The Progression tab on My Fitness gives you real answers in place of guesses. You can see whether your fitness moved over the period, how the rides you chose compare with the rest of your training, and whether you’re building at a pace you can sustain, all in seconds. Look at any period you like, narrow it to just the rides you want to judge, and you know what’s working and what isn’t, so your next block of training starts from facts.

Already on Xert? Open My Fitness and choose the Progression tab.

Judge Exactly the Training You Want to Judge

Not every ride tells you the same thing, so you choose what counts. Look at the last 2 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months, the year so far, a full year or your whole history, or set your own dates. Then narrow it down to the rides you want to judge: outdoor or virtual, sessions or workouts, long rides or short ones, hard days or easy days, favourites, breakthroughs or group rides.

Want to know what your indoor training added up to in the last three months? Pick 3 months and Virtual, and you have the answer.

Know Whether You’re Getting Fitter

The top of the page tells you what you did. Hours, distance, XSS, calories, fat and carbs come with the average, the biggest ride, the total and the rate per week, so a six-week block and a full year can be compared fairly.

Right beside it is how your fitness changed over the same dates. You can see whether your Training Load went up or down and how fast it’s ramping, so you know if you’re building at a pace you can keep up. Your Threshold Power shows how much it moved over the same dates, and the details add High Intensity Energy, Peak Power and Lower Threshold Power. Focus shows how your focus duration changed, and its average across your rides.

One thing to keep in mind: the filters apply to what you did (hours, distance, XSS, calories, and average focus), but not to your fitness. Training Load, Threshold Power and the rest describe where you were on those dates whatever you filtered, so they never change when you change a filter. A “Filtered” note tells you when filters are on.

See Where the Results Came From

Numbers tell you what changed. The charts show you when it changed, alongside the training you did at the time. Four buttons switch between them, they all follow your date range, and you can drag across any chart to set the range from the chart itself.

XPMC is the big picture. It shows your Training Load, Recovery Load and Form together with your Threshold Power and each day’s XSS, so you can see how hard training pushed your fitness and when you were fresh or tired. When you filter, the days that match keep their colours and the rest turn grey, so you can see where those rides sit in the whole picture. Races and events you’ve tagged show up as target icons above the chart, and your breakthroughs appear as diamonds. Low, High and Peak Training Load are there too, switched off until you want them.

Stress shows which days carried the load, with one bar a day split into low, high and peak. It’s the quickest way to see how often you really went hard, and whether your week was as balanced as you thought.

Fitness Signatures shows how your Threshold Power, High Intensity Energy and Peak Power changed, stacked on one time axis so you can see them move together. Breakthroughs, Focus and Specificity can be switched on from the legend.

Forecast shows where your plan is taking you. If you have a Forecast AI plan, its planned training load, weekly hours and focus power sit next to your history, so you can check what the plan asks of you. If you’re planning a season ahead, this is where you see it.

Use the Hide Future Activities switch on the XPMC, Stress and Fitness Signatures charts to look at only what you’ve done so far.

Try It Yourself

1. Open My Fitness and choose the Progression tab.
2. Pick a date range, such as 3 months or year to date.
3. Look at your weekly hours and XSS, and at the change in your Training Load and Threshold Power.
4. Narrow it down, for example to Virtual rides or to rides over 90 minutes, and see how the totals change.
5. Switch between XPMC, Stress and Fitness Signatures to see where the numbers came from.

New to Xert? Start your 30-day free trial at www.xertonline.com.

My Seasons answers it directly. It’s a new page under Home that overlays your seasons on one set of charts, so you can see the shape of each year and compare them date for date.

Already on Xert? Open My Seasons.

Pick Your Years

Choose the months you care about (the page opens on January to October as an example range, and you can set any range), then switch on the years you want to compare. The current year and last year are one click away, and every earlier year you have data for sits beside them, up to twelve at once. Each year gets its own colour. If you have a Forecast AI plan that reaches into next year, a Next Year pill with a dotted line appears too, so you can compare a planned season with your past ones (more on that below).

The pills at the top tell you what each line means. Solid lines are seasons you’ve ridden, such as the current year in navy and last year in teal. The dotted line is Next Year, your planned season, which is a forecast rather than completed rides.

The first chart is your Total Training Load, with a table next to it that gives each year’s training load at the start, high and end of the range, your training status, and the distance, hours and days you actually rode.

That one chart already tells you a lot. In our example, 2026 started from a similar place to 2024 and 2025, but without a late-season race (the UCI Gravel World Championships) this athlete built far less load through the summer.

Your Threshold Power, Year over Year

Below the training load you’ll find charts for Threshold Power (TP), High Intensity Energy (HIE) and Peak Power (PP). TP is the one most athletes look at first. It’s the closest thing Xert has to what other platforms call FTP, and it’s the number you want to see move.

Each chart has a table with the predicted start, high and end values for every season you’ve selected, plus the best breakthrough of the year when there was one. Here, 2025 started the year at a predicted 297 W, peaked at 324 W and finished at 321 W. 2024 went from 298 W to 322 W and ended at 309 W. This year so far, TP started at 299 W and has peaked at 309 W.

