FortiorRecovery
Readiness score: should you train today?
A readiness score is a daily read on how ready you look to train. Fortior builds its version by comparing your recent training, and your sleep and heart rate variability when they are connected, with your own usual range. It is a nudge to set beside how you feel, never a verdict.
What a readiness score is
A readiness score condenses several recovery signals into one daily read. The usual ingredients are sleep, heart rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate and how much you have trained lately. The score is only useful if each signal is compared with your own history. Your HRV or resting heart rate can look low or high next to someone else's and still be normal for you.
Many wearables publish their own recovery or readiness score. They use different inputs and scales, so a 70 on one device doesn't mean the same as a 70 on another.
What Fortior reads for readiness
Fortior's readiness blends up to three signals. Each is scored from −1 (well below your usual) to +1 (well above) against your own last 28 days:
| Signal | What Fortior compares | Weight | What it needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recent training | Your training balance (fitness minus fatigue, counting logged lifting and cardio) today against your last 28 days | 50% | About seven logged workouts |
| HRV | Your 7-day average against your own 28-day history, from one source at a time | 30% | HRV from Apple Health, WHOOP or Oura, with enough recent days |
| Sleep | Last night's sleep score, or sleep duration if your source has no score, against your 28-day history for that source | 20% | At least seven nights, blended in alongside HRV |
Without an HRV source, readiness uses your training balance alone. With very little history, Fortior falls back to a simpler trend check or to no adjustment at all instead of guessing.
Resting heart rate is a related recovery signal, but it isn't part of this daily blend. It appears in Ask Fortior's sleep and recovery summaries, which compare your last 30 days with the 30 before.
A worked example
Say your training balance is well below your usual (−0.8), your 7-day HRV sits below its baseline (−0.6) and last night's sleep was short for you (−0.4). The blend is 0.5 × −0.8 + 0.3 × −0.6 + 0.2 × −0.4 = −0.66. Fortior scales that by 5%, so suggested weights come out 3.3% lighter, shown on Today as a −3% tag. The readiness blend is capped at 5% either way, so it can only trim or lift the weight Fortior's engine suggests, never replace it.
What you see on Today
- A one-word label. The welcome card compares your recent training balance with your own last month: Fresh, Primed, Balanced, Fatigued or Run down. It reads Building until you have about seven logged workouts, because there is no baseline to compare with yet.
- An adjustment tag. A small tag such as Load suggestions adjusted −3% today shows how readiness is feeding the weights Fortior suggests. When WHOOP or Oura is connected, the card says recovery and sleep data are included when available.
- An optional check-in. Today can also offer five quick, skippable ratings: sleep quality, energy, stress, motivation and soreness. Fortior compares each with your own recent answers and logs pain separately. The check-in sits beside readiness and isn't an input to the blend.
What readiness does and doesn't mean
- It is a comparison with you. A low read means you are below your own usual range lately. It doesn't mean something is wrong.
- Missing data isn't poor recovery. If your watch was off or a source hasn't synced, readiness works from what it has.
- It isn't a diagnosis or a reason to ignore how you feel. If the label says Fatigued and you feel great, that is information too.
- Provider scores stay separate. WHOOP recovery and Oura readiness are shown as the provider recorded them. Each uses its own scale, so Fortior doesn't average them into its own read.
Using it day to day
Look at the trend across several days rather than one morning, and set it beside how the session feels. Many coaches treat a low read as a prompt to trim volume or swap in an easier session rather than skip training, and a high read as a green light to follow the plan. Fortior doesn't tell you whether to train. It nudges suggested weights by a few percent and leaves the decision to you.
If deloads are on your mind, see deloads: HRV, sleep and your training balance are among the signals Fortior weighs there.
In the app: readiness appears in the welcome card at the top of the Today tab. For the signals behind it, open Progress and choose Sleep. To add recovery signals, connect Apple Health, WHOOP or Oura in Settings under Integrations.
Readiness is an estimate from your training and recovery data. It is not a medical assessment, and Fortior is not medical advice.