XATA training status indicators behavior

dgcom · February 13, 2025, 1:34am

I continue to test Xert… As much as I like the idea, I feel that implementations isn’t that great

Web site on desktop requires strong refresh to make sure current data is shown… Forgetting to refresh means that you will be basing your decisions on stale data.
No mobile app and no PWA app - mobile site would be useful if not for its constant glitches - I caught it moving freshness feedback slider on its own, without any interaction!
Planner’s bar which shows freshness have a life of its own - it can show one status for the next day in the evening of the pervious day and then completely change its mind (usually towards blue) next morning - this makes it impossible to plan ahead
The attempt to overtraining continue on 3rd week - VO2max workouts two days in a row? Sure - Riders on the Storm - 90 and Killing Me Slowly - 90 - but why?
“Rest” day - since when Z3/Tempo workout is considered “rest” or even Endurance??

Example - here I am, quite tired of previous days and doing Elevation Evaluation in Zwift yesterday - good climb in Z4/Z5 - it tries to suggest me another hard VO2 max workout (like HOP - 140% and 75%), so I try to move freshness feedback slider all the way to the left.
The only way it would give me “recovery” ride (ex. After Midnight - 30 still with some Tempo intervals) if I set it to -10. Anything else and it wants me to do another Z3/Tempo workout (this is not Z2/Endurance!):

I do not see any logic in trying to overtrain when I really just asked to maintain my current level of fitness.
I have surplus and did several days of loaded workouts already and it still suggest workouts with 4.5 difficulty?

This just seems like an algorithm behind XATA is targeted at 20 year old athletes.
I don’t think it can guide training properly - it does NOT measure many things like:

No heart rate analysis - completely ignores this training load component
No sleep or HRV analysis - which means it can’t judge how much rest I really need
Planner’s freshness bar algorithm seems to not consider that humans rest more during sleep but then accumulate more stress during the day - it just does some mathematical decay over 24 hours…

This is my 3rd attempt to use Xert over last 3 years and I am disappointed again.
The math and ideas behind it are probably great, but if the industry does not want to pick them up (regardless if they are patented or not) - there is no real value behind them.

Maybe next year? When “magic buckets” would work for indoor training in Zwift or TPV without Garmin device? This should be relatively easy to do now, since most Wahoo trainers support up to 3 BLE connections… I’ll keep my hopes high.

dgcom · February 16, 2025, 5:53am

I wanted to do a long ride in Zwift with a lot of climbing, so I decided to take couple of days off and then ride. I did not want to have a breakthrough or take any koms, the goal was just to complete this route, so it is more of “Xert Endurance” - really tempo/threshold workout. Loads of low XSS but still with some high and peak mixed in. I know for sure I would need to recover tomorrow, however Xert’s algorithm thinks otherwise - it is already sure that I’ll be fresh tomorrow night:

That is bonkers. It has no idea how would I sleep tonight, how well I would recover… Maybe this sound good on paper, but this XATA advice is quite wrong in real life.

CarmenV · February 16, 2025, 5:15pm

I believe Xert uses the standard Bannister Model of human performance…nothing mysterious. Training Peaks does the same, as does Intervals.icu. Actually, as I understand it, Xert uses a 3-factor bannister… (low High and Peak.) So it’s a standard “model” and models can be incorrect from time to time. Xert allows you to override the model…to use your own “model”, your brain. You implied earlier that Xert is inferior because it doesn’t use HRV or sleep quality measures. I’d be curious to know which program you’ve used that does.

ridgerider2 · February 16, 2025, 6:06pm

Post the power chart from that activity.
What is your current status stars count?
Xert doesn’t know your individual physiological response but if I was at 4 stars and rode a 3-hour polar endurance ride at 65 XSS/hour I could very well be fresh by the next afternoon especially if I have been riding at that TL for weeks.
If you don’t feel fresh the next afternoon, adjust the Recover Demands slider to the right to pull in some yellow/tired. No, it doesn’t have numbers. Just slide it enough to match how you feel. Over time you may decide to slide it back.

ridgerider2 · February 16, 2025, 9:24pm

After Midnight and Back to Blue include too much tempo time for you?
Are you basing that assessment on RPE or strict HR zones?

ridgerider2 · February 16, 2025, 9:42pm

That hasn’t been my experience and I’m certainly no spring chicken.
I followed a XATA phased progression (Base-Build-Peak) for 4+ months with these results.