A note on reading the numbers: My Seasons predicts TP, HIE and PP from your training load relative to your best breakthrough of the season, so they can differ a little from the signature on any single activity. The question mark beside “Predicted” explains how it works. Your recorded activity signatures are still the source of truth for any single ride, so use these charts to compare the shape and direction of your seasons.

Compare on One Date

Click anywhere on a chart and My Seasons drops a checkpoint on that date. Every table gains a Checkpoint column showing each year’s value on that day, so you can read off exactly where you were at the same point in each season. Click the date pill at the top (it has an ×) to clear it.

Our checkpoint on July 2 shows predicted TP of 299 W this year, 312 W in 2025 and 317 W in 2024. That’s a clear picture of how this season compares with the last two on the same date, and whether you’re ahead of or behind where you were.

Signature or Training Load

The switch above the TP, HIE and PP charts changes what they show. Leave it on Fitness Signature to see the predicted TP, HIE and PP. Flip it to Training Loads to see the low, high and peak training loads behind them. It’s the quickest way to find out whether a better year came from more of the easy work, the hard work, or both.

Your Races and Events on the Chart

Races and events you’ve tagged in Xert appear on the charts as target icons: crimson for a Race, amber for an Event. A diamond marks a breakthrough. Together they let you see how your fitness and load were building before the days that mattered, and how your best seasons were put together. If you haven’t tagged your key rides yet, our article on activity tags shows how, and it takes a few minutes to mark a whole season.

Plan Next Year

My Seasons can also look forward. If you have a Forecast AI plan that reaches into next year, a Next Year pill with a dotted line appears with the other years. Turn it on and your planned season joins the comparison, so you can check a new plan against your best past seasons before you commit to it. We walk through that in Plan Ahead.

Try It Yourself

1. Open Home, then My Seasons.
2. Set the months you want, and switch on your last three or four years.
3. Look at the Threshold Power chart and note your predicted high in each year.
4. Click the chart on a date that matters to you, such as the start of your build, to see where you were at that point in each season.
5. Flip the switch to Training Loads to see what each season was made of.

New to Xert? Start your 30-day free trial at www.xertonline.com.

Activity tags fix that. Every activity can now carry tags, you choose what they are, and Xert uses the important ones to mark your season charts.

Already on Xert? Open your Activities dashboard.

Four Tags to Start With

Every athlete starts with four standard tags: Race, Event, Workout and Commute, each with its own colour. Race is crimson, Event is amber, Workout is blue and Commute is teal. Open the tag menu on any activity card and they’re waiting for you, along with any custom tags you’ve made.

Make Your Own

Your training doesn’t fit four boxes, so it doesn’t have to. Type a name to create a custom tag (one for each of your bikes, the name of your club ride, or the e-bike you rented on holiday) and pick a colour from nine presets. If none of them suits you, the dashed pencil swatch opens a colour picker for any colour you like.

An activity can have up to 20 tags. If you try to add a name you already use, Xert warns you rather than creating a duplicate.

Find Your Rides Again

Tags earn their keep on the Activities dashboard. Use the tag filter to pick one or more tags, and the dashboard shows the rides that have any of them. Choose Race and you have your racing history in one scroll. Choose a bike’s tag and you see every ride on that bike.

Tag a Whole Batch at Once

Tagging one ride at a time is fine for today’s ride. Tagging a season’s worth is not. Open the Table view under Activities and you’ll find a Tags button in the toolbar. The Tags column is off by default, so switch it on under Edit Columns to see every activity’s tags at a glance.

Tick the activities you want, open the Tags button, and apply or remove a tag on all of them in one go. The menu tells you where things stand: a tick means every selected activity has the tag, a dash means only some do, and an empty box means none do.

It’s the quickest way to go back through last season and mark every race.

Your Races and Events Show Up on Your Season

Race and Event tags do more than label. They draw a target icon on your charts: crimson for a Race, amber for an Event. On My Seasons, you can see where each one fell in the year and what your training load and fitness signature were doing when you got there. A diamond with a target inside marks a breakthrough that happened on a tagged activity. The same icons appear on the Progression tab’s breakthrough strip.

That makes it easy to ask the questions that matter. Did the load build before the goal race? Where did the fitness signature peak, and how close was it to race day? How does this year’s build compare with last year’s? Our My Seasons article shows how to compare seasons side by side.

Coaches See Them Too

If you coach athletes or belong to a squad, the tags you see on an athlete’s activities are read-only, so you can follow their key rides without changing anything.

Try It Yourself

1. Open Activities and pick a recent race or key event.
2. Open its tag menu and apply Race or Event.
3. Create a custom tag for something you ride often, and choose a colour.
4. Open the Table view, switch on the Tags column under Edit Columns, then tick several rides and use the Tags button to tag them together.
5. Go to My Seasons and look for your target icons.

New to Xert? Start your 30-day free trial at www.xertonline.com.

Until now, a Forecast AI plan began the day you created it. Planning a block that starts weeks or months from now is new, and it’s what this update adds.

Already on Xert? Open My Fitness and choose the Program tab, or view your seasons on My Seasons.

