Every week, your coach sets how much bike and run training load you'll carry next week. That number isn't a guess, and it isn't copied from someone else's plan. It comes from your own training data, the context of your season and what you tell us. Here's how it works, and where you come in.
How QT2 Sets Your Weekly Training Load, in Six Slides
QT2 sets your weekly bike and run load in three steps: we measure your training stress, find the load you can sustain, and let StressLogic set next week's dose. Here's the whole system from 30,000 feet, in six slides, with each one summarized in plain text below.
- The big picture. The deck walks through four pieces: bTSS, rTSS, swTSS and your weekly training load. Together they show how we set your bike and run load each week, and where you fit in.
- TSS in one number. Training Stress Score (TSS) rolls how long and how hard you trained into a single figure, and it's scaled to you. One hour at your threshold is worth 100 TSS. Your threshold is Critical Power on the bike and Critical Speed on the run, which is how a long easy ride and a short hard run end up on one scale.
- Bike and run, counted apart. bTSS is the load you carry from biking in a week. rTSS is the load you carry from running. Each sport gets a number of its own.
- Your baseline comes first. Chronic Training Load (CTL) is your rolling average daily load across roughly the past six weeks: the fitness you've built. From it, we work out Sustainable Weekly Training Stress (swTSS) for bike and for run, a weekly load you could repeat again and again without breaking down. Each week's decision begins from that point.
- What StressLogic weighs. Three groups of signals. The data: CTL; how fast your load is climbing against your base, Acute Training Load (ATL) to CTL; your end-of-week freshness, Training Stress Balance (TSB), and its 5-day trend; recent TSS; and how your key workouts went. The context: your block type, the week ahead and when you race. The Subjectives: how you're sleeping, your mood, motivation and confidence, soreness and any orthopedic warning signs, life stress, and heart rate variability (HRV) and resting heart rate (RHR) when you have them. The pattern sets the week, never one signal, and your coach makes the call.
- The weekly dose, and your part. Next week's bTSS and rTSS are each set against your swTSS, and each lands on one of five calls: Big Push, Small Push, Hold, Small Pull Back or Big Pull Back. A fresh call is made every week, and missed work is never made up. Your part is honest, same-day comments: how you felt, how you slept, any soreness, your stress and anything that was off.
What Is TSS? One Number for Training Stress
Training Stress Score (TSS) combines two things into one number: how long you trained and how hard. Duration and intensity land in the same place.
TSS is scaled to you, not to anyone else. The anchor is simple: 100 TSS equals one hour at your threshold. On the bike, your threshold is your Critical Power. On the run, it's your Critical Speed. Because the scale is built on your own threshold, your TSS describes the stress on you, not on the athlete next to you.
That's what makes TSS useful. A long easy ride and a short hard run look nothing alike on paper, but TSS lets them be compared on the same scale. Instead of trying to weigh hours against intervals in your head, you have one number for training stress.
What Are bTSS and rTSS? Bike and Run, Tracked Separately
We don't lump your sports together. bTSS is your week's training load from biking. rTSS is your week's training load from running.
Your coach looks at your bike load and your run load separately and sets a separate target for each. On the bike, your load comes from power-based TSS. On the run, it comes from rTSS, which your coach adjusts when the raw number doesn't tell the whole story: hills, trails, heat or an inaccurate treadmill.
Your CTL, the baseline covered next, is calculated per sport too. So each sport gets its own number.
What Are CTL and swTSS? Your Baseline
Before we can decide what next week should look like, we need to know where you are now. That starts with CTL (Chronic Training Load): your rolling average daily load over about the last six weeks. Think of it as the fitness you've built. It isn't one big week or one great session; it's what you've been doing consistently.
From your CTL we work out swTSS (Sustainable Weekly Training Stress) for each sport. Your swTSS is the weekly load you could repeat week after week without breaking down: the most weekly TSS you can keep up week after week after week without needing a major correction. In QT2's system, the "sw" in swTSS stands for Sustainable Weekly, and it's set for your bike and run load.
