Recovery and Training Readiness

Recovery and Training Readiness side by side#

Body Status is a third, separate thing: it names the day's state (Body Status). Recovery is one of its signals, and Training Readiness is one of the inputs of the coach's verb.

Recovery#

What it is and where you see it#

Recovery is called "Recovery" in English and "Regenerace" in Czech. It is a 0 to 100 score, higher is better.

• Overview: the tile "Recovery" in the Body Status card (a ladder and a word).
• Load & Recovery ("Zátěž a regenerace") on the Overview: the green line "Recovery (MyBodyAI)" over the last days, next to the load bars. If your device publishes its own recovery score, it is drawn on the same axis under its own name ("Nightly Recharge · Polar", "Readiness · Oura"), and Garmin's own recovery time is shown as a separate number. We never mix the device's score into ours.
• Health tab: the Recovery card beside the body figure, with a trend. Its "i" button opens the metric sheet.
• Metric sheet: the section "Built from (share of the score)" lists each part with your value, your usual and its share.
• Performance tab: when there is no fitness curve yet, Recovery sits alone in a ring.

The ten parts#

The score is a weighted average of the parts that exist for you today. The weights below add up to 100%. A part you do not have simply drops out and the others are scaled up.

HRV in total is 40% (24 + 8 + 8). The three Body Battery parts are 20% together, and they exist only for a Garmin watch that reports Body Battery. They use the device's reading, never our Morning Energy estimate or the ring's Readiness. On an account with no Body Battery the other parts carry the whole score. The stress part reads the Garmin stress index only: Oura reports minutes in elevated stress, which has no ladder, so it is not used here.

How each part is scored#

HRV, 7-night average (24%). We take the natural logarithm of each night's HRV (the one nightly average every device writes), average the nights of the last 7 days and convert back to milliseconds. This needs at least 3 nights in those 7 days. The level is put on a fixed curve: 20 ms scores 23, 30 ms 35, 40 ms 50, 50 ms 65, 60 ms 77, 80 ms 92, 100 ms 97. The curve is a deliberate in-house ladder, not a population norm. It then shifts by where your week sits among your own weekly averages over the last 60 days: at your own mean nothing moves, and two spreads away the score moves by 20 points. That personal shift needs at least 7 weekly averages. Until then the week is scored on the ladder alone. One night is noisy, which is why the week leads (Plews and colleagues, 2013, Sports Medicine).

HRV, last night (up to 8%). The newest night, scored on the same ladder and shifted by where it sits among your single nights. It counts fully when it is dated today or yesterday, at 60% when it is two days old, at 30% when it is three days old and not after that. It is the acute term: a very bad last night is real news on the morning it happens, but it is not allowed to be the whole HRV verdict.

HRV, best 5 minutes (8%). The night's highest stretch of HRV, on a curve centered at 60 ms (40 ms scores 27, 60 scores 50, 80 scores 73, 100 scores 88) and shifted by your own peaks once you have at least 7.

Body Battery at waking (12%). The recency-weighted level at waking over the Body Battery window, shifted by how far the newest morning is from your own 30-day mean (up to 20 points at two spreads).

Charge per hour of sleep (4%). Charged points per hour of sleep, averaged: 10 or more is 90; from 7 to 10 it rises from 70 to 90; from 4 to 7 from 40 to 70; below 4 it is the ratio to 4 times 40, with a floor of 10.

Charge against drain (4%). The ratio charged ÷ drained: 1.3 or more is 95; from 1.0 to 1.3 it runs from 70 to 95; from 0.7 to 1.0 from 40 to 70; below 0.7 it falls toward a floor of 5. A partial day (the drain under 30% of the charge) is skipped.

Sleep score (15%). Recency-weighted over the window. The score is the device's own; for a night where the device sent none, it is the one we model from the night. A window never mixes the two: it keeps the kind of the newest night, because they sit on different levels (sleep quality).

Deep sleep and stages (10%). Each night is scored from three parts: deep sleep 40%, REM 35%, time awake 25%, against targets for your age and sex (a 40-year-old man's deep-sleep target is 15% of sleep, a woman's 18%). A stage your device never names is left out, not counted as zero. Nights with implausible stage totals are skipped.

Stress (10%). The Garmin stress index of the last completed days (today is left out, see below) on Garmin's own bands, then shifted by your 30-day mean and spread. An index of 25 or less scores 85 to 100, 26 to 50 scores 65 to 85, 51 to 75 scores 35 to 65, and above 75 scores 35 to 0. An index of 35 is 77.

Lowest heart rate at night (5%). 130 minus 1.5 times the lowest pulse, between 0 and 100: 40 bpm is 70, 50 is 55, 60 is 40. For women 5 bpm is taken off the pulse first, because resting pulse runs about 5 bpm higher.

