Cardio Load compares the cardiovascular work in your recent tracked workouts with the longer-term load you have built up over six weeks. It tracks how quickly your training is changing. It is not a measure of recovery or overtraining, and it cannot predict whether you will be injured.
How it is worked out
Only tracked workouts count. For each one, NOYU multiplies the minutes you spent in heart-rate zones 1 to 5 by weights from 1 to 5, so a hard minute adds more than an easy one. That total is the workout's load points.
NOYU then adds up the load for each calendar day. A day with no tracked workout scores zero, however much you walked around.
The large Cardio Load value is your seven-day exponentially weighted average in load points, so this morning's session counts for more than Monday's. Behind the comparison label, NOYU divides that recent load by a 42-day average weighted in the same way.
The shaded balanced range spans ratios from 0.8 to 1.3, or 80% to 130% of your six-week load. Inside it means recent and longer-term load are broadly balanced. Above it means recent load is rising faster, while below it means recent load has eased back. This is a guide to how quickly your workload is changing, not a recommendation based on your Readiness, goals or how you feel.
Sports science calls these two averages Acute Training Load (ATL) and Chronic Training Load (CTL).
Why it needs six weeks
NOYU can show your recent load after seven days, but the longer comparison takes 42 days to settle. Until then the chart says Calibrating instead of guessing what is usual for you.
If an older workout turns up after a delayed sync, NOYU recalculates the days it affects.
Cardio Load and Strain are different
Cardio Load counts tracked workouts only, so it is the focused view of intentional training over time.
Strain uses your whole day. A long walk, an afternoon of housework, anything that lifts your heart rate can raise Strain without touching Cardio Load.
Record that easy walk as a workout and both numbers move. Leave it as ordinary daily movement and only Strain does.
When a workout has no heart-rate data
Cardio Load needs time in heart-rate zones. A tracked workout with no usable zones or heart-rate samples stays in your workout history but adds no load points.
Devices disagree about where the zone boundaries sit. When your provider supplies its own zones for a workout, NOYU uses those. Otherwise NOYU works the zones out from the workout's heart-rate samples, your estimated maximum and your usual resting heart rate.
How to read the chart
The line is your recent seven-day load. The shaded band is the balanced range based on your six-week load.
- Lighter than usual means recent tracked training sits below your usual level.
- Steady means it is broadly in line with your usual level.
- Building quickly means it is rising above your usual level.
- Much higher than usual means the gap is substantial.
Each label describes a comparison. Read Cardio Load next to your Readiness and what you meant to do this week. A deliberate training block and an accidental spike draw the same shape on the chart and call for different decisions.
What it can say about injury
Some research has linked rapid increases in training load with more injuries. A Building quickly or Much higher than usual result is therefore a reason to consider whether the increase was planned and how your body feels.
It is not an injury prediction or a safe-to-train check. Cardio Load measures cardiovascular work from heart rate. It cannot see previous injuries, pain, the mechanical stress of a particular movement or every other factor that affects injury.