It's based mainly on your current CTL, so it reflects your recent history, your current fitness and how your body has responded to load.
That makes swTSS the core anchor for each week, and every weekly decision starts here. A week can go above it, stay near it, or drop below it to allow recovery. Either way, it acts as a rational ceiling for the week, and your workouts are built to stay within that limit.
What Does StressLogic Weigh Each Week?
StressLogic is how we look at the whole picture before a weekly call is made. It weighs three groups of information.
The Data
Your CTL. How fast your load is climbing compared with your base, or Acute Training Load (ATL) against CTL (ATL:CTL). Your end-of-week freshness, or Training Stress Balance (TSB), and its 5-day trend. Your recent TSS. And how well your key workouts went.
Here's what those signals mean. ATL is your short-term training load and fatigue. When it rises quickly relative to your CTL, you may be carrying more immediate fatigue. ATL:CTL answers one question: is short-term load rising too quickly?
TSB reflects the relationship between CTL and ATL, showing whether you're likely carrying fatigue or freshness. The 5-day TSB trend shows whether that fatigue is improving, worsening or stabilizing: whether stress is building up or clearing.
The Context
Your current block type, the week ahead and your race timing. The same numbers can call for a different week depending on what's ahead: whether the coming week is calm, disrupted or good for training, and what your upcoming races demand.
The Subjectives
Soreness and orthopedic warning signs, motivation, mood and confidence, sleep, heart rate variability (HRV) and resting heart rate (RHR) when available, and life stress.
Training data can describe your load, but it can't fully describe your life. These are things the numbers can't see unless you tell us.
Momentum, Not Single Data Points
No single signal decides the week. One poor night of sleep or one flat workout doesn't, on its own, set the call. The pattern does. StressLogic reads how these signals behave relative to one another and studies momentum, not single data points.
Take an athlete whose completion is good and whose CTL is rising. On paper, that looks like a week to push. But if their TSB trend is worsening sharply, their ATL:CTL is high, their sleep is poor, their soreness is rising and their workouts are getting done but not done well, the right call may be Hold or Pull Back. That does not mean the athlete is failing. It means the pattern is saying something the completion rate isn't.
It works the other way too. The numbers can look fine for an athlete who just had a hard work week, two bad nights of sleep and a tight Achilles. The data alone would miss that week. The Subjectives don't.
None of these metrics is a perfect measurement. Used correctly, they help coaches make better decisions. And the last word isn't a formula. Data guides. Your coach decides.
How Is Your Weekly Dose Set? StressLogic's Five Calls
Next week's bTSS and rTSS are set relative to your swTSS. Each one lands on one of five calls. In plain words, relative to your swTSS:
- Big Push: increase by a lot.
- Small Push: increase by a little.
- Hold: hold steady.
- Small Pull Back: decrease by a little.
- Big Pull Back: decrease by a lot.
A Push means you're responding well, absorbing your training and ready for a controlled increase: a measured step forward. A Hold means things are stable, so we maintain your current training pressure rather than increase it. It's consistency over accumulation. A Pull Back means more stress wouldn't be productive right now; reducing load now is meant to protect the next several weeks of training. Big or Small simply sets the size of the step.
Five calls can look simple for something that weighs this much. That's on purpose. The simplicity of the output is intentional; the complexity lives in the inputs.
What Shifts a Call
The call is made weekly. Every week is a fresh decision, based on where you are now. A few things shape it beyond the numbers.
The week ahead. Is it calm, disrupted, or highly conducive to training? Travel, work and family all count.
What your races demand. The aim is the right stress in this block, at this point in the season. An athlete who has just raced a 70.3, with an IRONMAN still to come, is not the same athlete they were in January.
How you're really doing. The same week of a build can land three different ways. If you've recovered well and your execution is sharp, it can be a Push. If life stress is up and your sleep is disrupted, it can be a Hold. If an Achilles is tightening and motivation is dropping, it can be a Pull Back.
Block type. Your block type affects how much fatigue can be built up. But a change of block doesn't require a change in stress, and a change in stress doesn't require a change of block.