Three pieces make it work, and each is useful on its own. Forecast AI plans can now start on a date in the future. Goals now accept Manual Signature Targets, so you can type in the fitness you want to reach, set it above your last season’s numbers, and get a plan built for it. And the new My Seasons page shows what your numbers were in past seasons, so you can use them, or improvements on them, as your targets, and lays your plan beside those seasons so you can see how they compare.

Here’s how that looks, using a plan we built for the following year: the 2027 Group Rides and Race Season.

Start When You Want

When you set up a Goal, Event or Race plan, there’s now a Start Date. Pick a date in the future (we chose Monday, January 4, 2027, with a target date of May 15), and Forecast AI builds the plan from that day to your target.

Xert is upfront about the trade-off. The plan is built from your fitness today, not from a prediction of where you’ll be on your start date, and until then you’re on a XATA maintenance plan, which gives you training to maintain your current fitness level. The form says so right under the Start Date.

That’s the Pre-Plan Maintenance Program. Your Program page counts down to the day your plan takes over, and until then the Adaptive Training Advisor keeps recommending training that holds your fitness where it is. There’s no gap in your training, and no need to wait until January to find out what January needs to look like. Until then, follow the Pre-Plan Maintenance recommendations to hold your fitness where it is.

On the Today page, an hourglass counts down the days to your start date, with the program and start date beneath it. It’s a small reminder that the plan is coming, and that you can keep training in the meantime.

The Program page shows the same countdown alongside your fitness signature gauges.

Aim at a Signature, Not Just a Number

Improving season over season comes down to specific numbers: you want next season’s TP, HIE and PP to beat this season’s. With Manual Signature Targets, you skip choosing a focus and a power increase. Instead you enter the Threshold Power (TP), High Intensity Energy (HIE) and Peak Power (PP) you want to be carrying on your target date, and Forecast AI builds a plan for them. If you think in FTP, TP is the number to pick: you choose the Threshold Power you’re aiming for, rather than accepting a percentage increase.

Our athlete starts at 294 W TP, 25.9 kJ HIE and 1190 W PP. Their best predicted values this season, which My Seasons shows at a glance, were 309 W, 26.7 kJ and 1210 W. So we set the bar above those: 314 W, 28 kJ and 1215 W by May 15.

What Forecast AI Gave Us

Forecast AI projected a plan reaching 311 W TP, 27.7 kJ HIE and 1212 W PP by May 15, 2027. That’s just under what we asked for (the My Seasons chart below shows 315 W because it predicts from your training load rather than the plan’s final signature), and Forecast AI says so: it flags that the full increase couldn’t be reached and gives you the best plan it found. You can save that plan as is, or adjust your targets or weekly hours and try again.

That’s the part we like best. The answer to “is my goal realistic?” doesn’t come from a guess, but from a plan built on your own data and your own available hours.

See Your 2027 Next to 2026 and 2025

My Seasons is where you check the plan against your history. It’s also where you find your targets in the first place: pick any past seasons and you can see how your TP, HIE and PP moved through each one. Once you have a Forecast AI plan that reaches into next year, a Next Year pill with a dotted line appears alongside your season selector. Switch it on, and your planned season joins the comparison.

Flip My Seasons to its Fitness Signature view, and you get a separate chart for TP, HIE and PP, each with a table of predicted start, high and end values for every season. For most athletes, TP is the one to look at first. It’s the closest thing Xert has to what everyone else calls FTP, and it’s the number people want to see move.

Each year has its own line. Solid lines are seasons you’ve ridden, and the dotted line is Next Year, your planned season. That’s a forecast, not completed rides.

In our example, the 2027 line climbs through the spring and peaks in May at a predicted 315 W TP, against 309 W for 2026. HIE and PP follow the same pattern: 27.8 kJ against 26.7 kJ, and 1224 W against 1210 W. It’s a solid improvement on 2026. It’s still below 2025, when this athlete’s predicted TP peaked at 324 W, and that’s a useful reality check on what a single season of well-planned training can realistically do.

A note on reading the numbers: My Seasons predicts TP, HIE and PP from your training load relative to each season’s best breakthrough, so predicted values can differ a little from the signature on any individual activity or from Forecast AI’s own end-of-plan estimate. Treat My Seasons as the way to compare shape and direction across years. Until your start date the 2027 line simply holds your current loads, and it stops at your target date, because that’s where the plan ends.

Try It Yourself

1. Open My Seasons and note your predicted highs for TP, HIE and PP in recent seasons.
2. Open Program and choose Change Program.
3. Select Goal (or Event or Race).
4. Set a Start Date in the future and your target date.
5. For a Goal, choose Manual Signature Targets and enter TP, HIE and PP values at or above the numbers you noted.
6. Set your Max Weekly Hours to what you can really train.
7. Run Forecast AI, save the plan, and go back to My Seasons to see your Next Year line.

New to Forecast AI? Our Race AI Guide and Outcome-Driven Training Plans walk through the fundamentals.

New to Xert? Start your 30-day free trial at www.xertonline.com.

We didn’t think that was good enough. So we rebuilt how coaches and athletes talk to each other inside Xert, and we built it around a simple idea: the conversation should live next to the data it’s about, and it should reach you wherever you actually are — including WhatsApp.

