Discover – Xert Breakthrough Training

Why is my Training Status on the Fitness Planner always showing as Very Tired?

Armando Mastracci — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 16:38:43 +0000

Your Training Status and Form colour and number of stars provide a simple visual of two very important aspects of you as an athlete:

How trained are you? This is the number of stars.
How much training and what type of training have you be doing recently? This the colour of the stars.

Many new to Xert that have uploaded some history often find that their daily Training Status and Fitness Planner statuses consistently show them as Very tired when in fact they have more capacity to train and don’t require recovery. There are several common causes for this:

There isn’t sufficient recent data in the system, or
There are invalid/major gaps in your training history, or
You have many older activities without power data.

In each of these situations, Xert thinks you’re less trained that you actually are. The number of stars / Training Load total is not reflective of your real amount of training capacity. This leads to the system thinking your recent training is more than you are capable of handling and your Training Status moves to Very tired.

For example, if you have been training for an average of 1 hour/day on a consistent basis for a number of months, you would roughly expect to have a Training Load of 60 and have just over 2 stars of Training Status. If you have less than 1 star, there is likely missing data from your data history in Xert. Xert will think you are less fresh than you actually are.

Xert works best when you have contiguous activities without gaps in your history, with power data (or manually entered XSS). If you have incorrect gaps or many activities without power data or XSS assigned, your current Training Load will be underestimated.

How Do I Fix This?

If you have activities with gaps before or after that are invalid, remove them. If you have many of these activities, use the Activities Table to select them and delete them in bulk (this is much more efficient). You should have a solid block of activities before today that correctly reflect your recent training history. Having a contiguous, correct block of training before today allows the system to estimate your Starting Training Load, which is the Training Load assigned to your very first activity in the system. If you have an activity or more in the distant past with large gaps, the system’s estimate will not work correctly.

Pro Tip

To fine tune things even further, you can update your Starting Training Load value under My Fitness / Advanced tab which assigns your Training Load for your very first activity. Xert will estimate this by taking the average daily XSS for your activity history. You can override this by deselecting Calculate an Estimate.

Another way to address this is to adjust your Freshness Feedback (on the Fitness Planner) to the right. Although this works too, it does not address the underlying issue that exists with your data.

Should I add my other activities, like running or skiing, to my Xert profile?

Armando Mastracci — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 19:53:04 +0000

In general, you should not add activities other than cycling to your cycling profile. This is because the XSS you input from other activities will get applied to predictions and, for most activities, the benefit they provide to your cycling fitness isn’t easily measured. If you’d like to keep a record of what you’ve done in other sports, you can log them using the Fitness Planner but be sure NOT to assign an XSS value to them.

To account for the effects from other activities that can influence your training, use the Freshness Feedback feature to adjust for any additional tiredness you may feel from other activities to ensure that the recommendations of the Xert Adaptive Training Advisor accounts for these effects by delaying some workouts until you fully recover.

Deep Dive

Put simply, Xert quantifies the training you are doing from your power data, and can use this information to predict your future fitness and to recommend what training you should do. It uses this data to calculate your Training Load as well as your Recovery Load. Together they are used to determine if you are fresh or tired and what type of training you are able to do at a given time. This is where having multiple sports represented in your cycling profile can be problematic; the Training Loads and Recovery Loads from one sport do not necessarily apply to another sport equally so the advice you get on what training you should be doing isn’t going to be correct.

To illustrate, one could argue based on anecdotal evidence alone, that 2-hours of cross-country skiing might benefit your cycling. By how much? How about the recovery demands afterwards? We know that specificity reigns when it comes to training. This means that to improve cycling, you need to ride your bike. At this time there is very little scientific data available to suggest how much training benefits from one sport is transferable to another sport.

So, for these reasons, you should keep your sports separate.

Running Power

If you’re running with a run power meter, like a Stryd, let us know at support@xertonline.com. We can help you set up a second account to manage your run data separately.

Can I change or adjust the data in my power file?

Armando Mastracci — Fri, 08 Feb 2019 19:34:05 +0000

Xert does not allow you to directly edit the data in your activity files. If you need to make adjustments to a data file, such as removing a power spike, changing the starting date/time of an activity, or even removing a section of the data, you can use a service like fitfiletools.com

To do this, you’ll need to use the XertOnline interface from the web. You can follow these steps to correct any invalid data:

Download the .FIT file from Xert (Activities > Dashboard > open the Activity Details > click the Download icon in the upper right corner)
- If the ride is from outside of Xert (e.g. Garmin Connect, Zwift, etc.), you’ll need to download the .fit file from their platform
After the file is downloaded to your computer, remove the activity from Xert by clicking the trash can icon in the upper right corner of the Activity Details.
Head to fitfiletools.com and follow their instructions for changing the date/time, removing power spikes, etc. and download/save the corrected file to your computer.
Finally, upload the corrected file to your account at XertOnline.com by clicking the ‘+‘ symbol in the upper right corner and selecting ‘Upload Activity‘, and follow the instructions to upload the corrected file. You can also do this from Sync > Upload Activities. When the corrected activity is uploaded, any updates to your Fitness Signature will be made based on the corrected data file.

If you’d like to know more, refer to the FAQ ‘Dealing with invalid data‘.

I just got a breakthrough. What happened?

Armando Mastracci — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 16:08:51 +0000

Xert looks for breakthroughs every time you upload/sync an activity. This is one of the main features of the software.