Windows and recency#

• Three calendar days, not three rows. Each part looks back over its own signal's last three days, and a reading from two days ago counts 0.85 × 0.85 = about 72% as much as today's (each day back is 85% of the one before).
• Seven days instead of three for a signal that has stopped arriving daily but still has at least 3 readings in the last week. The score is then published with a "Assessed over the last 7 days" line and lower confidence.
• Today's stress is left out. Stress still runs while the day goes on, so the score reads the days that have ended. Otherwise a morning state would move through the afternoon.
• Nothing in any window means no score. We never rebuild a score from one old reading.
• Morning HRV readings taken after waking are not scored: the HRV parts stand on the night alone.

Yesterday's training#

A training session yesterday takes points off, because the body is still paying for it. Walks, yoga and everyday movement are not training here. All the sessions of yesterday are added up (overlaps counted once):

A hard session is a Training Effect of 4.0 or more, or high intensity (zone 4 or above of your own heart-rate zones) for at least 20 minutes (heart-rate zones). Intensity uses your own zones, not one pulse for everybody.

Then there is a compensation. If you did a hard session today or yesterday, 5 points are added back, because a body that has just trained hard is expected to read lower and should not be punished twice. The net effect of a hard 50-minute run is therefore about -10.

When a part is missing#

With only 2 or 3 parts the score could swing on very little, so it is pulled toward 50: with 2 parts it keeps 60% of its distance from 50, with 3 parts 80%, with 4 or more parts 100%. A score of 80 on two parts is shown as 68, on three parts as 74. With a single part nothing is damped, because there is nothing to average.

When Recovery is not shown#

Recovery needs at least 2 of these 4 signals to be current: overnight HRV, sleep score, sleep stages, Body Battery. "Current" means dated today or yesterday (36 hours). It also needs at least 3 days of history. Otherwise the tile says:

• "Collecting data (2 of 3 days)" while the history grows;
• "Your device does not measure this" if the signals do not exist for your device;
• "No recent data" if they exist but stopped, with "Last measured 28/10" in the sheet.

If a signal is not current but you have at least 3 readings of it in the last 7 days, Recovery is still shown as a weekly assessment ("Assessed over the last 7 days. Last measured 28/10."). Body Status then does not treat it as today's reading when it decides Strong or Peak Day.

Reading the number#

Two sets of words are used. The tiles on the Overview use four: "Optimal" (81 and up), "Good" (61 to 80), "Average" (41 to 60), "Low" (40 and below). The metric sheet uses a ten-step ladder from "Critical" to "Elite". Colors follow the same bands.

• Under 50 is the point where Body Status says "Recovering".
• Above 65 and 75 open Strong and Peak Day.
• A single morning is a noisy number. Look at the week.

Training Readiness#

What it is and where you see it#

Training Readiness (Czech "Tréninková připravenost") answers "how hard can my body handle training today?". It is a 0 to 100 score.

• Performance tab: the ring "Training readiness" ("Připravenost na trénink") with a word, the last 7 days as bars and the next days as an estimate. Tapping the ring opens "What drives readiness" ("Co ovlivňuje připravenost").
• Health tab: the same "What drives readiness" card.
• Coach card "Today's move": not the number, but the verb it helps decide.
• Share image.

The five parts#

The average runs over the parts you have. Morning Energy is shifted before it is averaged: the morning's level moves by up to 20 points depending on how far it sits from your usual (with a usual of 75 and a spread of 8, a morning of 60 counts as about 41; with no usual yet, for example in the first week, it stands alone). Freshness is the opposite of Overtraining, and in a week without training there is nothing to be tired from, so it counts as 100 rather than dropping out.

Missing parts#

• At least 2 parts and at least 35% of the total weight must exist, otherwise there is no readiness. Sleep Quality and Overtraining alone (30%) is not enough; Sleep Quality and Morning Energy (35%) is.
• With fewer than 3 parts the score cannot go above 66, because two high numbers renormalized look better than they should.
• When Recovery is missing, readiness is still shown but marked as a partial read with the sentence "Recovery and stress not measured today, so this is a partial read" or, for an aged-out reading, "Recovery has aged out, so this is a partial read". It names the pillars it could not see. A missing stress alone is ordinary for devices without a stress index and carries no note.

Sleep debt#

Debt above 2 hours takes 3 points per extra hour, at most 15 (reached at 7 hours of debt). It is the hours of debt, not a score. A debt of 4 h 30 min costs 7.5 points: the 71.25 above becomes 63.75, rounded 64, "Moderate" (sleep debt).

Last night#

One short night does not reliably show in the next morning's HRV, so last night is read directly. The night is compared with your sleep need (see Body Status, the night rule):

• Very short or no restorative sleep (under 55% of the need or under 4 hours, or an overnight recharge under 40% of your usual): the score is capped at 33, the bottom zone. The note reads "very short sleep last night" or "no restorative sleep last night".
• A short night (under 90% of the need): the score is pulled toward 34 in proportion to how far into the short band the night falls. The cut is (score - 34) × depth, where depth is 0 at the 90% line and 1 at the very-short line. A 5 h 30 min night against a 7 h 30 min need has a depth of about 0.48, and 63.75 becomes 50 (63.75 - 29.75 × 0.476 = 49.6). The note reads "short sleep last night (5h 30m)".
• A night not recorded, with no evidence either way: the score is not reduced, because we never penalize a guess. It is flagged "sleep not recorded, readiness uncertain" and the Performance ring says "night not recorded".