Where the Conversation Now Lives

Direct messages with your coach or your athletes, and every comment thread you’re part of, now live in one place — a Messages hub with two tabs, one inbox. No more hunting across activities trying to remember where a conversation happened.

That’s the easy part. The part we actually cared about is this: a comment doesn’t have to live in a generic chat window anymore. You can comment directly on a specific activity, or on a specific day on the calendar. A question about Tuesday’s intervals lives on Tuesday’s activity, not buried somewhere in a scrolling thread with everything else you’ve discussed this month. When your coach opens that ride six weeks from now, the conversation about it is still right there.

A Real Messaging Toolkit

Once we decided messages needed to live next to training data, it followed that they needed to behave like messages people actually use. React, reply, forward, pin, edit, delete — the things you already expect from any modern messaging app are now available on every coach-athlete conversation and every comment thread. Attach a file if you need to, but you can also attach an actual activity or workout, and it renders as a live card right in the conversation: route map, duration, distance, difficulty, strain breakdown. Your coach doesn’t need a link and a second tab open to know what you’re talking about. And read receipts mean you know your athlete actually saw the note before race day, instead of wondering.

WhatsApp, Two-Way

This is the piece that mattered most to us. Connect WhatsApp once, and every Xert message or comment gets relayed to your phone — reply right from WhatsApp, and it syncs straight back into Xert. Your coach doesn’t need to open an app to answer you. You don’t need to open an app to ask.

We didn’t want the other app to be the price of staying reachable. If your coach already lives in WhatsApp — and most people already do — Xert should meet them there instead of asking them to add one more inbox to their day.

How This Compares

We looked at what the two platforms most likely to come up in this conversation — TrainingPeaks and intervals.icu — actually ship today.

The pattern with the other two is the same: the conversation is another tab to check, in another app, and on TrainingPeaks specifically, it’s a Premium add-on with an age gate before either side can even use it. Coaches on both platforms still end up falling back to text messages, email, or WhatsApp on the side, which is exactly the fragmentation an all-in-one coaching platform is supposed to remove. Xert doesn’t ask you to stop using WhatsApp. It plugs into it.

Where You Come In

If you coach on Xert, or you’re one of their coached athletes, you’ll find a Messages link in the top nav. Open it, connect WhatsApp, and the relay starts working today.

Is your coach still messaging you through TrainingPeaks or intervals.icu? Send them this post. Switching to Xert Messaging means one less app for both of you to check, comments that stay attached to the actual ride instead of getting lost in a chat log, and a WhatsApp bridge neither of those platforms offers.

And messaging isn’t the only reason to make the move. Xert 2.0 is a full universal metabolic model — phosphocreatine, muscle glycogen, blood glucose, and fueling — built directly from the ride data your coach already has, no lab test required. Between that and a messaging system built for how the two of you actually work, there’s never been a better time to ask your coach to switch.

Have feedback on the new messaging experience? Comment threads reach us the same way they reach your coach — we’re watching.

With Xert 2.0, the bar moves higher. Xert now uses an integrated metabolic model to estimate how energy from phosphocreatine, muscle glycogen, blood glucose, and fat contributes to your performance. These estimates are built directly from the power data you’re already recording. No routine lab test or blood draw is required. Just ride.

Laboratory testing can directly measure aspects of physiology that power data alone cannot. Xert 2.0 takes a different approach: it uses your ride data and a unified model to provide practical, individualized estimates that can be examined on every activity.

Introduction to Xert 2.0

Xert 2.0 is the evolution of the current Xert system. It deserves the “2.0” label because it represents a major shift in what the platform can model. The current version uses power-data analysis to explain who you are as an athlete and how training affects your ability to perform.

Xert 2.0 extends this analysis by estimating how several physiological energy systems contribute to the power you produce. Here’s what’s been added:

• Analyzes very short efforts using a new model of the phosphocreatine system, also known as PCr.
• Analyzes very long rides using a new model of muscle glycogen availability and durability.
• Helps you understand how carbohydrate intake and modeled muscular uptake may affect your performance.
• Estimates how different energy sources contribute at different intensities. It doesn’t just identify your zones; it connects them to modeled thresholds, capacities, and energy use.
• Brings everything together to estimate the power you have available throughout your ride — from a few seconds to many hours.

What Actually Changed — In Depth

Why FTP Alone Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story

FTP and how to measure it have been the subject of debate after debate.  Is it the power you can hold for an hour?  Is it supposed to match your Maximal Lactate Steady State?  Is 95% of your 20 minute power always your FTP?  Should it be higher or lower for different types of workouts?

For those of you that are familiar with CP/W’, how do FTP and CP relate?  Are they the same? Should they be?  CP can be highly dependent on the method used to estimate it.  It’s been said that CP can be held for a very long time. How long is that? No one is quite sure.

So much confusion and thus so many debates.

Xert 2.0 provides a new way to explore how these concepts relate to one another within a single model. It doesn’t just calculate FTP; it shows how threshold power relates to the other parameters that shape performance. For example, an athlete can increase FTP while reducing modeled performance on very long rides. Xert 2.0 shows how changes in durability and energy availability can produce that result.

