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How YOUB Calculates Training Load

Last reviewed October 14, 2026 View as Markdown

YOUB gives every session a Load Score that describes how much training stress it put on your body. One hour at your threshold, the hardest effort you could sustain for about an hour, equals a Load Score of 100. Shorter or easier sessions score lower, longer or harder sessions score higher. Which signal YOUB measures the session against depends on the sport: power for cycling, pace for running, walking and swimming, heart rate for most other sports and as the fallback where the primary signal is missing. The Load Scores of all your sessions feed your Fitness base, Recent load and Freshness curves (see Fitness, Fatigue and Form).

Load Score

The Load Score is the training-stress number YOUB attaches to an activity after analysing it. The scale is the same for every sport: 100 points means one hour at threshold intensity. A 30-minute session at threshold scores about 50, a two-hour session at threshold would score about 200, and an easy session of the same length scores far less than a hard one because intensity counts more than duration.

The Load Score of an activity appears on the activity in the app, and the coach uses the same number when it discusses your training week.

Intensity

Intensity describes how hard a session was relative to your threshold. An Intensity of 1.0 means you averaged threshold effort over the session. Values below 1.0 are easier than threshold, values above 1.0 are harder (only short sessions can stay above 1.0). Intensity is shown wherever YOUB can measure the session against a threshold, for example against your FTP on a ride with power or against your threshold pace on a run.

Which Signal Drives the Load Score per Sport

Sport What drives the Load Score Fallback
Cycling (road, indoor, MTB, gravel) Power relative to your FTP Heart rate, when the ride has no power or you have no FTP yet
Running Grade-adjusted pace relative to your threshold pace None: a run without pace data adds no load
Walking Pace relative to your threshold pace None
Swimming Pace relative to your Critical Swim Speed (CSS) Heart rate, when your maximum and resting heart rate are known
Hiking Heart rate None
Cross-country skiing Heart rate None
Strength training Your sets, when they reach YOUB from Hevy or from a session you log through the coach Heart rate, for a summary-only session; a watch recording adds no Load Score
Rowing, HIIT, backcountry skiing Heart rate, when the activity arrives from Strava or Apple Health None
Yoga, racket sports, "other" Analysed for heart rate, but no Load Score from a recorded file or stream None

An activity that carries none of the signals its sport needs (no power, no pace and no heart rate) gets no Load Score and does not change your fitness curves. It still appears in your training log and weekly totals.

Cycling Load

Cycling load is measured against your FTP (Functional Threshold Power). YOUB smooths the ride's power to reflect the true physiological cost of surges and compares it with your FTP. A ride with power but no FTP on your profile, or a ride without a power meter, falls back to a heart-rate-based load computed from your maximum and resting heart rate. A ride with neither power nor heart rate gets no Load Score. Your FTP can be set by you or detected automatically from your rides (see Automatic Threshold Detection).

Running Load

Running load is measured against your threshold pace. YOUB uses grade-adjusted pace, so a hilly run at a slow pace is credited for the climbing it contained. When the recording has no altitude data, running load uses your actual pace instead. Running load has no heart-rate fallback: heart rate is analysed and shown, but the Load Score of a run always comes from pace. If you have no threshold pace yet (neither set by you nor detected), YOUB uses a standard reference pace, so the Load Score of your runs becomes more accurate once your own threshold pace is known.

Walking Load

Walking load is measured like running load: walking pace relative to your threshold pace.

Recording with Your Phone

A run, walk or ride you record with your phone in the YOUB app brings in the GPS track: position, distance, time and pace. The phone recording carries no heart rate and no power, and its altitude is not used, because altitude from the phone's GPS alone is too imprecise.

  • A run or walk recorded with the phone gets its Load Score from pace, without grade adjustment, measured against your threshold pace like any other run or walk.
  • A ride recorded with the phone has neither power nor heart rate and gets no Load Score.
  • A phone recording shows no elevation gain and no grade-adjusted pace.

When a watch or another connected source recorded the same session, that recording counts and the phone recording is set aside, so the session is never counted twice.

Swimming Load

Swimming load is measured against your Critical Swim Speed (CSS), your threshold swim pace. YOUB compares the average speed of the whole session with your CSS, so pauses at the wall make the score slightly conservative. Swimming load uses CSS only when you have set it yourself under Settings > Biometric Data. Without CSS, YOUB falls back to a heart-rate-based load, but only when your maximum and resting heart rate are known, because heart rate in water is less reliable. With neither, a swim gets no Load Score.

Hiking and Cross-Country Skiing Load

Hiking and cross-country skiing load is based on heart rate only. Pace does not describe effort in these sports: hiking speed depends on the terrain, and gliding speeds on skis are far above running speeds. A hike or ski session without heart rate gets no Load Score. Hikes that arrive as a stream from Strava or Apple Health get a full heart-rate analysis but no Load Score.

Strength Training Load

Strength training load comes from your sets: YOUB adds up the work in each working set and weighs it by how hard the set was. The effort you logged for a set (RPE) is used when it is there; otherwise YOUB assumes a typical intensity for the kind of exercise. Warm-up sets do not count, and stretching or mobility exercises add no load.

The sets reach YOUB in two ways: from Hevy, and from a strength session you log through the coach in the chat. Only sets that arrive this way produce a set-based Load Score.

A strength session recorded on a watch (for example Garmin, COROS or Suunto) or synced from Strava or Apple Health brings in heart rate, not the individual sets. YOUB analyses the heart rate of such a session, but the session gets no Load Score from it. A strength session counts toward your training load through its sets only when those sets reach YOUB from Hevy or a log with the coach.

When a strength session arrives only as a summary with an average heart rate (see Activities Without a Recording), the heart-rate estimate takes priority over the set-based one, because it reflects what your body actually did.

Other Sports

Rowing, HIIT and backcountry skiing that arrive as a stream from Strava or Apple Health are scored from heart rate. The same sports recorded as a watch file are analysed for heart rate but get no Load Score. Yoga, racket sports and activities recorded as "other" are analysed for heart rate (time in zones and an intensity bar), but they do not add a Load Score when they arrive as a recorded file or stream.

Activities Without a Recording

Some activities reach YOUB only as a summary: workouts from Whoop or Oura, activities whose file could not be downloaded, and activities you log through the coach. For these, YOUB estimates the load from the summary values:

  • From the average heart rate and duration, when your maximum and resting heart rate are known. This applies to any sport.
  • For running and swimming with a distance, from the average pace relative to your threshold pace or CSS. This replaces the heart-rate estimate when both are possible.
  • For strength sessions with logged sets and no heart rate, from the sets, as described in Strength Training Load.

An activity you log through the coach that completes a planned session and has nothing measurable (no heart rate, no distance) takes the planned load of that session.

Planned Load Score

Planned sessions in your training plan carry a planned Load Score. YOUB computes it from the workout structure (each step's duration and target) and your current zones:

  • Cycling from power targets relative to your FTP.
  • Running from pace targets, expressed relative to your threshold speed.
  • Cross-country skiing from heart-rate targets.
  • Strength from the prescribed sets and their effort (RPE or percentage of your one-rep max).

Swim sessions carry no planned Load Score. Because the planned load is computed from your current zones, it updates automatically when your FTP or threshold pace changes: the same workout represents a different training stress once your threshold improves. The planned Load Scores drive the forecast part of the Fitness chart.