Recovery is added only when StressLogic calls for it, or for illness, at your request, or for logistics. For the full picture, see how QT2 manages training load.
Should You Make Up Missed Workouts?
One rule doesn't bend: missed work isnāt made up. If a session or a few days fall away, you don't owe them back. Next week's call is based on where you really are, not where you would have been if the workout had happened.
Chasing missed stress adds load on top of whatever caused the miss in the first place: fatigue, life demands, or a body that needed the rest. It's the training equivalent of borrowing money to pay off debt. Making up work turns one missed workout into several compromised ones.
The same goes the other way. Missed a workout? We don't cram it in later. Overcooked a session? We don't pay it back. We move forward. It's the core difference between adaptive coaching and static training plans.
What's Your Part? Honest, Same-Day Comments
That brings us to your part, and it matters. A big share of what StressLogic weighs comes from you. Your file tells your coach what you did. Your comment tells them how you're handling it. (See what day-to-day coaching looks like.)
The same watts, pace and heart rate can mean very different things. One session felt controlled; another took everything you had. The file can't tell those apart. Your load is adjusted based on how you're absorbing it, not just on the load itself.
That's why we ask for honest, same-day comments. Same-day, so your coach can see how you handled each session and spot a pattern day after day, not just a one-off. One rough day won't change your plan. Several flat sessions or a few days of poor recovery is a signal, and your coach can only spot that pattern if the notes are there day after day.
What to Write
It takes about 30 seconds, the same day. Cover:
- How it felt: easy, controlled, hard, or couldn't hold it
- Your sleep and any soreness
- Life stress, if it's higher than usual
- Anything that was off: fueling, heat, a niggle, missed reps
Short and honest beats long and polished. Something like "Legs heavy, slept 5 hours, held watts but it felt harder than it should" gives your coach exactly what they need.
Write what's true, not what you think your coach wants to hear. "Fine" every day gives a compromised picture. If you were sore, say so. If work or life was heavy, say so. If something just felt off and you can't explain why, say that too. Your coach would rather know.
Comments are for training. If something is urgent or medical, call your coach rather than leaving it in a comment.
The data gives us one view of your week. Your comments give us the rest. StressLogic advises. The coach decides. Put the two together, and your coach can set a weekly dose that fits the athlete you are right now.
Training Load FAQ
What is TSS?
Training Stress Score (TSS) combines how long you trained and how hard into one number. It is scaled to you: 100 TSS equals one hour at your threshold, which is your Critical Power on the bike and your Critical Speed on the run.
What is bTSS?
bTSS is your week's training load from biking. At QT2 it comes from power-based TSS, and your coach sets a separate weekly bike target.
What is rTSS?
rTSS is your week's training load from running. Your coach adjusts it when the raw number doesn't tell the whole story, such as hills, trails, heat or an inaccurate treadmill, and sets a separate weekly run target.
What is CTL in training?
CTL (Chronic Training Load) is your rolling average daily training load over about the last six weeks. Think of it as the fitness you've built through consistent training. QT2 calculates it per sport.
What does swTSS mean at QT2?
At QT2, swTSS means Sustainable Weekly Training Stress, not swim TSS. It is the most weekly TSS you can keep up week after week without needing a major correction, based mainly on your current CTL, and it is worked out for bike and run separately.
What are ATL and TSB?
ATL (Acute Training Load) is your short-term training load and fatigue. TSB (Training Stress Balance) reflects the relationship between CTL and ATL, showing whether you're likely carrying fatigue or freshness; its 5-day trend shows whether that fatigue is improving, worsening or stabilizing.
What are StressLogic's five weekly calls?
Each week your bTSS and rTSS are set relative to your swTSS with one of five calls: Big Push, Small Push, Hold, Small Pull Back or Big Pull Back. Push means you're absorbing training and ready for a controlled increase, Hold maintains current pressure, and Pull Back reduces load because more stress wouldn't be productive right now.
Is missed training made up?
No. At QT2, missed work is never made up. Each week, we set your next week's bike and run load fresh from where you are now, not from what you missed.
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