How the Xert 2.0 Model Aligns with Physiology

Everything above comes down to this picture: your body has several different sources of energy, and each one behaves differently. Xert 2.0’s real change is that it now estimates the state of these systems second by second throughout your entire ride — instead of collapsing them into one or two numbers. Here’s what that looks like in practice:

PCr: Your Nitro Boost

Short, hard efforts tap a separate buffer — phosphocreatine — that empties and refills in seconds. It’s why you can go hard, ease off for 20 seconds, and go hard again almost as hard. A model that treats anaerobic capacity as one battery has difficulty explaining that behaviour. Xert 2.0 uses a separate PCr component to account for it.

In the example below, a rider did a ramp test to failure, then sprinted twice, all-out. Xert 1.0 has no way to explain those sprints except by raising the rider’s TP — in this case by 12W (245W → 257W), overstating their sustainable, long-term power. Xert 2.0 accounts for the same sprints using its new PCr and Max Instantaneous Power model instead. In this analysis, TP remains at 245W.

MPA With and Without Modeled Durability

Once PCr is spent, you’re pulling from muscle glycogen (local, finite, slow to refill) and blood glucose (continuous, topped up by food and by your own liver). How much carbohydrate you eat isn’t the same as how much your muscles can use. Xert 2.0 estimates that uptake and uses it to model both the energy available for hard efforts and the replenishment of glycogen when you ease off.

Below is an illustrative model analysis using power data from the 2025 UCI World Gravel Championships. In Xert 1.0, MPA stays elevated right to the finish — it looks like the rider still has plenty left. In Xert 2.0, the story is very different: as modeled glycogen availability declined, estimated TP dropped from 311W to 263W over the race, and by the finish the model indicated little power remained for a sprint. That gap between “what the model says” and “what the rider’s legs actually had” is exactly what Xert 2.0 is built to close.

MPA Below TP — Before and After

Durability isn’t limited to hard efforts. In Xert 1.0, MPA holds steady during a steady-state ride at or just below TP — implying you’ve still got a sprint in you no matter how long you’ve been riding at FTP.

Xert 2.0 models depletion at every intensity, so the same steady effort can show you gradually approaching a breakthrough, even while riding at or slightly below FTP — a more better representation of your fatigue.  read of where you actually stand.

Here’s the same power file with the same Fitness Signature. In Xert 1.0, the athlete’s MPA barely moves, suggesting the athlete could still generate a maximum power sprint at the effort’s conclusion. However, in Xert 2.0, the MPA gradually declines and nearly reaches a breakthrough by the end of the same steady effort, despite most of the ride being near (or below) the athlete’s starting FTP.

Lower vs. Higher Modeled Durability

Durability isn’t just about the ride — it’s about fueling too. The same rider, the same effort, can finish with very different durability depending on how much carbohydrate is estimated to reach the working muscles. Change the modeled fueling and glycogen state of the athlete, and Xert 2.0 shows how ride durability and MPA may change with it.

Above is a simulated comparison using the same 2025 UCI Gravel race. On a rough descent, the rider lost a bottle with 200g of carbohydrate in it, dropping their carb uptake to roughly 45 g/hr for the rest of the race. When the same ride is rerun with modeled fueling held at 90 g/hr, the model estimates meaningfully more power available in the final hour. The recorded power is unchanged; only the fueling assumption in the simulation is different.

Common Questions

Do I need new data for this to work?
No. The model uses the ride data you’ve already uploaded. Some parameters and assumptions can be adjusted to better represent the individual athlete.

What’s actually in this beta?
Just the Activity Page — analyzing rides you’ve already done through the 2.0 model. Workouts, training plans, head unit data fields, and mobile apps are later phases, not part of this release.

If I click “Save”  on the new page, will this change my current Fitness Signature I use in Xert?
No. The Xert 2.0 Beta Activity Page runs alongside your existing signature and is kept separate. Save only saves your Xert 2.0 signature which is then used when you reopen the page.

Do I need to understand every new model parameter to use it?
No. The Activity Page shows you the results without requiring you to understand every parameter. Terms such as Carbohydrate Absorption Parameter (CAP) and Blood Glucose Production (BGP) are available if you want to go deeper. Use the tooltips throughout the page to learn more.

What’s in the Works

The Activity Page is just the first piece. Xert 2.0 is a new foundation for the whole platform, and here’s what it unlocks next:

• A multi-dimensional XSS: Xert Strain Score’s dimensions will reflect the new model parameters.
• A new Workout Designer: workouts built directly from your 2.0 thresholds and maximal power values, instead of generic zones.
• Updates to the Android and iOS apps and Garmin data fields: bringing these new metrics to your phone and head unit, not just the browser.
• A sharper Adaptive Training Advisor and Forecast AI: recommendations and race predictions driven by the full 2.0 model instead of the 3-parameter signature.
• Broader usability and capability improvements across the app as 2.0 rolls out.

None of this changes what you get today — the Activity Page works now, on the rides you’ve already recorded. This is just where it’s headed.

Where You Come In

Using Xert already?

