75 XSS for 75 Days – What’s Happening to my Fitness?
XSS Stands for Xert Strain Score. It’s a way to combine time and energy at different intensities. It’s a measure of Cycling Volume. While I unofficially began thinking about this goal in late May, I announced the plan on this forum later, in Mid June. So it’s been about a week since I last posted, and roughly 2 weeks since I started. Let’s take a look at the Xert data, and then, let’s take a look at the information coming out of my Vo2 master for some of the rides. I think this is very revealing, and it augments some of the prevailing theories out in the blogosphere, while it also refutes some other paradigms.
I Started at an XSS of 40.
This was my Xert Fitness Signature on Wednesday, June 16th:
- My Xert Training Load was at 40.7 XSS.
- Threshold Power was at 255 Watts.
- Lower Threshold Power was at 192 Watts.
- Peak Power was at 1111 Watts.
- Hight Intensity Energy (HIE or more appropriately, Anaerobic Work Capacity), was at 25.0 KiloJoules.
Two Weeks Later, my XSS is at 50.
On June 27th, at the time of this writing, here are my most current numbers:
- My Xert Training Load is at 50.3 XSS.
- Threshold Power isat 258 Watts.
- Lower Threshold Power is now theoretically at 196 Watts.
- Peak Power now reads 1108 Watts.
- Hight Intensity Energy (HIE or more appropriately, Anaerobic Work Capacity), is essentially unchanged at 24.9 KiloJoules.
Where is the 75 XSS Per Day Coming From, Energy Wise?
Here’s my four-week Weekly Stats breakdown. Specifically, note the growth in… Hours
- Hours per Week.
- XSS/Day.
- Ramp Rate.
- Weekly Focus (I’ll explain what I’m doing with this in a later post).
- SUGGESTED FOCUS (NOTICE THE AVERAGE POWER! THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT IN A FUTURE POST!).
- Polarity Ratio.
- Training Load (see the above graph).
- Lower Threshold Power (LTP) – Again – I’ll post about this specifically later…
- and Total XSS.
Two weeks of 75 XSS per day for a minimum of 5 days per week, has led to a jump in overall volume, a jump in XSS per day, a healthy rise in Ramp Rate, and a 45% increase in Weekly XSS. I’ve been cycling BELOW my Lower Threshold Power, with ONE or TWO small exceptions.
What Does Xert’s Adaptive Training Advisor Say?
Now remember – I’m NOT FOLLOWING the Xert Adaptive Training Advisor. I’m simply cycling for 75 XSS per day, over 75 days. Some days will be above that. Some days will be Well above that. I may do ONE DAY every few weeks to earn 25 points or thereabouts, when I perform a DFAA1 cardio test, which, again, is a discussion for another post.
But if you look at the chart above, I’m at my hours per week, my Polarity is 97:3 for Aerobic (lower) intensity, and the SUGGESTED FOCUS WATTAGE is at 277 watts.
The Scientists at Xert are NOT directly revealing their research. Therefore, it’s up to me to glean what I can from the structure they’re providing. I’ll explain that in the next post
CONCLUSION
75 XSS per day is yielding some subtle, but immediate results. I’ll break those down with two specific workouts, via metabolic data, next.
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