower intensity? Obviously I get that the lower the intensity the longer XSS takes to accumulate but I’m a bit fearful of falling into the sweetspot black hole of doom if I blindly follow the workout recommendations.

I work five days a week, so aim to do workouts of 60-90 minutes indoors on 3 or 4 of those days and ride outside (rubbish weather permitting) on one or both of my days off.

Any advice on how/what others do much appreciated.

To get easier workouts you can either slide the freshness feedback slider left, or filter workouts to be maximum 2 or maybe 2.5 diamonds difficulty.

Even that may not be super easy, so for very easy workouts you’re probably better off free riding (which is what I do… then once or twice a week or when blue in status, pick a harder workout, either per XATA, XATA with higher difficulty filtered, or something else depending on what I feel like focusing on…)

I am curious whether XATA recommends that intensity day in and day out at your training load, or whether other days are easier? If you add that workout to your calendar / planner, what does it recommend for the next days for example? You can automatically add workouts for the next 5 days and see how it looks… easy enough to delete…

I’ve tried playing with the planner and it does seem to recommend this sort of intensity, think Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is about the easiest workout recommended so far.

I’ll see how it develops over the next week or so, hopefully it will calm down!

There are SS-type workouts in Xert. There are also workouts classified as “hard endurance”. :smiley: However, Xert is nothing like SSB plans from TR and others if that is what you are worried about. :wink:
Sweet Spot, Threshold and Polarized Training … By the Numbers – Xert (baronbiosys.com)

Below are my first 60 days at Moderate-2 ramp rate (45 days in Base,15 in Build). I did not use the Planner at all. Mondays off.
I was mostly picking from Load More (list of twenty options) and selecting what I wanted to do in Base with occasional selections from the library or using Filter. Once into Build I selected from the top four recommendations. Plus a BT workout now and then to confirm signature status. I also joined a few group sessions when the associated workout was appropriate.

If in doubt when selecting a workout open it in Workout Designer and drag the pointer over the intervals to see what’s entailed. After a while you can tell at a glance by colors and rating if it’s something you want to do. [Make sure Advanced Charting is enabled under Account Settings.]

Of course riding outdoors below LTP is always a good option for developing a solid base. My progression was strictly indoors riding 1-2 hours. You can search the library and view details for these workouts. Note the preponderance of Time Triallist focus (Endurance) while in Base. The latter half of Build is when intensity picked up noticeably.

