How does the calculator work?
Kiiro compares two weighted averages of your training load. Acute load covers roughly the last 7 days and fitness level the last 42, and in both, recent days count more than older ones. Load balance is how far your acute load sits above or below your fitness level, and your status is the one-word version of it: Undertrained, Detraining, Fresh, Balanced, Building, Fatigued or Overtrained.
The calculator does the same with your weekly distances. It spreads each week evenly over seven days, runs both averages up to the end of last week, and then works out which distance next week would end in which status. Before the oldest week you enter, it assumes you were running the same as in that week.
Balanced means next week is in line with what your body is used to. Building is more than usual, at a rate you can absorb, and it is how fitness grows. Do the calculation again each week: a bigger week that you keep repeating stays Building for a few weeks and then becomes Balanced, as your fitness level catches up with it.
What does it not know?
- How hard you run. It counts distance. Kiiro calculates training load from heart rate, so a week with hard sessions counts for more than an easy week of the same length. If next week is harder than usual, stay toward the low end.
- When in the week you run. It spreads the distance evenly. A long run at the end of the week lifts the status for a day or two above what the table shows.
- Anything but running. In Kiiro every workout with heart rate data adds to your load.
- How you feel. A status compares next week with what you are used to. It is not a promise that you stay healthy, and Overtrained is the name of a status, not a diagnosis.
Is this the 10% rule?
No. The 10% rule says not to add more than 10% to your weekly distance from one week to the next, and it looks at last week only. This calculator looks at up to six weeks. After a steady block it allows a bigger step than 10%, after a sudden jump it asks for an easier week, and after a break it shows how far below your usual training you are. The result shows where the 10% rule would leave you, so you can compare the two.
Your real load balance in Kiiro
Kiiro calculates training load from the heart rate of every Apple Watch workout and shows your load balance as a percentage with one status beside it, such as +12% Balanced, updated after every workout. See training load in Kiiro.
