What is Recovery Score?

Think of Recovery as your body's morning readiness report — a single number between 0 and 100 that tells you how well you've bounced back from yesterday, and how much your body is ready to take on today. BloomFit refreshes Recovery once every morning, based on signals collected while you slept.

What each score range means

• 90-100: Fully recovered — feel free to take on high-intensity training.

• 70-89: Normal — proceed with your usual plan.

• 50-69: On the low side — reduce intensity or shorten your session.

• Below 50: Take it easy — focus on active rest.

How is Recovery Score calculated?

Recovery is a personalized score that compares today's body signals against your own 14-day baseline — not against a population average. Your baseline shifts as your fitness, sleep habits, and stress levels evolve, so Recovery always reflects what's normal for you.

Each morning, Recovery looks at seven contributors and combines them into a single score:

  • Heart rate variability (HRV) — the strongest signal of how recovered your nervous system is.
  • Resting heart rate — a marker for stress, illness, dehydration, or alcohol.
  • Last night's sleep — how long you slept.
  • Recent sleep balance — whether you've been building up a sleep debt or oversleeping.
  • Body temperature — an early signal for illness, calibrated to where you are in your cycle.
  • Yesterday's activity — was it a sweet spot, a rest day, or an overload?
  • Activity trend — is today's planned activity similar to your recent average?

Signals related to your nervous system and sleep carry the most weight, because they are the most direct measures of recovery. Less direct signals (activity, temperature, sleep balance) play a smaller, supporting role.

If you don't have data for one of the contributors on a given day, Recovery automatically rebalances around what is available — you won't get penalized for a missing signal.

Cycle-aware temperature

BloomFit's Recovery is designed with women's physiology in mind. If you're in the luteal phase of your cycle, Recovery automatically widens its expected temperature range. A small rise in body temperature is normal during this phase and shouldn't be misread as illness. Recovery uses Apple Health's cycle data to recognize this and adjust accordingly — so a normal luteal temperature rise won't lower your score.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Recovery sometimes show "Not enough data" instead of a score? Recovery is built on signals from your autonomic nervous system — specifically HRV and resting heart rate — combined with sleep. If both nervous system signals are missing, or you have no sleep data from last night, the score is hidden rather than estimated from less reliable signals. Wearing your Apple Watch overnight is the most reliable way to ensure a daily score.

Why is my Recovery score low even though I feel fine? Recovery often picks up on stress or strain before you consciously feel it. Common triggers include alcohol the night before, an unusually intense workout, illness in its early stages, or simply a poor night's sleep. One low day is rarely a concern — look at the trend across the week.

Can I check Recovery if I don't wear a watch overnight? Recovery depends on overnight measurements of HRV and resting heart rate, which require wearing a compatible device while you sleep. Without those signals, Recovery can't reliably measure your readiness.

What should I do with a low Recovery score? A low score isn't a verdict — it's a suggestion. Treat it as a cue to ease up, shorten a planned workout, or focus on lower-intensity movement. Pushing through isn't dangerous, but on most days, recovery improves more quickly when you listen.

Things to note

  • The first two weeks calibrate your baseline. During this period, Recovery uses general population reference values, then transitions to your personal baseline once enough of your own data is collected.
  • Caffeine, alcohol, illness, and emotional stress all show up in Recovery through their effect on HRV and resting heart rate. This is the score working as intended, not an error.
  • Recovery is a directional signal, not a medical diagnosis. Patterns over weeks tell you more than any single day's score.
  • Recovery and Energy are different views of the same body. Recovery looks back at your overnight readiness; Energy tracks how you're using and replenishing that reserve during the day.

References

  1. Shaffer F, Ginsberg JP. An Overview of Heart Rate Variability Metrics and Norms. Frontiers in Public Health. 2017;5:258.
  2. Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology and the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology. Heart rate variability: standards of measurement, physiological interpretation, and clinical use. Circulation. 1996;93(5):1043–1065.
  3. Cooney MT, Vartiainen E, Laatikainen T, Juolevi A, Dudina A, Graham IM. Elevated resting heart rate is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease in healthy men and women. American Heart Journal. 2010;159(4):612–619.e3.
  4. Hirshkowitz M, Whiton K, Albert SM, et al. National Sleep Foundation's sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary. Sleep Health. 2015;1(1):40–43.

This content is for health education only and is not intended as medical diagnosis or treatment. If you experience any discomfort, please consult a qualified medical professional.

What is Body Energy Score?

Think of Body Energy as the battery indicator for your body — it starts the day charged up by how well you recovered last night, then drains as you go through the day's activity and waking hours. The only way to recharge is to sleep.

What each score range means

• 90-100: Fully charged — ready for high-intensity workouts or demanding tasks.

• 70-89: Doing well — proceed as planned.

• 50-69: Running low — choose lighter tasks.

• Below 50: Nearly drained — prioritize rest.

How is Body Energy Score calculated?

Body Energy is single-directional: it can only drop during the day. Rest never adds energy back — it just slows the drain. A full recharge happens the next morning, when your overnight recovery sets a new starting point.