Date Name Duration Breakthrough Specificity Focus XSS
Feb 5 2021, 11:06 AM The Time Is Now - 120 2h 00m Yes Polar Puncheur 132
Feb 4 2021, 5:39 AM SMART - Best of You 1h 50m No Mixed Sprint Time-Triallist 134
Jan 31 2021, 12:54 PM Iron Man - 120 - SMART Power 2h 06m No Mixed Climber 146
Jan 30 2021, 10:49 AM Up & Down LTP 2h 34m No Polar Sprint Time-Triallist 161
Jan 29 2021, 12:14 PM Kick it into the Middle - 90 (RC Version) 1h 35m No Polar Time-Triallist 104
Jan 27 2021, 5:20 PM SMART - My Own Worst Enemy 1h 32m No Mixed Time-Triallist 102
Jan 26 2021, 6:02 AM Me Dazza 1h 40m No Polar Time-Triallist 122
Jan 24 2021, 11:54 AM SMART - Takin’ Care of Business - 120 2h 02m No Polar Time-Triallist 135
Jan 23 2021, 11:44 AM SMART - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - 120 2h 01m No Pure Time-Triallist 125
Jan 22 2021, 6:39 AM SMART Xert Zwift Surplus Seeker 75min 1h 20m No Polar Time-Triallist 79
Jan 21 2021, 12:30 PM Threshold Builder 6 1h 16m No Pure Time-Triallist 83
Jan 20 2021, 11:58 AM SMART - Takin’ Care of Business - 90 1h 33m No Polar Time-Triallist 106
Jan 19 2021, 5:32 AM SMART - Save Yourself - 120 2h 10m No Pure Time-Triallist 128
Jan 17 2021, 11:26 AM SMART - Takin’ Care of Business - 120 2h 10m No Polar Time-Triallist 142
Jan 16 2021, 3:37 PM Kick it into the Middle 100 (RC further extended Version) 1h 40m No Polar Time-Triallist 110
Jan 15 2021, 6:31 AM SMART Xert Zwift Surplus Seeker 75min 1h 20m No Polar Time-Triallist 78
Jan 14 2021, 6:41 AM SMART - Save Yourself - 90 1h 35m No Pure Time-Triallist 90
Jan 12 2021, 12:25 PM Kick it into the Middle - 90 (RC Version) 1h 33m No Polar Time-Triallist 103
Jan 10 2021, 11:15 AM SMART - Song 2 2h 00m No Mixed Time-Triallist 141
Jan 9 2021, 10:25 AM Learning to Survive - 120 1h 53m No Pure Time-Triallist 125
Jan 8 2021, 6:08 AM Xert Fitness Test for Breakthroughs - Under Pressure (revised) 1h 15m Yes Mixed Breakaway Specialist 96
Jan 6 2021, 1:27 PM SMART - Taxman 1h 15m No Polar GC Specialist 89
Jan 5 2021, 5:53 AM SMART - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - 120 2h 01m No Pure Time-Triallist 121
Jan 3 2021, 7:15 AM SMART - Song 2 2h 00m No Mixed Time-Triallist 140
Jan 2 2021, 11:16 AM SMART - Save Yourself - 120 2h 03m No Pure Time-Triallist 118
Jan 1 2021, 12:29 PM SMART - Feeling This - 60 1h 00m No Pure Time-Triallist 57
Dec 31 2020, 6:30 AM Zwift 2.0-2.5 W/kg Ride Leader Workout 1h 38m No Pure Time-Triallist 95
Dec 29 2020, 6:43 AM SMART - Save Yourself - 90 1h 31m No Pure Time-Triallist 89
Dec 27 2020, 1:17 PM SMART - Comfortably Numb 2h 00m No Polar Time-Triallist 132
Dec 26 2020, 11:38 AM SMART - No Time To Cry - Extended Mix 1h 41m No Polar Time-Triallist 115
Dec 25 2020, 12:01 PM SMART - Opener 5 0h 58m No Mixed Time-Triallist 58
Dec 24 2020, 6:13 AM SMART - Feeling This - 90 1h 32m No Pure Time-Triallist 90
Dec 22 2020, 12:59 PM SMART - No Time To Cry - Extended Mix 1h 42m No Polar Time-Triallist 115
Dec 20 2020, 7:09 AM Kick it into the Middle 100 (RC further extended Version) 1h 42m No Polar Time-Triallist 111
Dec 19 2020, 10:42 AM SMART - No Time To Cry - Extended Mix 1h 45m No Polar Time-Triallist 116
Dec 17 2020, 6:06 AM Walk This Way - 90 1h 30m No Pure Time-Triallist 79
Dec 15 2020, 6:35 AM Learning to Survive - 120 1h 56m No Pure Time-Triallist 127
Dec 13 2020, 11:38 AM Xert Fitness Test for Breakthroughs - Under Pressure (revised) 1h 10m Yes Mixed GC Specialist 84
Dec 12 2020, 11:49 AM Xert Fitness Test for Breakthrough Version 3 1h 16m Yes Mixed Puncheur 94
Dec 11 2020, 10:28 AM Walk This Way - 60 1h 00m No Pure Time-Triallist 61
Dec 8 2020, 11:50 AM SMART - No Time To Cry - Extended Mix 1h 45m No Polar Time-Triallist 122
Dec 6 2020, 1:30 PM SMART - Song 2 1h 56m No Mixed Sprint Time-Triallist 153
Dec 5 2020, 11:31 AM Learning to Survive - 120 1h 58m No Pure Time-Triallist 133
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Thanks, I’m used to a base plan that has a couple of sweetspot workouts per week and then mainly old skool zone 2. I’ll take your advice about the load more option.

The old-school zone breakdown for those activities looks like this –

BaseStats BuildStats

But I get what you are saying. You don’t want traditional SSB/SST that failed you in the past and Xert isn’t exactly polarized. :slight_smile:

Related: Focus duration and power targets for Endurance - #19 by ManofSteele

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One caveat to @ridgerider2’s earlier post is that he started at a lower training load than you, so will have been recommended less difficult workouts. As I mentioned, you may find you need to use the filter to limit difficulty still.

Also think the intervals.icu time in zones is based on current TP, not TP at time of workout (?) which will skew the zone intensity distribution given the big increase in TP over time. Even easy Xert workouts will be top of zone 2 and into zone 3 (which is not bad, but depends how you use those workouts)

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