Wattsup

I was just checking it out. Seems very complicated. The signature fitness concept looks interesting. Smart workouts look kind of phooey. Anyone using it?

Iride01

If you are self-motivated to get to what ever level you desire, then why bother. On the other hand, if it motivates you then do you care what we think?

Wattsup

I'm not sure what your post means. It's like a Zen koan. I'll study it some more.

So...anyone using Xert? It looks interesting, but I'd have to buy a power meter for my outdoor rides, since it seems Xert is 100% about power. I have power pedals for the indoor stuff.

Iride01

It means I don't think xert is doing anything for you other than simplifying the process of training and requiring you to know nothing about your own fitness other than you do what they tell you to do. If that is your thing, then go for it. I'd probably opt for an actual coach instead that I could discuss stuff with.

I prefer to read the various sites about sports physiology and blogs from coaches that I've found and and get the ideas of others to tailor my own training plan for myself. I don't train for competitions on amateur or professional levels. I just do what gets me to a goal I set. And I'm not in any desperate desire to achieve any particular goal the day after I set it.

Power meters tend to eliminate a lot of the stuff that gets tossed around and argued in HR training. But the basic of ideas in training with a power meter are still pretty much the same as training with an HR monitor and even the same as the training methods that were used before either. One of which is ride. Ride often and ride long. The other is occasionally do some very intense efforts for certain types of segments of your rides.

I did look briefly at the site you ask, but only briefly. Looks like many others that claim to have a plan.

Wattsup

Xert has a few "whiz bang" features that seem to set it apart from much of the competition. I was wondering whether anyone found or thought them useful.

adamrice

I have not used it. It seems to be like Training Peaks, but interactive, and with some AI mixed in. The idea of a "smart workout" does not seem all that controversial. I don't know exactly how they implement it, but here's my guess: suppose your training plan calls for you to ride 4 x 8 min @ 105%. Each one of those intervals can have a training stress score calculated for it—let's say it's 20 TSS each. If you're sandbagging an interval a little bit, this is probably saying "Wattsup needs to get up to 20 TSS for this interval, but at this rate will only be at 18 TSS after 8 minutes, so let's keep going until we hit 20."

Wattsup

I just signed up month to month. The whole system is very intriguing...I actually need to read the help files. I can usually just browse around an interface and figure things out, but Xert has lots of bells and whistles. It's complex.