Zones and words#

The zones match what other platforms use, but the number is not comparable with theirs: each app weighs other inputs against its own baseline.

What the driver bars mean#

"What drives readiness" lists each part and each penalty as points above or below a neutral 50 ("Readiness points above or below a neutral 50"). They add up to the score minus 50. In the example above: Recovery +8.0, Sleep Quality +5.0, Morning Energy +2.2, Stress +3.0, Freshness +3.0, and with the debt a line "Sleep debt -7.5". The header counts them: "Lifting: 5 · Holding: 1", and the card names "Helping most" and "Holding back most". A driver that is an estimate (Morning Energy without a Body Battery) is labeled "(estimate)".

How it steers the coach#

The readiness zone is one of the inputs of the coach's verb: Low gives REST, Moderate gives MODERATE, High gives TRAIN. The verb is the lowest of the Body Status ceiling (Alert gives REST, Recovering gives EASY, Steady gives MODERATE), last night, yesterday's session, the weekly load, your HRV band and this zone. A Strong Body Status with a Moderate readiness therefore gives a MODERATE day, and the hero explains it: "Your signals look good, but training readiness is lower today." (daily coach, Body Status).

When they update#

Both are computed from the night and the days before it, when the night arrives. They are not live and they do not drift through the day. They can change when late data arrive, when you record a check-in, or when a hard session today adds its 5 points back. Results are reused for up to 5 minutes, and a sync or a check-in refreshes them sooner. If the night has not arrived, the day is scored with your usual night and marked provisional until the real night comes (Body Status).

A past day you open is recalculated from the data we hold for it, so late data or a changed calculation can move it a little.

Free and Premium#

On the free plan (from 1 November 2026) neither Recovery nor Training Readiness is shown: free keeps today's Body Status and the safety alerts. Premium shows both, the driver cards and the history. Premium includes the 7-day trial (plans).

Energy pacing mode#

The calculation does not change. The Performance tab is renamed: Training Readiness becomes "Body reserve" ("Rezerva těla"), the ring says "reserve", and the card is "What drives the reserve" ("Co ovlivňuje rezervu"). Fitness, fatigue and the training plan are hidden, and Stress is named "body load" (energy pacing).

What you can do#

• Wear the watch to bed. HRV, sleep and the lowest heart rate are measured then.
• Take Body Battery and HRV as a week, not a morning. One poor number is noise.
• Plan easy days after hard ones. A hard 50-minute session costs about 10 points of Recovery the next morning, and that is expected.
• Look at "What drives readiness". The biggest negative bar tells you what to change: usually sleep.
• If readiness is in the red zone for a reason you cannot name, with a raised resting heart rate, give it a day or two before testing yourself, and see a doctor if you feel unwell.

MyBodyAI is a wellness app, not a medical device. Recovery and Training Readiness describe signals from your device. They do not diagnose.

Frequently asked questions#

Why is my Recovery low after eight hours of sleep?#

Sleep length is not Recovery. Recovery reads your HRV week, Body Battery, sleep score, deep sleep, stress and lowest pulse, and yesterday's training takes up to 15 points off. Alcohol, a late meal, a hard evening session or the first day of an infection keep the pulse up and HRV down even in a long night. Open the metric sheet and read the "Built from" list.

Why did my Recovery drop after a workout?#

Because yesterday's training takes 5, 10 or 15 points off, depending on its length and intensity. A hard session also adds 5 points back. A hard 50-minute run is about -10 net. It is expected and it passes.

Why does Recovery have no Body Battery parts on my account?#

They exist only for a watch that reports Body Battery. Our Morning Energy estimate and a ring's Readiness are never used inside Recovery. Recovery then stands on HRV, sleep, stress and the lowest pulse.

Why is Training Readiness lower than Recovery?#

Because it also reads sleep quality, Morning Energy, stress and freshness, and it subtracts sleep debt above 2 hours and a short night. Open "What drives readiness" and look at the bars.

Why does my readiness say the night was not recorded?#

The watch was worn by day, but no sleep arrived. We do not lower the score on a guess, so the number is shown with "sleep not recorded, readiness uncertain". If a Garmin shows no overnight recharge at all, the night counts as one without restorative sleep and readiness is capped at 33.

Why is there no Training Readiness today?#

It needs at least two parts and 35% of the weights. An account with no sleep record and no HRV can fall below that. Wearing a device that measures HRV and stress, or connecting it, fixes it.

What is a good Training Readiness?#

67 or more is the high zone, 34 to 66 moderate and 0 to 33 rest. The number is not comparable with other apps. Your own pattern over a few weeks is the useful reference.

Is "Recovery" the same as Garmin's recovery time?#

No. Garmin's recovery time is a countdown in hours that your watch computes. Ours is a score from 0 to 100 built from the night. When your watch reports its recovery time, we show it beside ours on the Load & Recovery card and never merge the two.