Let’s say, for example, you start doing workouts with 50 XSS every day.  Your average daily XSS is therefore 50. If you hadn’t been doing any training previously, i.e. your Training Load started at 0, and will start to rise with each activity you do.  Eventually, if you do 50 XSS workouts every day long enough, your Training Load will be 50.  XATA will show a deficit of 50 every day before your workout and 0 after you complete it.

But, what if you did just one 350 XSS activity once a week, and didn’t do the workout on the same day every week. Your average daily XSS is still 50 (350/7 days) and if you did one 350 XSS activity once a week long enough, your Training Load will eventually be 50.  What is different though is that XATA, needs to calculate a daily XSS deficit/surplus and can only look at when you did your last workout to determine what your deficit should be.  If the last time you did a workout was last Thursday and today is Wednesday, mathematically, you don’t have a deficit yet.  XATA expects you to do workouts on the same day-of-the-week.  If you happen to do a small workout today and get a surplus of 50 XSS, you will still get a deficit tomorrow since that’s when you did your workout the previous week.  XATA looks at what you did the previous week.

Both of these are extreme examples but illustrate the point that what XATA needs to do isn’t so simple – most everyone doesn’t train with consistency, either every day or the same amount every week.  XATA needs to base recommendations on what you did the previous week, based on exactly when you did them, so that deficits can be properly calculated.  XATA does some additional calculations to lessen big fluctuations but still needs to account for what you did the previous week so that progressive overload can be sustained, according to your chosen improvement rate.

If you are seeing a big jump in your XSS Deficit, check your previous week.  There is likely a big XSS activity you performed around the same time.

The “Intervals under Fatigue” start with an interval that’s 369W that lasts 101s.  Why 101s? Seems like an odd number to choose, right?  The duration of this interval is calculated by the system and not specified.  The duration depends on your specific fitness signature.  Here is the corresponding definition row in the interval table:

You’ll notice that the Power is 5 min MMP.  This means that the system will calculate your 5 minute power based upon your signature and use that as the target power.  This makes the interval the same for everyone and does not need to be fine tuned using %FTP as a coach would do for you.  Secondly, you’ll notice that the Duration is 70% Reserve MPA.  What this means is that the duration of the interval is calculated to be how long it will take for your MPA to reach 70% Reserve, i.e. 70% of what you have between TP and PP or TP + 70% of (PP-TP).  Using an Target MPA and Reserve also makes this interval work the same for you as it does for someone with a very different signature than you do.  This is how the 101s is calculated.

Now to make things even more interesting and valuable to your training, the 101s can change as you do the interval.  How? Since the value 101s is based on your signature as well as your fatigue, the workout players can interactively calculate how long you still need to go at your target power in order to reach 70% Reserve MPA.  So, if you decide to soft pedal a bit during the interval, the duration will go from 101s to perhaps 110s.  You’ll notice this as the interval timer slowing down.  Likewise if you are a bit eager and decide to push a lot harder than the target power, you’ll see the interval timer speed up indicating you’re going to reach the 70% Reserve MPA sooner as a result.  Note that the interval timers will only slow down to twice the duration and speed up to half the duration.  This variable duration SMART interval helps you get to the target MPA so that the next interval, which is a classic 20 minute 82% sweet-spot interval is done under the same fatigue independent of how you did the first interval, dependent on your specific fitness levels defined by your signature.  It works the same for everyone.  These variable duration intervals also make them well suited to outdoor or adhoc indoor training that doesn’t depend on using trainer control.  The flexibility of doing these workouts in a more natural environment make them both interesting and highly effective.

My Fitness Page: When you login, your My Fitness home page shows your Training Status and Form as of right now, i.e. when the page is displayed. This gives you the benefit of knowing what your Training Status and Form is at that moment and to provide feedback on what the data suggests is your readiness to train. If you have logged in to select and begin a workout, you’ll know exactly where you stand. In addition, when you switch to the ‘Training’ tab, the Xert Adaptive Training Advisor will use your current Training Status and Form to recommend the ideal workout for you. You can also use this information to select your own workout based on this and your own feelings, motivation and need for training.

