I will say for someone who is 60…the major factor to my ability to ride is dealing with recovery. My challenge isnt what workout to do…its what workout not to do. Taking an extra day of rest or an easier ride vs the planned hard day tends to have long term payoff. I dont see AT being able to sort this out for a long time.
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Just reviewing the workouts under “custom” in the iOS app. For what it’s worth all of my custom workouts are probably 8+ yrs old and many may have never been ridden.
Here’s a screenshot:
I wonder if your app needs to sync workouts again. I just spot checked a couple of them on the web and they had levels available. If you either log out and back in or just fully close and re-open the app it should pull any workout updates.
I’m taking a look at Xert again just out of curiosity - don’t worry TrainerRoad crew, not going anywhere just yet; Xert still doesn’t have a native iPad app (no landscape mode…in 2021, wtf?), and the interface is still complicated and convoluted.
One interesting thing (to me, anyway) is how Xert says that you ‘don’t need to ever do another FTP test’. I’m trying to wrap my head around how the system would be able to understand what my threshold power is, or my ‘high intensity energy’ (the amount of energy or work capacity you have above Threshold Power) if I never put in a full max effort of decent duration.
For example - most workouts are 60-90 minutes, often intervals (5-10 minutes with 2-3mn rests etc.). I may do Zwift races that have really hard efforts, but rarely for 20 minutes or more at a time - maybe there will be 4-5 minutes of hard effort and then sitting in for a bit, etc.
I synced all my rides for the last 90 days. Xert - probably correctly - identified ‘breakthrough’ rides on my recent Ramp Test and 4DP Full Frontal. However, Xert says my threshold power is about 25 watts lower than both the Ramp Test and Full Frontal (which were within two watts of each other). I don’t see any endurance metric such as TTE (time to exhaustion: The maximum duration for which a power equal to model-derived Functional Threshold Power can be maintained) such as what’s used in WKO. Although it’s likely I’m simply not looking in the right place - as noted, the Xert setup is messy (arguably TR’s greatest strength is its clean, intuitive app design).
I’m not in the Beta but I am seeing indoor Custom Workouts classified 99% correctly when using the Past Rides filters.
The only ones that seem to be classified wrong are some custom Over-Under style workouts with longer overs.
I was also curious about the ftp Statement. And its misleading.
To get the right numbers on xert you have to get breakthoughs.
How Do you get them? You have to Do a ride where you give everything you can!
Thats nothing Else than a ftp test!
Ultimately you need to give these algos good input to much out of them. Regular maximal efforts probably the way to get the best out of Xert.
I used Xert a while back and liked it. For me the advantage of Xert is that it currently looks at ALL rides for calculation, disadvantage is the UI and the lack of depth around structured plans, etc.
TR, much cleaner, has all the depth and structure you could need, and I prefer their approach that the workout is the workout and you are measured on success or failure as opposed to changing the workout on the fly.
Once AT uses unstructured outdoor rides to factor into progression then I’m very happy.
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My threshold levels have all just increased I assume because it is taking into account a lot more historical data now and some of the custom workouts that I have done?
It isn’t a bother to me personally as I don’t use this area much (clearly… 8 years, lol) but thought for the sake of possible issue for the team to check on I’d let you know -
I fully closed the app and brought it back up, but the levels still all show 0.0 there.
I can confirm I see levels (non 0.0) via the web though.
Thanks for checking out Xert.
Do recognize that Xert is a re-invention of training and we’re a small team covering a lot of ground in this process. Don’t look for all things FTP and the traditional approaches such as zones and using %FTP.
In order to do this successfully, you have to “show your work” as you would have heard from your math teacher. Simply providing answers and abstracting away everything to make the experience “simple” would have masked the compelling nature of what Xert does. Athletes that make the effort to understand it, appreciate this since it gives them a perspective on what’s happening with them that is often opaque when using traditional approaches. Creating a simpler abstraction can evolve from this and we are moving in that direction as we grow.
Try out the web-based Session Player with your iPad. Not a native app but could be used as your main workout experience.
Use our support email if you have any specific questions about your data or results.
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Yeah the discipline is currently on the user for selecting an appropriate plan for their abilities. From there AT changes the workouts to adjust progression based on the user’s ability to complete the workouts. It won’t tell you to take a day off, but if you self-impose a day off, it will adjust your progression levels as they decay so that when you come back to the workouts, they’re within your current progression level.
Also, if you haven’t already done so, check out the new Polarized plans. From what I can tell, lot of the folks in their 50s and 60s are trying them out right now for similar reasons to the concerns you’ve noted.
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I am in my 60s and retraining for TTs, short (10-25m) and longer (50. 100m & 12hr). The simple approach for me is to keep an eye on my TSS and schedule 1- or 2 days rest a week. So I take mondays off after a heavy weekend (either treaining or racing) and possibly Friday, before a heavy weekend.
I tend to use LV plans (scheduled Tue, Wed, Thurs) and add extra sessions of outdoor rides specific to my training or club rides. That way I do not feel I am not failing a Mid volume plan.
Joe Friel, Faster after 50 has a lot to say on the importance or rest and recovery. I am sure you have looked at it.
Basically I do NOT expect the AT system to decide I need a rest. I choose a level of plan and TSS that I can hit, and (when I enter AT) I will look to that for refinement, not overall guidance.
Out of interest, I have found a TSS of around 600 continuously through the racing season is pretty sustainable. the odd week where I have hit 800, means I am usually blitzed the following week.
Just my two-penneth. Even with AT I will use my judgement and experience of knowing what I can do to adjust my training - surely that is where judgement comes in - do I do an easier session or a more progressive or stretching one. The choice, as I read AT is still yours, isn’t it?
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Just got added to the beta. I’m currently doing the POL 6week MV plan and noticed that “Warren” doesn’t have any progression/difficulty level assigned to it?
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I believe they are planning to look at things like HRV to track/monitor fatigue.
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I said no to updating my plan with adaptive training (I did preview the changes), but it seems to have added in a bunch of sessions anyway. Any way to get back into that suggested changes screen?
Anyone know? Surely can’t just be one chance to auto modify the plan? Would I need to start a new plan to get an adapted one? I’d like to avoid that as I only have a few weeks left on this one.
Try clicking on the part of your plan you are in (base etc) and then click update. Nothing will change but when you go back to your career page it may say adaptations pending. This worked for me anyway.
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Yes, I’m in the beta.
My plan is to do 2-3 grouprides and 2-3 TR rides a week and using the TrainNow feature for the TR rides. Climbing and attacking has first priority.
When I look at my custom workouts in the libary they are assigned with type (endurance, sweetspot etc) but levels are 0.0 - will this be changed ?
Brandon, do you have any news on releasing the progression/difficulty levels for all users?
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That’ll be much later I guess. When AT launches to the masses I do not think that HRV will be included. They somehow need to grab that data and they need to be of some quality. Unless they are developing their own hardware, which I doubt, but who knows.