How it works
Every day, it looks at two things: how much stress your body is under, and how ready you are to handle more. Then it makes a call on today's session.
01
Each morning, Adaptiv builds a Recovery Score from 0 to 100 using both objective data and how you actually feel.
Objective data
Subjective input
How you feel matters as much as your data.
Wearables don't tell the full story. HRV can lag behind real stress. Sleep tracking isn't perfect. Your body often knows before the data does. That's why your subjective input carries equal weight to your biometrics. Not as a tiebreaker, but as a first-class signal.
80–100
Fully recovered. Ready to push.
65–79
Good to train.
45–64
Keep effort controlled.
< 45
Prioritize recovery.
Your score is smoothed over three days so one bad night doesn't derail your training.
02
Every workout adds stress to your system. Adaptiv measures that using heart rate-based load, not just time or distance.
An easy 60-minute run and a hard 60-minute workout are not the same. Adaptiv accounts for both duration and intensity, so hard efforts count more because they cost more physiologically. This approach is grounded in decades of endurance physiology research on how the body accumulates and adapts to training stress.
It tracks load across two timeframes: what you've done recently, and what you've averaged over the past month. Adaptiv continuously compares these to understand your current training state. When recent load spikes well above your baseline, the risk of overuse injury rises regardless of how you feel.
03
Two runners can log the same weekly mileage and have very different outcomes.
Adaptiv analyzes how your training is distributed, not just how much you're doing. Most training apps ignore this. Adaptiv doesn't.
Monotony
If every day looks the same, same pace, same distance, no variation, your injury risk increases even if volume is reasonable. The body adapts to variation; it breaks down under repetition.
Strain
High volume combined with low variation compounds risk faster than either factor alone. Adaptiv factors this into your daily adjustment so chronic fatigue patterns surface before they become a problem.
04
Not all miles are equal. Adaptiv tracks how much time you spend in each effort zone across the week.
Easy (Zones 1–2)
Builds aerobic base, promotes recovery.
Moderate (Zone 3)
Accumulates fatigue quickly without a matching adaptation benefit.
Hard (Zones 4–5)
Drives performance gains when you're fresh enough to absorb them.
The gray zone problem: most recreational runners spend too much time in moderate intensity. It's not easy enough to recover from, and not hard enough to maximize adaptation. Adaptiv flags this automatically so your training stays intentional, even when it feels productive.
Your personal zone boundaries are calculated from your max heart rate and resting heart rate, so they reflect your physiology, not a generic chart.
05
This is where Adaptiv acts like a coach.
Adaptiv combines your recovery score, your training load relative to your baseline, and your recent training patterns into a single picture of where you are. Then it adjusts your session accordingly.
Adjustments scale with how far off you are. A mild dip in recovery means a modest reduction, not a rest day. A combination of poor recovery and a recent load spike means something more significant.
Proceed
You're recovered and load is balanced. Do the session as planned.
Reduce intensity
Keep the session, lower the effort ceiling.
Shorten the workout
Cut volume, preserve the stimulus.
Rest
Your body needs it more than training does today.
Intensity is always reduced before duration. Key sessions, including long runs, intervals, and tempo work, are protected and won't be cut without a real reason.
If you skip the morning check-in, Adaptiv still runs using your recent load history and the last recovery data on file. It works with less precision, but it doesn't stop.
Over time
Adaptiv is fully functional from day one. As your training history builds, it learns your patterns, your tolerance, and how your body responds, getting more precise with every session. The longer you use it, the more it understands what normal looks like for you specifically.
The goal is simple. Enough stress to improve. Not so much that it breaks you down. Every day, Adaptiv makes sure you're on the right side of that line.