Each time BloomFit refreshes Body Energy, it considers:

  • Your Recovery Score this morning — sets the day's maximum. If Recovery isn't available, Body Energy won't show either.
  • Activity intensity since you woke up — only moderate-to-high effort drains the battery. Walking, light chores, and rest don't cost any energy.
  • Hours since waking — even without activity, being awake itself causes a slow, steady decline.
  • Your menstrual cycle phase — during the luteal phase, the same workout costs slightly more energy, reflecting how the body actually feels at that time.

Cycle-aware energy use

BloomFit recognizes that the same workout can feel harder during the luteal phase of your cycle. To match that lived experience, Body Energy applies a modest extra drain to workouts during this phase. This means a luteal-phase afternoon may show a slightly lower Body Energy than a follicular-phase day with the same activity.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why doesn't my Body Energy ever go back up during the day? Body Energy is designed to count down only. Adding energy back without a sound physiological basis would create confusing fluctuations ("Why is my number going up?"). A monotonic decrease gives you a clearer mental model: rest stops the drain, sleep restores the full battery.

Why does Body Energy show "--" sometimes? Body Energy starts each day from your Recovery Score. If Recovery is unavailable (for example, you didn't wear your Apple Watch overnight), there's no starting point — so Body Energy won't show a number either. Make sure to wear your Apple Watch to bed for a complete daily picture.

Why does Body Energy feel lower during my luteal phase? It's by design. The luteal phase often comes with lower perceived energy, and similar workouts subjectively feel harder. BloomFit accounts for this rather than ignoring it, so the number on your screen better matches how you actually feel.

Why doesn't a nap recharge my Body Energy? Only nighttime sleep meaningfully restores recovery markers like heart rate variability and resting heart rate, which are the basis of Recovery Score. Naps stop the drain but don't reset the day's starting point.

Things to note

  • Body Energy depends on Recovery Score. Without a Recovery reading, there's no daily starting point and Body Energy won't show.
  • Light activity is "free." Daily routines like walking, cooking, or housework don't drain the battery. The drain starts at moderate-intensity effort or above.
  • Your maximum heart rate is estimated from your age. This lets us calculate effort intensity without requiring you to perform a maximal exercise test. As a result, very fit users may see slightly different drain than they expect at the same heart rate.
  • Body Energy and Recovery are paired views. Recovery looks back at the overnight; Body Energy tracks the day in real time.

References

  1. Tanaka H, Monahan KD, Seals DR. Age-predicted maximal heart rate revisited. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2001;37(1):153–156.
  2. Karvonen MJ, Kentala E, Mustala O. The effects of training on heart rate; a longitudinal study. Annales Medicinae Experimentalis et Biologiae Fenniae. 1957;35(3):307–315.
  3. Stephenson LA, Kolka MA. Menstrual cycle phase and time of day alter reference signal controlling arm blood flow and sweating. American Journal of Physiology. 1985;249(2 Pt 2):R186–R191.
  4. Achten J, Jeukendrup AE. Heart rate monitoring: applications and limitations. Sports Medicine. 2003;33(7):517–538.

This content is for health education only and is not intended as medical diagnosis or treatment. If you experience any discomfort, please consult a qualified medical professional.

What is Sleep Score?

Think of Sleep Score as your nightly sleep report card — a single number between 0 and 100 that summarizes how restorative your sleep was, based on how much you slept, how well you stayed asleep, and the makeup of your sleep stages.

What each score range means

• 90-100: Excellent.

• 80-89: Good.

• 60-79: Average — room to improve.

• Below 60: Poor — your body may need a gentler day.

How is Sleep Score calculated?

Sleep Score combines five aspects of last night's sleep into one number:

  • Total sleep duration — the single most important factor. Roughly 8 hours receives the highest score; both too little and too much sleep lower the score.
  • Sleep efficiency — the share of time in bed that you were actually asleep. Frequent restlessness or long stretches of lying awake reduce this.
  • Deep sleep proportion — deep sleep supports physical repair, hormone release, and immune function. Sleep Score looks for a healthy range, not just "more."
  • REM sleep proportion — REM supports emotional regulation and long-term memory consolidation, again with a healthy range rather than a "higher is better" rule.
  • Restfulness — how brief the night's awakenings were in total. Frequent micro-awakenings lower this.

Sleep Score is built so that even iPhone-only users (without an Apple Watch) can get a score from total duration, efficiency, and restfulness alone. When deep and REM data aren't available, the remaining factors are reweighted automatically rather than penalizing you for missing data.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my Sleep Score go down if I sleep more than 8 hours? Both too little and too much sleep can be signs your body isn't in its best state. Oversleeping sometimes points to recovery from illness, accumulated sleep debt, or other underlying factors. The deduction is gentler than for sleeping too little, but it still appears in the score.

Why is my Sleep Score sometimes lower when I wear my Apple Watch? With the Apple Watch, BloomFit can see your sleep stages in detail (deep, REM, and time awake during the night). Without it, those finer-grained checks aren't applied, which can lead to a slightly higher score for the same night. Wearing your Apple Watch overnight gives the most accurate picture.

