I had an XSS Training Surplus of X yesterday but today I have a big deficit of Y. What’s going on?

Your Training Load is calculated using a exponentially weighted moving average.  For those unfamiliar with what this means, your Training Load is similar to your average daily XSS .. but not exactly .. let’s see if we can help the understanding of what this means.

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.