Readiness looks too low in the first week

Readiness comes from form: fitness minus fatigue. Fitness is a slow average over about six weeks, fatigue a fast one over about a week. On a new account fitness starts at zero, so the first few sessions push fatigue well above it and form goes negative at once. The card can read Fatigued or even Overtrained after three or four ordinary workouts. This is what the card’s line Your training load is high, which is normal in a build refers to.

What settles it

• Keep logging and syncing. Fitness catches up as the weeks pass. For the first 7 days the card reads Still building your baseline rather than a level.
• Do the morning check-in. Your check-ins decide whether a session changes. A low level with a check-in that says you feel fine leaves the plan alone. See Check in every morning.
• Import history where you can. Import History on a connected Garmin, Suunto, COROS, Oura, or Google Health gives fitness something to build from on day one. Polar supplies no history. See Connect your devices.

If it stays low after the first week

• Check max heart rate on your profile. A default that is too low makes every heart rate look harder than it was, so every session earns too many load points.
• Check perceived effort on manual workouts. Sessions without heart rate take their intensity from the 1 to 10 rating; an easy run rated 8 counts as a hard one.
• Check for duplicates. A manual entry and a device copy outside the merge rules count twice. See Duplicate or merged workouts.
• Read the Volume Warning on the readiness page. A week that is more than 10 percent above the previous one lowers the recommendation by a step. It eases as the weeks even out.
• Check nutrition. If your logged intake over the last 3 days is more than 20 percent below your calorie target, the recommendation drops a step and the page says so. Log the meals you ate, or set your own target in Settings if the calculated one is wrong.