The Activity Page is the first piece of 2.0 to ship, and it’s landing in phases, not one cutover. After you Join the Xert 2.0 Beta Program, you’ll find it behind a Beta 2.0 button on your existing Activity Details page — it opens right there, embedded, without leaving the site you know.

It’s a closed beta for now. We’re starting with experienced Xert users because they’re the most likely to identify where the model and interface need refinement.

Want the science behind it?

Request the Xert 2.0 White Paper

Work in sports science?

Especially if someone forwarded you this post — a lot of you work in related sports science and may not know Xert well yet. We’d love for you to get involved. If you can compare this model’s output against lactate, indirect calorimetry, or biopsy data, we want to hear from you — as a collaborator, not a customer.

Get in touch.

This is a beta because a model this ambitious needs to be tested across many athletes, activities, and independent physiological measurements. We expect the feedback to show us where it needs refinement. The rest of Xert 2.0 will ship the same way, piece by piece.

With new advanced training systems, athletes have greater flexibility in deciding how they wish to train.  Gone are the days of sitting on your trainer during the off-season doing workout after workout.  Athletes are now able to incorporate different types of training – from indoor rides and races to outdoor coffee rides to more sophisticated indoor workouts to using the latest in training tools like Xert Magic Buckets.  All these types of training activities can now be included as part of your day-to-day training.

Xert Breakthrough Training was the first system to allow athletes to train using a variety of methods, quantifying their training strain scores in multiple dimensions giving athletes the confidence to pick and choose how they prefer to train on any given day.

Athletes are often using more than one system, using one system for a while and switching to another for variety or to save costs. From using Zwift, Rouvy and MyWhoosh, to using the Garmin, Hammerhead or Wahoo device, to TrainerRoad, icTrainer, TrainingPeaks Virtual or just watching a movie or race footage as they work out.  They record on all these systems, sometimes recording on multiple devices to take advantage of features available on one system that are not available on another.  Magic Buckets is a great example where athletes may be riding on Rouvy, say, but also using their Garmin with Magic Buckets to guide their training.  Sometimes users record on multiple devices in order to separate their power data from one source vs. another. For example, they may use a trainer power for Zwift but prefer to use their power meter for their training data.

Many systems today also record multiple rides one after the other to ensure race files are not combined with warmups and cooldowns.  For Xert users, this separation of activities can pose issues as fatigue isn’t carried over from one activity to the next.  Single, contiguous activities are better for Xert’s analysis as well as better for long term record keeping purposes. These will be provide a better view of your responsiveness to training and provide greater information on how you fatigue.

Our Solution – Xert’s New Training Manager – The Xert Today Page

Watch 2 minute intro video on YouTube

Xert’s Today page is our response to requests by our users to help them better manage all their training activity using an intuitive and easy-to-understand page with all their essential information and features they need to manage their training.  Our goals in the development of your Today page were:

1. The UI/UX needs to be simple to understand and use.
2. Users can see what their training is for today and decide how they will do their training.
3. Users can easily adjust their daily training to suit their availability, motivation or readiness to train.
4. Users can dual/multi-record their activities and decide which ones to use for their training data and which to just keep for their own records.
5. Users can merge one or more consecutive activities to better track fatigue and overall training strain scores.
6. Users can decide which activities to share on Strava.
7. The page needs to be fully-featured on mobile devices.
8. The page performance has to use the latest website technology to make it reactive and highly-responsive to user actions.

With all these in mind, we developed a new page that sets a new bar for how athletes will manage their day-to-day training in terms of planning and managing their information after recording activities.

A New User Experience

Xert’s new Today page has a number of key elements on the page, all laid out in an easy-to-understand and use format.  At the top is your training for today and if you planned anything specific for today, that will show at the top of the screen.  This is your daily training front and center.

Below this is any activities you have recorded.  These are shown in chronological order with duplicates indicated if you recorded the activity on multiple devices.

If your recordings come in separate, consecutive activity recordings, you can merge them quickly and easily. Note: Activities that came from Strava cannot be merged with other activities at this time.

You can decide to send your activity to Strava manually and take advantage of the new features to decide which activities to send to Strava, which to use for training and which to keep hidden and not counted.  Be sure to disable the Sync New Xert Activities to Strava on the Strava Sync page for greater control and management.

You can see which targets are going to be sent to Magic Buckets when it fetches your current targets.  No more wondering where the XSS values came from when Magic Buckets runs on Xert EBC or your Garmin.

You can decide which system is going to receive a given workout.  Perhaps you prefer to do one workout outdoors but would opt to do another indoors.  You can manage each individually now.

Filtering workouts could not be easier with the sidebar that allows you to filter instantly.

Not behind your desktop or laptop?  No problem, just use your mobile browser and get the same functions and features.

Summary

With Xert’s new Today page functionality, you can consult it before your daily training rides to manage your day’s training, decide on what training you will do and send workouts to platforms you utilize.  In addition, you can review your daily activities, manage them as part of your training,  retain them for future reference and apply them towards your training.

For Xert users, we are now your go-to system for all your training data.

Always remember: If it ain’t on Xert, it doesn’t count.

