Every athlete and every athlete’s circumstances are different. The new Freshness Feedback slider reflects this by enabling you to fine-tune Xert’s algorithm to better reflect how you – and only you – are feeling. This, in turn, is used by the Adaptive Training Advisor to establish if, and when, you’re ready for high-intensity training, and at what difficulty.
The slider’s range is from -60 and +60 and it works by adjusting your overall Form. For example, if you slide your Freshness Feedback to +10, Form will be increased by +10, and more freshness will be added to your Training Status data (all colours will move to the right on the slider spectrum). Additionally, the Difficulty Score used by XATA to recommend workouts will also be increased by 10. Similarly, if you slide your Freshness Feedback to -10, Form will be decreased by 10, indicating to the system that you are less fresh than previously thought. The Difficulty Score used by XATA to recommend workouts will be decreased by 10.
When You Should Increase Freshness Feedback
Increasing this value will increasingly turn red days to yellow, yellow to blue, blue to green etc. This means that whereas before XATA may have recommended a rest day or a recovery ride, now an endurance ride may be recommended. Increasing Freshness Feedback will inform Xert that you are able to handle more overall training both in volume and difficulty. Increasing the value allows you to track higher Improvement Rates by reducing recovery time.
WARNING: Setting this too high and maintaining it for an extended period of time will exacerbate potential overtraining problems. You should only increase this value temporarily and with full understanding of the impact it may have on you and the time you need to recover.
Examples of when you could safely increase this value include:
- Your Training Load as determined by Xert is too low because not all your training data has been accounted for.
- You’re an accomplished cyclist with years of training and can handle greater volume/intensity, especially at lower Training Loads.
- You’re looking to perform a week or two of training overload at a higher improvement rate in preparation for an important event.
When You Should Decrease Freshness Feedback
- If you feel that the system is too aggressive in recommending high intensity workouts. You need a bit more recovery time.
- You’re performing other types of exercise that may increase your fatigue and impact your ability to train, for example, weight training.
- You’re recovering from an injury.
- You’re recovering from an illness.
