Specificity Rating – Knowledgebase

Specificity Rating is a percentage indicating how closely your training intensity matched your Focus Duration, showing whether your effort was concentrated at one intensity or spread across different intensities. It helps assess training precision and suitability, and is visible in activity details and recommended workouts within Xert.

Summary Generated by AI

Definition

Specificity Rating is a percentage that describes how closely your training matched your Focus Duration intensity.

It adds detail to Focus by showing whether your strain (XSS) was concentrated near one intensity - or spread across very different intensities.

What It Means

Specificity tells you how tightly clustered your effort was around your Focus power.

Pure (67–100%) → Most of your strain was performed near your Focus intensity
Mixed (33–67%) → A combination of endurance, Focus intensity, and harder efforts
Polar (0–33%) → Mostly low intensity with short hard efforts above Focus

In simple terms:

Pure = You trained directly at your target intensity
Mixed = You blended intensities
Polar = Mostly endurance with some hard surges

Most real-world riding and racing falls in the Mixed range.

Example

Imagine you complete a 1-hour endurance ride and finish with a few hard sprints.

Your overall strain distribution might resemble your 5-minute Focus - but because most of the ride was easy and only a small portion stressed all three systems near that intensity, the Specificity Rating would be low (Polar or low Mixed).

To improve 5-minute power specifically, you would need intervals performed near your 5-minute power, with proper recovery between them.

How Xert Uses It

Specificity Rating, in combination with Focus Duration helps:

Determine Training Suitability
Evaluate how closely a session matched your intended training goal
Shape Forecast AI planning

Focus tells you what intensity you trained. Specificity tells you how precisely you trained it.

Note: For many free-ride activities, Xert automatically renames the ride using the format: Difficulty Rating – Specificity – Focus Type (e.g., Moderate Mixed Climber Ride).
This makes it easy to understand the overall demands of the session at a glance.

Where You’ll See It

On Activity Details page
In Recommended Training & Workouts

Related Terms

Focus Duration
Athlete Type
Xert Strain Score (XSS)
Training Suitability