Continuous ATP is essentially floating in Build phase with suggested HIT workouts at or around your selected Focus Type when form is fresh/blue. Or endurance level (easy to moderate) when form is yellow/tired. Or rest/recovery when red/v. tired. TL increases or decreases at the ramp rate you control.

dgcom · February 17, 2025, 5:41am

Busy Sunday, couldn’t respond earlier…

And that’s an issue, don’t you think? BTW, TP/Intervals don’t have recommendation engine, so interpretation of the PMC is left to me, in contrast to Xert. If I start adjusting Xert all the time, why do I even need it? I would use my brain then all the time. If Xert would be right for 95% of the time - fine, but in my experience it is 50/50 at best…
I use Polar Pacer Pro for sleep tracking and started using Elite HRV for morning HRV. This summer I plan to upgrade to newer Polar watch - one of the models which now supports HRV tests… Intervals can read HRV and sleep data from Polar. Not yet ideal integration, but better than nothing. I only wish Xert could integrate that! BTW, I use Polar H10 HRM and I believe most apps can record HRV data during taring as well.

And here are the zones:

As I said - the goal was to complete this, by far the hardest route I did so far in Zwift. I also did 100 mi before, but that was mostly flat and in pacer group, and it seemed easier even that it was longer.

I have three stars. No idea why this is called “competitive” - no explanation I can find, and I am not, at all, competitive.

Yes, and that’s my point - Xert had no idea (it didn’t even try) to understand my physiology. Poorly documented “recovery demand” setting helps to some extent, but it is not enough in my opinion.

These were earlier, before that ride, just my observations on workout tagging in Xert - why calling workout “Endurance” when it is actually Tempo???
After this Zwift ride - I checked in the planner - it was recommending something much harder for the next day. I did 1 hour recovery ride, but Xert still wants me to do SMART - Iron Man - 30… But bigger issue is that I need to do another climbing route later in the week and also a race. I do not see any way I can tell XATA that I plan some demanding rides in a week - I have to manage this myself (as I did all the time before).

@ridgerider2 - I know you been posting on this forum a lot for the last several years. I been reading discussions here. If you are not working for Xert - I commend your vocal advocacy for the app. I am glad Xert is working for you. Me - on another hand - I try to look at training holistically, trying to understand what each platform does and how that correlates with well-known coaches advice (ex. Joe Friel and others). And there seems to be a disconnect - many apps are too focused on pure mathematical models, often winded up to push high volume/high intensity of training. But is this good? And not from just load perspective, but - can one “universal model” apply to everyone?
There is a new podcast episode on The Time-Crunched Cyclist podcast - “Joe Friel on Fundamental Truths and Practical Training Takeaways for Cyclists (#235)” - I suggest you may want to listen to it. Training should be individualized. When you work with coach, you provide plenty of feedback so your plan can be adjusted properly. Xert does not even collect RPE - there is no way it can make any informed decisions, but only calculate form decay and change some triangle color…

ManofSteele · February 17, 2025, 9:28pm

Check out the podcast Armando did with Jack Burke. There’s a section in there where Jack asks about whether Xert uses any of that ‘extra’ data such as sleep data or HRV data. Might find it interesting.

dgcom · February 18, 2025, 6:04am

I have listened to this episode back in December. But I listened it again after you have mentioned it, thinking maybe I missed something important… Nope. This podcast is perfect confirmation of all what I been saying above:

Xert focuses on math only
Still uses traditional approaches, just renames things - PMC chart, progressive overload, critical power…
High/Low/Peak are very much the same as zones, just split differently…
Ignoring HRV or sleep data is on purpose - I guess, it is too hard for Xert to implement, this was not clear, and somehow that data is not part of human physiology - that was surprising

Don’t want to spend time on detailed review, but would also recommend people to listen to it, just ignore what Jack says and focus on Armando’s explanations carefully.

