Form & Fitness
Our Form & Fitness chart helps you to track and predict your level of Fitness, Fatigue, and your cycling Form.
Form & Fitness chart in Formbeat is personalized for every rider and helps you to understand the cumulative effect of your training and it is calculated using the Training Stress Score (TSS) of every ride.
"Fitness" represents your accumulated fitness level and builds up as you train. If you don't log any rides for a longer time, your Fitness level will eventually start to slowly decline.
"Fatigue" represents the tiredness of your body after training. It will increase with each ride and accumulate after a few hard efforts, but it will quickly drop after a few days of lighter training or recovery. A high level of fatigue has a negative impact on your performance, even if your fitness level is high.
"Form" represents your predicted, momentary cycling performance and it is a difference between fitness and fatigue. You are in your best possible form when your fitness level is high and fatigue is low.
Form zones — we read your Form against the standard TrainingPeaks ranges, scaled to your fitness so they mean the same thing at any level:
Transition: Very fresh — so rested that fitness starts to slip. Normal after a taper or a break.
Fresh: Rested and race-ready. Ideal in the days before a goal event.
Neutral: Balanced — not building much, but not tired either.
Optimal: Productive training: enough fatigue to build fitness. Most training days should sit here.
Strained: Carrying a lot of fatigue for your fitness — ease off and recover before it sets you back.
Is a high number good? Fitness isn't a grade — it's a 42-day average of your training load, so the only fair comparison is to your own past self, not to other riders. And negative Form is normal: it just means you're carrying training fatigue. You build fitness by spending time there and recovering from it — clearly positive Form is for the days before a goal event, not all season.