1. Why am I doing this particular workout?
2. Why do I need to do these intensities and these durations?
3. Am I hitting the workout interval targets sufficiently well and if not do I stop or keep going?
4. What is about these specific interval targets anyway and how precise do I need to be?
5. Could I do something a bit different that I would prefer and get the same benefit?
6. Can I get the same benefit by just riding or racing?  Workouts can be a drag.

You’re not the only one.  Pretty much every athlete will ask themselves these questions at various points in their training.  Wouldn’t it be great to have all these questions answered?

Answer These Questions with Xert Strain Scores, Forecast AI and XSS Buckets

After many new innovations in training, including capabilities like Smart Workouts with dynamic intervals (first and only platform ever to do this), and diving deep into understanding the process of training and improvement, we developed Xert Strain Score and more recently Forecast AI and XSS Buckets.  XSS Buckets allows you to train for improvement, without the need of doing structured workouts. With Forecast AI, athletes not only could understand what the workouts did but also why the were doing the workouts as part of their training plan.

But one question lingered:

How do I fill these buckets without following a workout?

Answering this question is key since without an answer, athletes are left to use trial-and-error to do their training and may often consume valuable training time unnecessarily.  Some structure and guidance would be very useful.

Introducing Magic Buckets

Magic Buckets brings a new dimension to training and workouts that has never existed previously – interval targets and durations are calculated on-the-fly for each athlete at each moment.

Re-read that last statement a few times and let it sink in.  Magic Buckets essentially recommends and builds a workout as you ride, adjusting the workout to you.  Now with Magic Buckets, all you have to do is follow the guidance it provides.

Magic Buckets operates in two separate modes depending on whether your daily training goal is a high-intensity training session or a low-intensity / endurance training session.  We’ll describe these two different modes as:

• Magic Intervals
• Magic Endurance

Watch this video where Scott will walk you through how to use Xert Magic Buckets for your training. This demo will show you how to seamlessly integrate Magic Buckets into your routine without rigid workout plans. It’s a great way to adapt your training and optimize your results with the flexible guidance that Magic Buckets provides.

Magic Intervals

Magic interval workouts are a unique experience like you’ve never experienced before.  Your target interval power is calculated for you based on what you’ve done so far and what you need to do to complete the training.  Your recovery / rest-in-between power targets are also calculated as well as their durations.  Calculating the power and the duration for your recovery is important since this helps ensure you achieve your training goal for the workout and ensures you’re recovered enough to do the intervals.  That’s part of the magic the method uses.

What do I need to do?

Simple.  You warm up and start filling your low bucket.  When you’re ready, hold the high-intensity interval power for as long as you wish to fill your high and peak buckets.  Once you back off from that, the recovery/rest interval is computed – both target power and duration and you continue to fill your low bucket.  Follow that and repeat.  Once your high and peak buckets are full, you can ride easy and fill the remaining low bucket while you cooldown.  Done.

Challenge Levels

To make Magic Buckets more engaging and to motivate athletes to go a bit deeper and get more out of their available training time, we’ve introduced the concept of Challenge Levels.  Challenge Level is a value between 0 and 10 that represents how much fatigue *at the interval power* you’ve reached.  The deeper you go, the higher the Challenge Level you reach.

Reaching higher Challenge Levels is great motivation but the other added benefit is that you get to complete the workout sooner.  This means that athletes with time crunched schedules can do more training in less time by focusing on doing their training at higher Challenge Levels.  Here’s an example of how long a given workout would take at different Challenge Levels. We use a typical 5×5 VO2 interval workout as a benchmark:

Now Available on Garmin Watches!

Magic Buckets is now supported on over 100 Garmin watches! Enjoy real-time, colour-coded training guidance on your wrist whether you’re riding indoors or out!

Read more here →

Magic Intervals User Interface for Garmin ConnectIQ

Key things to know when doing Magic Intervals:

1. It takes 5 seconds for the gauge to switch from one interval type to another.  When you start your high intensity interval, hold it for 5 seconds for the  INTERVAL state to show.  Similarly, after completing your interval, hold the recovery power for 5 seconds to see the gauge switch to the RECOVERY interval.
2. Once your recovery is complete, you can continue to recover and collect more low intensity XSS or can start a new interval to stay at the same Challenge Level.
3. Recovery intervals are calculated to give you the precise recovery and low intensity strain and maintain your current Challenge Level (Challenge Level on the left of the bar).  If you sustain the RECOVERY power for the RECOVERY duration, you’ll start the next INTERVAL at the start of the Challenge Level.
4. Let Challenge Level be a workout objective.  The higher the level, the more efficient each second of the workout becomes.
5. Reaching higher challenge levels requires you to sustain the target interval power longer.
6. Stop or start high intensity or recovery intervals at any time.  You don’t need to be precise to complete your training since this will continuously adjust for you.  However, the less training that remains, the more precise you’ll need to become to finish the targets without spending unnecessary training time.
7. Start your intervals at any time. Because things continuously adjust, you can do the intervals at anytime during a ride.   For example, you could start your magic intervals after a competitive group ride to finish off your training.  You’ll likely notice that the target interval power will change over the course of the riding you do beforehand.  This is because Magic Buckets is continuously recalculating what you’ll need to do to complete the remainder of your training based on what you’ve done so far.
8. It’s ok to be a bit off target or stop/start at random times if you need to / would like to.  It will recalculate what you need to do to complete the remainder of the training.
9. Use the integrated cadence optimizer.  Your cadence is shown as a triangle on the gauge.  Aim the triangle along the thin bar to have your cadence within a range that is suitable to your usual cadence pattern.