And I do not argue that there are very interesting ideas in Xert… Its the implementation and ignoring anything individualizing user and its response to training is the issue.

BTW, Jack Burke seems to be an influencer on many social media platforms, the only useful information out of him in this episode - confirming that Xert plans target younger pre-trained athletes well sometimes.

CarmenV · February 18, 2025, 4:43pm

Xert isn’t simply renaming things. For instance, critical power isn’t the same as HIE. if you’re gonna be Negative Norm, at least fully understand the concepts.

A question for you. When HRV Elite tells you to take a rest day, do you cancel your ride? What’s your process?

dgcom · February 18, 2025, 6:06pm

Of course critical power is not HIE! HIE is in KJ and CP is in Watts. Please, if you compare - use things which are actually comparable
CP is Threshold Power - same as FTP - and when Xert pushes workouts to Zwift, it uses this number as FTP for workouts. And yes, I know that Xert’s TP should not be treated as FTP, but is really is its reflection.

I do recovery or lite Z1/Z2 ride. I can do higher, but nothing over TP.

CarmenV · February 18, 2025, 7:15pm

So when the HRV app flashes a warning, you take it easy that day. I used to do that too, using a competitor’s HRV product. Then I learned more about HRV. I learned (actually, the founder of the product wrote as much) that simply swallowing during the measurement can affect your HRV. Ate spicy food last night? That can affect it. It happened to me many times Bottom line, HRV isn’t really useful day to day in prescribing a workout. It CAN be possibly useful over time, over weeks and months, to see trends. That was when I started measuring and keeping my data in a spreadsheet, using different types graphs and trend lines to try and pull useful information out of it. I eventually gave up on it, as I didn’t find it useful. I’m sure plenty of Xert users use HRV in different ways to improve their training. But back to you…a little information can be dangerous. Negative Norm needs to become Informed Norm before he dishes out critcism the way he’s been doing!

dgcom · February 18, 2025, 11:53pm

You asked about HRV… But that is not the main and only thing I look at.

I wear Polar watches with HR/Sleep monitoring for ~4 years now - believe it or not, but I find bits of info it provides interesting… Over these years though I can now understand how did I sleep without the watch. And I don’t mean regular feeling after sleep, but how rested I would feel mid-day…
I started doing HRV just recently and I am trying to correlate its data to my sleep first.
I measure in the morning - and so far values were quite stable, without any significant fluctuations.

And another important parameter - I question myself before doing workout - how do I really feel?
I look at the route I planned or workout and think if I am good to do that. RPE of the last workout is part of this - I remember how did I perform last time and consider this as well…

So no - I do not use HRV as the only indicator. My feedback to Xert was (and still is) - it needs to consider real physiological feedback from several signals and this is not the case today - it ignores almost all of them. And if you think about it - the ONLY feedback it uses is the freshness/tiredness - and that is not enough to make an informative decision.

dgcom · February 19, 2025, 12:08am

Another example of XATA giving conflicting recommendation…

On the left, it recommends pure endurance workout with XSS of only Low 120…
On the right it hits me with “Mixed climber” with high and low XSS and higher difficulty.

Only way to have XATA to show workouts matching recommendation - tell it that my freshness is -5.

There is probably some excuse for that, but it doesn’t make recommendation any better - we now have THREE different, conflicting states on the same screen - one is textual recommendation, another one is recommended workout and the third one is some guess about tomorrow.