Fitness Planner : Training Status and Form is shown on the Fitness Planner for every day, both historically and into the future.  The system automatically calculates this for you when you open the Fitness Planner page and as you navigate forward into the future and backward into history. Because your Training Status and Form changes throughout each day (it changes continuously, second-by-second), the Fitness Planner uses the ‘As of‘ time when displaying your Training Status for each day. Think of the ‘As Of’ time as the default time of day for your Training Status and Form and the default time you’ll be doing workouts. Update it when you would like to see your historical/future information at that time of day.  Why is this important? Knowing what your Form was, and what it will be in the future, is key to understanding your past performances and to planning your future training. For example, knowing what your Form (star colours) was before a successful performance can help you understand what your Form should be leading up to an event in the future. Your ‘As Of’ time should be set to either first thing in the morning (i.e. before you train) or at the end of the day (i.e. after you’re done training for the day). This will provide the best results for viewing your training status either before you start each activity or your training status at the end of each day. It will indicate where you stood before performing activities and what it will be before you start future activities. Note that your Training Status and Form shown for today on the calendar is based on ‘As Of’ time and can often be different from the current Training Status and Form shown on your My Fitness home page. This is likely to be true if your ‘As Of’ time is set to the morning and you are reviewing your current Training Status and Form which represents training status after your latest activity.

Fitness Planner Activity: When you click on an activity (historical or planned), a window shows what your Training Status and Form was/will be at the start time of your activity.  This allows you to see exactly what the system had calculated for you at that time and allows you to assess what condition the data indicates you were in when you started the activity (or will perform the activity).  If you open a planned activity/workout, you can update the date and time and the Training Status and Form will be recalculated to show you your Training Status and Form at that exact time. This information can be used to help you schedule the date and fine-tune the time of when you’ll perform your training, both to accommodate your personal schedule and to give you a bit of an added visibility in developing your plan.

XPMC (Xert Progression Management Chart): the colour of the Form line in your XPMC reflects your Freshness at the start of each and every activity. For example, at the start of a hard workout the form line may be blue and switch to yellow or red by the start of the next activity. Conversely, you may start an endurance ride in the red, but the line switches to blue the next day.

Note that as of this writing (March 13, 2018), some Garmin Edge 520’s have been known to perform workouts a bit slower than prescribed.  This is due to an issue in the recent firmware releases.  Garmin is aware of this issue.

Focus Type in the Adaptive Training Advisor provides guidance on what the Focus needs to be for the workout at this point in your training program.  It also factors in whether you are Tired or Very Tired.  The guidance is not meant to provide a workout structure but provide some simple guidelines you can apply when just riding and using the apps that show Focus and XSS. Training with Xert doesn’t need to be so precise since we’re capturing all your strain, even with semi-random power data. It is the reason why our workouts are not so repetitious and provide more interest. Following simple and rigid workouts is becoming a thing of the past.

The Athlete Type category is shown first.  In the above example, it is Endurance and this the general category for the workout/activity that is being suggested.

Focus is shown next. This is shown as a time value and represents the Focus Duration.  In the above example, it shows 24:06.  When using Xert Mobile, or the Focus and Strain Garmin CIQ app or if you have the Remote Player on screen during your workout, you’ll be able to see what this value is for your entire workout.  As your training nears your Target Event Date, the value will come closer and closer to that of your Target Athlete Type.

Note that his value does not represent the duration of the workout or intervals.  It represents that longest duration you would be able to sustain for the Interval Targets shown.  It should be used with our apps or in creating/choosing an Xert workout. 

The last value shown in your Interval Targets.  This value provides a rough estimate of the power target you should be looking to maintain during intervals, if you are planning on just riding and not following a workout.  The more time you spend at this intensity, the more you are training at the correct focus. Combining efforts above and below this intensity is also effective.

When performing unstructured workouts where you are looking to maintain your Focus, doing any intensity is likely going to put your Focus much lower. It’s quite strict. Note that if you are using the Garmin Focus field and the colour is black or yellow, it means that the Specificity Rating is polar which is mostly entirely low intensity work. To get the ideal high intensity focus you should be seeing blue or even green on the Focus field. To get that, you’ll need to be much more strict about hitting the focus power (or slightly higher), and only that power, i.e. high resting intensity intervals will increase the focus duration value.

In managing your activities, it is important not be too concerned with keeping the deficit at 0 but to maintain your Training Pacer on-track.  It’s acceptable to train with a surplus and it is also acceptable to wait if you have a deficit, so long as you keep your training consistent and your maintain the pacer on-track.

For example, if the previous weekend, you managed to get out on a long weekend club ride at 8am that generated 400XSS points, your Training Load increased dramatically at 8am since that’s when the activity’s XSS will get counted.  Starting Thursday to Saturday, you’ll see a higher than expected steady, hourly increase in deficit (or decrease in surplus) to give you an awareness that you’ll need to boost your training to maintain your improvement relative to the Training Load you had reached after that ride.  The Adaptive Training Advisor performs some smoothing so that you don’t immediately see a large deficit at 8am the next Saturday.

Remember that any planned activities that you have planned within the next 24 hours will influence the secondary pointer on the Training Pacer.