Your personal recovery curve

What it is

You recover differently from a VO2 session than from a long endurance ride, and differently from the next person. IntervalCoach fits a separate recovery curve for each kind of session — endurance, tempo, threshold, VO2, long endurance and anaerobic — describing how fast you bounce back. Each curve is summarised by a half-life: roughly how many days until you are about 50% recovered from that kind of effort.

What feeds it

The curve is learned from how your body actually responds in the days after your real sessions:

• HRV, resting heart rate and sleep at the core.

• Breathing rate, deep sleep, skin temperature and blood oxygen when your wearable records them.

• The soreness and fatigue you log in the morning check-in.

It starts from proven population defaults so it is useful on day one, then personalises as your data builds. HRV, resting heart rate and sleep carry the most weight; the rest sharpen the picture when they are available. See "Connecting your recovery data: Whoop and Apple Health" for getting those signals in.

What it drives

• How your hard days are spaced.

• The "ready for your next hard session in about N days" estimate on each activity and in your post-workout email.

• The "vs your curve" read in your Daily Briefing (ahead / on track / behind).

• One of the inputs to your readiness score.

Where to see your own curves

The full per-session-type chart lives on the Analytics page under Recovery Profile, on the Pro and Max plans. The curve itself and the daily reads above work for everyone; the full chart is the paid visualization.

Illness is left out

Days when IntervalCoach detects a likely oncoming illness are excluded from what the curve learns, so a week with a cold does not teach it that an easy ride wrecked you. See "Tired, or getting sick? Illness detection".