Why didn't I get a score this morning? Sleep Score requires at least your total sleep duration or sleep efficiency to be available. If neither was recorded — for example, the device didn't detect that you slept — you'll see "No sleep data" instead of a score.

What does each score range mean? 90–100 is excellent, 80–89 is good, 60–79 is average with room to improve, and below 60 suggests your body had a tough night and may need a lighter day.

Things to note

  • Sleep stage data quality depends on your device. Apple Watch gives the most detailed view; iPhone-only data is coarser but still useful.
  • A single low score is not a problem. Look at the weekly trend rather than any one night. Stress, late meals, alcohol, and travel all affect sleep short-term.
  • Recommended sleep duration is around 7–9 hours for adults. BloomFit centers the optimal range around this, in line with widely cited guidance.
  • Sleep Score and Recovery Score are related but different. Sleep Score reflects the quality of the night itself; Recovery Score reflects how ready your body is the next morning, which is influenced by sleep but also by HRV and resting heart rate.

References

  1. Hirshkowitz M, Whiton K, Albert SM, et al. National Sleep Foundation's sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary. Sleep Health. 2015;1(1):40–43.
  2. Ohayon M, Wickwire EM, Hirshkowitz M, et al. National Sleep Foundation's sleep quality recommendations: first report. Sleep Health. 2017;3(1):6–19.
  3. Carskadon MA, Dement WC. Normal Human Sleep: An Overview. In: Kryger MH, Roth T, Dement WC, eds. Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine. 6th ed. Elsevier; 2017:15–24.
  4. Reed DL, Sacco WP. Measuring Sleep Efficiency: What Should the Denominator Be? Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. 2016;12(2):263–266.

This content is for health education only and is not intended as medical diagnosis or treatment. If you experience any discomfort, please consult a qualified medical professional.

What is Training Stress Balance (TSB)?

Think of Training Stress Balance as your training bank account — your long-term fitness builds up like savings, while recent hard sessions act like withdrawals. TSB tells you, day to day, whether you're flush with energy or running close to empty.

What each zone means

• Overtraining: Fatigue is outpacing fitness. Higher risk of injury or illness. Time to reduce volume or intensity.

• Balanced: A healthy training load. Stay the course.

• Undertraining: Recent training is well below your normal level. Fitness may begin to drift down.

How is Training Stress Balance calculated?

TSB compares two views of your training:

  • Long-term fitness — a rolling average of your training load over roughly the past six weeks. This reflects the durable fitness you've built.
  • Short-term fatigue — a rolling average over the past week, capturing the tiredness that builds up from recent intensity.

When recent fatigue catches up to or exceeds your long-term fitness, TSB drops into a negative range and the app flags it as a sign to ease up. When recent training is below your typical level, TSB rises — and if it stays high too long, that's a signal your fitness is starting to drift down.

Each workout's contribution is estimated from its duration and heart rate, so you don't need a power meter. When heart rate isn't recorded for a session, BloomFit falls back to active energy or workout duration so that the workout still counts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does TSB show "Not enough data"? TSB needs enough training history to build a reliable long-term fitness baseline. If you've just started using BloomFit, or you've had fewer than a handful of workouts in the past six weeks, there isn't enough signal yet — so the app says so honestly rather than showing a misleading number.

Why doesn't my workout from this morning show up yet? Apple Watch sometimes takes hours to sync workout data to Apple Health. To avoid showing stale or wrong numbers, BloomFit always recalculates today's TSB from fresh data — so a delayed workout from earlier today will appear once Apple Health has it.

How does TSB handle rest days? A rest day counts as zero training, not as missing data. This way, the rolling averages reflect your real pattern, including planned recovery.

Will TSB work without an Apple Watch? Workouts logged in Apple Health from any source can contribute to TSB. The score is most accurate when heart rate is recorded during each session, but it gracefully degrades to use workout energy or duration when heart rate isn't available.

Things to note

  • TSB is for general fitness, not elite athletes. Serious cyclists or runners often use power-based training load; BloomFit uses heart rate-derived load, which is well suited to most people but less precise at the very top of the performance range.
  • Maximum heart rate is estimated from your age. BloomFit doesn't try to measure your peak heart rate directly. This trade-off keeps explanations simple and consistent — your TSB doesn't shift just because of a single sprint.
  • The "Undertraining" label is a heads-up, not a verdict. Planned rest weeks and recovery blocks will naturally land you here, and that's healthy.
  • TSB is a trend, not a daily reading. Day-to-day fluctuations are normal; what matters is the direction over a week or two.

References

  1. Banister EW, Calvert TW, Savage MV, Bach T. A systems model of training for athletic performance. Australian Journal of Sports Medicine. 1975;7(3):57–61.
  2. Borresen J, Lambert MI. The quantification of training load, the training response and the effect on performance. Sports Medicine. 2009;39(9):779–795.
  3. Halson SL. Monitoring training load to understand fatigue in athletes. Sports Medicine. 2014;44(Suppl 2):S139–S147.
  4. Tanaka H, Monahan KD, Seals DR. Age-predicted maximal heart rate revisited. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2001;37(1):153–156.

This content is for health education only and is not intended as medical diagnosis or treatment. If you experience any discomfort, please consult a qualified medical professional.