Magic Endurance

For those days when you need to ride easy and avoid high intensity so that you can recover sufficiently, Magic Buckets will run in Endurance mode, where your buckets fill if you can maintain discipline in avoiding high intensity.

Magic Endurance has different buckets as compared to Magic Intervals:

1. Low Intensity XSS – This is the main bucket that needs to be filled to complete the required training.  You can fill this bucket simply by riding.
2. Zone XSS – This bucket shows you how much XSS you’ve accumulated in the ideal zone.  You should aim to keep this number the same as the Low Intensity XSS number.
3. Fat XSS – This bucket shows you how much of the XSS you’ve accumulated as *fat* XSS.  This is an additional piece of information for those that are looking to focus on improving their fat contribution to their training.  This number is always less than your Low Intensity XSS since there are always fat and carbs being utilized during exercise.

Magic Endurance User Interface for Garmin ConnectIQ

Installing & Registering Magic Buckets for Garmin – 4 Easy Steps

Step	Description	Instructions/Screenshot
1	Download and install the data field from the Garmin App Store on your Garmin device	Link to Garmin Data Field: https://apps.garmin.com/apps/e8c1828f-0b0d-461d-82ba-033d7ea7c7d3
2	Add it to a full-screen (single data field) page of your preferred Activity Profile on your Garmin device	Instructions: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=gTIEqA7g6h9md50pQsDpl6
3	Start your recording and move to your Magic Buckets page.  Then immediately Save the recording.  If you you have Garmin Health/Connect sync set up on Xert, you’ll see the registration notification.  If you don’t have Garmin Heathl/Connect set up, upload the FIT file to Xert to complete the registration process.	You’ll get an empty recording in Xert that can be removed.  You’ll also receive a notification that your Garmin has been registered.
4	Send or upload the FIT file recorded to Xert. (Be sure the activity is processed before proceeding to the next step.)	There are two ways to get your FIT file from Garmin into Xert: First have Garmin Health/Connect set up on your Xert account, or Upload the FIT file that is saved to Xert Online.
5	Start a new recording.  Xert will automatically send your workout targets to the data field.

Now Available on Android and Hammerhead Karoo!

Garmin was the first platform to support Magic Buckets, but the experience on Android and Karoo takes it a step further! Xert EBC gives you more screen space, responsive swipes, and touch-based navigation — making the training experience feel modern, clean, and intuitive. Your Low, High, and Peak XSS targets are automatically fetched based on your training goals for the day—no need to pick a workout or configure anything manually!

Installation

• Android: To get started, install the Xert EBC app from the Google Play Store and register for the Beta to access the Magic Buckets feature.
• Karoo: On Hammerhead Karoo devices, install Xert EBC from the Extensions menu, which will allow you to install and launch the Xert EBC app directly.
  • Alternatively, once installed, you can add the MPA data field to any Karoo profile. During a ride, tap the MPA field to launch the Xert EBC app and access the Magic Buckets interface. To return to your Karoo’s recording screen, swipe up or press the bottom-left button.
  • This integration allows you to use all Karoo features – like navigation – while also accessing Xert Magic Buckets. Enjoy the full experience with swipe-based app navigation and dynamic, target-driven feedback—just like on Android!

Magic Buckets User Interface for Android & Karoo

• Access the Magic Buckets Power Gauge and Challenge Level gauge by swiping the top half of the app screen.
• See your current interval state, upcoming targets, and interval power guidance at a glance below the Power Gauge. 
• Swipe the bottom half of the screen to view your real-time XSS buckets and estimated workout (and endurance) time remaining.
  • Tap data cells for deeper insights
• Your Power Targets constantly update throughout your ride based on your progress—perfect for outdoor or unstructured rides.

Magic Buckets on Android and Karoo give you intelligent, adaptive guidance that helps you hit your training targets in a fun, unstructured way!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What happens if I need to stop early or if I do too much?

A: No worries! Magic Buckets is just one part of your overall training being managed by Xert, whether you are following a Forecast AI plan or taking advice from the Adaptive Training Advisor.  Anything you miss or overdo will be incorporated into your future training requirements.

Q: Can I use Magic Buckets with non-cycling activities?

A: Currently, Magic Buickets is optimized for cycling only but will adapt in any activity that aligns with Xert’s system of tracking fitness across Low, High, and Peak energy systems.

Q: What devices support Magic Buckets?

A: The Magic Buckets feature is supported on:

• Android smartphones & tablets via the Xert EBC app
• Hammerhead Karoo devices via the Extensions menu
• Compatible Garmin Edge devices & watches via the ConnectIQ store.  See the Garmin App Store page for a list of devices.

Q: When will Magic Buckets come out on my device?

A: Over time, we will plan to bring Magic Buckets to Xert EBC for iOS as well as other devices that have support for open programming interfaces.

Last updated: 10 October 2025