CarmenV · February 19, 2025, 12:25am

I think you have a legitimate gripe here. I never liked the way Xert does this. Too complicated and confusing. I do understand it, but I’ll let someone else explain. i think it should be revamped. It"s learning when and how you workout, and recommending a workout based on your usual schedule…I guess in case you forget lol. I can’t explain why it would be showing you a Climber activity. I’m sure someone else can.

dgcom · February 19, 2025, 1:01am

I suspect that there is a deficit of high/peak due to me taking some time off… But then the left side should reflect the same

dgcom · February 19, 2025, 6:53am

@CarmenV - I wonder if you have listened to the most recent episode of Fast Track podcast - How to Use—and Not Use—HRV in Your Training - Fast Talk Laboratories

If you are using HRV, it may be a good info. BTW, swallowing during HRV is mentioned there - but in relation to optical HR sensors
I use Polar H10 - although it takes time to set up, it should be more reliable. But after listening to Dr. Brad Lichtenstein, I may need to change my protocol…

ridgerider2 · February 19, 2025, 2:07pm

Hmmm… if I setup Continuous for a Tired day with 2 hours available I get a number of viable endurance workouts ~120 XSS on the recommended list.
Why is Filter active in your screenshot? (red)

As for tomorrow’s workouts go to Planner and click [+] and you’ll see HIT recommendations since calculated form 24 hours from current time view is v. fresh (green arrow on gauge).

From XATA help article:

NOTE: A second arrow (small triangle) represents where you will be 24 hours from now and is also colour-coded with your projected training status at that time. If you have a planned activity in the Fitness Planner within the next 24 hours, the triangle may point to the right of the main needle as it is accounted for in the calculation.

ridgerider2 · February 19, 2025, 3:43pm

What are your cycling goals?
“Competitive” simply refers to your current TL value. I.e. what Xert considers as the range necessary to compete at whatever class level you’re capable of (or compete against yourself).
Elites and Pros ride up to double that which doesn’t mean you can simply raise TL and turn Pro.

0 Stars – Untrained: Training Load below 25
1 Star – Recreational: Training Load between 25 & 50
2 Stars – Trained: Training Load between 50 & 75
3 Stars – Competitive: Training Load between 75 & 110
4 Stars – Elite: Training Load between 110 & 150
5 Stars – Pro Level: Training Load above 150

Table from: Training Status and Form – Xert

dgcom · February 19, 2025, 6:30pm

Because I clicked on “Workouts” - see it highlighted.

Yes, did this and it still showed only Mixed Climber workouts… And continues to do the same (at 1pm EST here).

No filter applied. And once again - why does it consider me fresh??? My legs are quite tired after doing this Iron Man 90 last night, just ~16 hours ago… Since I was already tired (Xert did NOT give me any real rest days recently), the workout was hard on legs, had to drop power ~3-5% at the second half of it.
If I look at my planner, it will ALWAYS show me fresh next day, but it may change colors for the past days, so I find it very unreliable.
Here is the start of my week:

And this was happening every day for the last month while I was testing it.
But now, if I go to the previous week, it all of a sudden changed color from red/blue to red/orange:

Compare to the screenshot taken last Wednesday:

Notice the difference.

I posted this at the beginning, I believe - I want to maintain, maybe (very) slowly improve my fitness. I am closer to my 6th decade and only started bike training in the last 3 years. I do not plan to race. I want to have fun - ride in Zwift efficiently (and I already can, so I am good with the level I have). Basically - get closer to 50th percentile in training to people in my age group.

Xert is NOT helping here. It tries to push me over the edge with difficult workouts, much larger volume (compared to my successful self-coaching in the last 2 years) and strange workout targets.

Xert tendency to invent its own terms doing it significant disfavor.

As I said - I was self-coaching before. I did NOT do any structured training - mostly free rides with pre-planned effort. Xert saw my historical TL and made very incorrect conclusions.