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Strain and recovery, explained
Two numbers that sound scientific and are often used badly. Here is what they represent, what feeds them, and where they stop being useful.
- Sleep from the hours you log
- Effort from what you record
- Load from sets and volume
- Steps from the phone
- Measured sleep stages
- Overnight HRV
- Resting heart rate
- Breathing rate
- Live heart rate in zones
Strain: what you did to yourself today
Strain is a measure of how much load you have accumulated — from lifting, from cardio, and from ordinary movement across the day.
With a heart-rate source it is usually built from time spent at various intensities. Without one it is built from what you logged: sets, volume and how hard the session felt.
Recovery: how ready you are to do it again
Recovery is an estimate of readiness, and it is downstream of behaviour: how you slept, how much load you have been carrying, and whether you have been eating enough.
With a wearable it also reads HRV, resting heart rate, breathing rate and, on some devices, skin temperature — signals that respond to stress, illness and alcohol before you notice them yourself.
What these numbers are not
They are not medical readings, and a low score is not a diagnosis.
They are not comparable between apps. Two products can both call something "recovery" and compute it completely differently, so the number only means something relative to your own history.
They are not instructions. A low score on a day you feel good is information, not a prohibition.
How to actually use them
Watch the trend across a week rather than reacting to one morning.
Use them to decide intensity, not attendance — a low-recovery day is usually a lighter session, not a skipped one.
If the score and how you feel disagree consistently, trust how you feel and check what you are feeding the app.
Questions
Do I need a watch or a ring?
No. Sleep from the hours you log, effort from what you record and activity from your phone are enough to produce a usable score. A wearable makes it sharper, particularly overnight.
Why is my recovery low when I slept well?
Accumulated load from previous days, under-eating, illness or alcohol all show up here. One good night does not clear a heavy week.
Can I compare my score to a friend’s?
Not meaningfully. Treat it as relative to your own baseline.
The quiz is free, takes about four minutes and needs no card. It ends with your calorie target, your macros and a training week you can look at.
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