Training Load
Balancing fitness and fatigue to train consistently without breaking down.
Training Load tracks the balance between how much you’ve been training recently versus how much your body is accustomed to. It’s the key to building fitness without overreaching.
Acute vs. chronic load
- Acute load is your short-term training stress — roughly the last 7 days of effort. Think of it as fatigue.
- Chronic load is your long-term training stress — roughly the last 6 weeks. Think of it as fitness.
Both are calculated using exponentially weighted moving averages of your daily Effort scores, giving more weight to recent days.
The ratio (ACWR)
The Acute-to-Chronic Workload Ratio divides your recent load by your long-term load:
- Below 0.8 — Undertraining. You’re doing less than your body is used to. Fine for a recovery week, but sustained undertraining leads to detraining.
- 0.8–1.1 — Sweet spot. You’re training at a level your body can handle and adapt to.
- 1.1–1.5 — Elevated risk. You’re ramping up faster than your body has adapted to. Short spikes are normal (e.g., a race week), but sustained time here increases injury risk.
- Above 1.5 — Danger zone. Significant spike relative to what you’re used to. High risk of injury or illness.
How Updraft uses it
Your training load ratio feeds directly into your Readiness Score. When the ratio climbs above 1.1, Updraft applies a gradually increasing fatigue penalty. This helps you see the cost of aggressive training blocks before your body forces you to stop.
Updraft also projects where your ratio is heading if you take a rest day, so you can plan recovery strategically.