Breakthroughs mean that a change in your Fitness Signature has been discovered and has been updated. Xert shows you the breakthrough information including the streetview image and the change in your signature on the Activity Dashboard:

In addition, you can view the changes in your fitness signature in the Activity Details for your activity:

The green diamond on the chart and map indicate where the breakthrough happened. Using the Advanced tab in the Activity Details you can see more details on what had happened. Use the click-and-drag feature on the MPA chart to zoom into the section of the ride where the breakthrough occurred. Use the ‘Previous’ button to view what your MPA data looked like with your previous signature.

You’ll know from the yellow dots that your power broke through your MPA line, which means that one or more of your signature parameters increased. When the activity was analyzed, a new signature was obtained from the data and you can see by how much each parameter increased.

Clicking on ‘Current’ brings you back to what your MPA data is now, based on the changes that were discovered. You may still see some yellow dots which are just artifacts from the software analysis process. Normally, these minor “breakthroughs” don’t create a material difference in your signature.

Why am I seeing duplicates of my activities?

Armando Mastracci — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 18:06:24 +0000

If you’re seeing more than one of the same activity in Activities > Dashboard or Table, it could be due to one of several reasons:

Time zone discrepancies between the source of your activity file and your Xert account;
Double syncing i.e. you’re syncing your Xert account with both Strava AND Garmin Connect;
Your Planned Activity/Workout Time is keeping a planned workouts on your calendar after you’ve completed your activity/workout.

Let’s look at how to identify & solve each one of these…

Time Zone Discrepancy

Xert uses timestamps on activities to identify and omit potential duplicate activities. If your timezone has not been selected in Xert or if it differs from the source of your activity file (Strava or Garmin Connect), Xert will see these as different activities. To solve, make sure you’re time zones are correct and consistent between platforms you are using with Xert. In Xert, this can be found under Account Settings > Personal Info – Timezone.

Double Syncing

If you’re syncing activities from both Garmin Connect AND Strava duplicates can easily occur, especially if there are differences in time zones. To solve, enable only Garmin Connect or Strava as your activity file source and make sure your timezones are the same in both your Garmin Connect or Strava account and your Xert account settings. If you see duplicates in the past you can manually delete them in Activities > Table.

Planned Activity/Workout Time

If you have a planned activity/workout scheduled for later in the day and you completed this scheduled activity in advance of its scheduled time, you will see two entries on today’s date for that activity using the Fitness Planner. When the time of your scheduled activity has passed, it will be expired and you’ll only have one activity remaining for today. Until then, you may possibly see two duplicate entries.

My Garmin said I had a breakthrough but when I uploaded, it wasn’t there. What happened?

Armando Mastracci — Sat, 14 Apr 2018 21:17:50 +0000

The precision required to determine breakthroughs is quite high. Imagine that the algorithm is able pick out as few as a handful of seconds from thousands of seconds in detecting a breakthrough. Small variations can play a big part in whether a breakthrough has occurred. Here are the main reasons:

Error correction – the server removes data spikes and data errors which the Garmins don’t do.
Computations have different precision – There are subtle differences on the computing architecture between the Garmin and the server with different precisio

Regardless, getting a breakthrough on the Garmin and not seeing it on the server is a tell-tale sign that Xert has your fitness signature established to a high degree of precision!

Given this precision and possibility that your breakthrough may not get detected, don’t stop as soon as you hear the breakthrough sound. Always hold on a little longer if possible. (Yes, we know .. is easier said than done!)

Are there errors in my Fitness Signature?

Armando Mastracci — Tue, 06 Feb 2018 16:10:34 +0000

One of the main premises that Xert works under is that it when an activity is synced/uploaded, it uses your latest Fitness Signature to determine if you had any maximal efforts. If a max effort exceeds the MPA determined by your Fitness Signature, you get a breakthrough, and your Fitness Signature is adjusted.

For the vast majority of cases, the changes are valid since it looks for similar fatigue patterns in making the adjustments. But on rare occasions your fatigue pattern in the data isn’t normal – perhaps you stopped abruptly and continued, or there was a data error right during your max effort. This can throw off how the system ‘reads’ your precise fatigue during these efforts, and therefore what your fitness signature was at the time of the activity.

Fortunately, if you have good data in subsequent activities with normal breakthroughs, your signature will get back on track. However, sometimes the error continues to linger and some manual intervention is needed.

Some hints as to whether you should do this is to look at your signature parameters to see if any of them don’t make sense. Often the easiest ones to spot are:

Peak Power (PP) is too low or too high
Threshold Power (TP) is too low or too high

If you have a reasonable idea of what they should be based on previous data and if they are suspiciously incorrect, something may have happened in one of your activities and an error has crept in.

For High Intensity Energy, the following chart applies for most cyclists (not runners, hand-cyclists or other types of activities) and can help you decide if there might be an error:

If your High Intensity Energy is underestimated, it will also likely mean that your Threshold Power (TP) is overestimated. Similarly, if your High Intensity Energy is overestimated, your Threshold Power may be underestimated.

For example, if your signature is PP = 1200W, HIE = 10kJ and TP = 250W, and you’re confident that the PP value is correct, your HIE is likely underestimated (should generally be between 20kJ and 28kJ), which may also mean your TP is overestimated. You should do some quick investigation using the Activities Table to see if an activity or two have caused the system to veer off track. If you find one, you can either correct activities directly (using the Activity Details / Advanced tab) and update the fitness signature manually and then click the Save/Lock button, or if you need more help, ask the forum or send an email to support@xertonline.com and we can have a look to see where things got off track for you.

How do I add activities where I didn’t have a power meter?

Armando Mastracci — Sun, 28 Jan 2018 20:00:34 +0000

Adding Manual Activities

See Manual Activities page.