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Automatic Threshold Detection

Last reviewed October 14, 2026 View as Markdown

YOUB automatically estimates two of your key performance markers from your everyday training: your cycling FTP (Functional Threshold Power) and your running threshold pace. No test protocol is required: the estimates come from the hard efforts in the rides and runs you already record with your connected wearable over the last 42 days. A value you set yourself always takes priority, and a detected value drives your training zones and the Load Score of your sessions only when it is confident enough.

What gets detected

Metric Sport What it means
FTP Cycling The highest power output you can sustain for roughly one hour, in watts. Drives your power zones.
Threshold pace Running The fastest pace you can hold for roughly one hour. Drives your running pace zones.

How detection works

  1. Best-efforts window. YOUB looks at your last 42 days of cycling (for FTP) or running (for threshold pace) and picks your best sustained effort for several diagnostic durations between 3 and 20 minutes. For running, only runs that were clearly hard efforts count, so an easy run or a hike recorded as a run cannot set your threshold pace, and a running detection needs an effort of about 20 minutes.
  2. Model fit. A critical-power model is fitted to those best efforts. The model describes how your sustainable output declines with duration, and your threshold is derived from it. When there is not enough data for a reliable model fit, a simpler estimate based on your best long effort is used instead.
  3. Calibration. Everyday training rarely contains truly maximal efforts, which would make the raw estimate too low. The estimate is therefore calibrated upward slightly, based on how much training data the window contains, and checked against physiological plausibility bounds. When the window holds an all-out effort such as a race, the cycling estimate is used as it is.
  4. Confidence. Every detection is stored with a confidence score. It reflects how much recent training data supported the estimate. A detection only becomes active when its confidence is high enough. A less confident detection is still shown in the app as an estimate, but it does not drive your zones.

A new detection can happen after any activity that contains a meaningful hard effort. Because the window always covers the most recent 42 days, the detected value tracks your current fitness: it can go up after a strong block, and down when your first hard efforts after a long break come in below it.

Easy rides do not change the number. A long endurance session carries no information about your threshold in either direction, so it neither raises nor lowers the detected value. The value only moves when you ride a hard effort: up when it beats your recent best, down only when a real effort comes in under it. It does not drop just because your last hard ride is more than six weeks old.

Detected vs. manual values

  • A manually entered value always wins. If you set your FTP or threshold pace yourself (in the app under Settings > Biometric Data, tap the metric and switch on Set manually), the coach and all zone calculations use your value, and the automatic detection is only kept for comparison.
  • If you have not set a value manually, a sufficiently confident detection becomes your effective threshold and drives your training zones automatically.
  • You can clear your manual value at any time to fall back to the automatic detection: switch Set manually off and confirm Discard manual value.

Seeing the detection in the app

Under Settings > Biometric Data, tap FTP or threshold pace to see the value you are currently training on, where it comes from (for example "Detected from your activities" with its confidence), and how it has moved over time. For a detected value you can open the effort behind it: the power or pace, how many minutes it lasted, and the session it came from.

Asking the coach about it

The coach can show you the evidence behind a detected value: the best efforts it was based on, when it was detected, which estimation method was used, how confident the estimate is, and how the value has developed over time. Just ask something like "Where does my FTP come from?" or "Can I trust my detected threshold pace?".

If a detection looks off to you, tell the coach: a single unusual activity (bad GPS, a mislabeled workout) can distort the window, and the coach can help you judge whether the value is plausible or whether setting a manual value is the better choice.