Fitness, fatigue and form

Training load puts effort into context

Training load is a way of summarising the work of a session or period of training. Common approaches consider duration and intensity together: a longer easy ride and a shorter hard session can both contribute meaningful work. The number is an estimate produced by a method, rather than a direct measurement of every change happening in your body.

Distance alone leaves out much of that context. Wind, climbing and the pace you choose can make two rides of similar length feel quite different. When reviewing a week, keep the kinds of riding you did in mind as well as the total you accumulated.

Glood lets you review an activity’s training load and see fitness, fatigue and form over time, calculated from your recorded activities. Read the explanation of fitness, fatigue and form to understand the three figures.

The model behind the three figures

In Glood, fitness is a 42-day exponentially weighted average of daily training load, fatigue is a 7-day one, and form is fitness minus fatigue, so positive form means fresher.

An exponentially weighted average gives more influence to recent data while older contributions gradually fade. The period describes the rate of that fading, rather than a window that abruptly drops everything older than a particular date. A shorter averaging period follows changes more quickly than a longer one.

That difference helps explain why a recent run of demanding rides can change the short-term picture before the longer trend moves much. When training becomes lighter, the shorter average also responds sooner. Read the relationship between the lines, rather than expecting them to rise and fall together every day.

The word fitness in a load model describes accumulated training history. It is not the same thing as a timed climb, a threshold test or the result of an event. Those observations answer different questions about your riding, so keep them alongside the model when judging progress.

Read weeks before judging individual days

Performance in Glood offers a trend chart spanning 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months or 1 year.

1. Start by identifying the period: a building block, an easier week, a break from riding or preparation for an event.
2. Look for the recent pattern of work rather than treating a single high-load day as the whole story.
3. Compare the chart with your own notes about how rides felt and what else was happening that week.
4. Use a wider view to distinguish a brief change from a trend that has continued across several weeks.

A chart can help organise a review, but it cannot supply every reason for a difficult ride. Sleep, illness, stress and conditions sit outside a simple summary of recorded training. If the picture and your experience disagree, investigate the difference rather than assuming the number must be the more complete account.

Keep the record consistent

Any history-based model depends on the activities used to build it. Missing sessions or duplicate entries change that input. Before interpreting an unexpected jump or dip, check whether the underlying record matches the riding you actually did.

Comparisons are also easier when the method stays consistent. Two systems can use different inputs or scales, so matching numbers across apps does not necessarily mean matching work. Concentrate on the pattern within one consistent record before comparing isolated scores from different sources.

When reviewing plans by level and goal, use the recent pattern to frame questions about the next block, not to chase a larger score for its own sake.

Open workouts to read their interval structure, block by block.

Then consider how a session would fit with the work and recovery already around it. A useful review ends with a reasoned choice about the week, rather than an attempt to make every line on the chart move upward.