Help

What do Go, Ease off and Rest mean?

Every morning, Amberday compares your recent training load with your usual load, adds any signs of fatigue, then judges your next session. The verdict is one word, followed by a sentence giving the main reasons.

• Go: do your session as planned. With nothing planned, you can train as usual.
• Ease off: keep your session, but shorter and at an easy endurance pace. Its duration drops to 75% (60% for a session that was already easy), with a 20 min minimum.
• Rest: a full rest day, or 20 min of mobility. A planned rest day always gives “Rest”.

Today or tomorrow?

The verdict is about today's session. As soon as an activity is recorded today, it moves on to tomorrow's: your day is done, so the question becomes the next one. With several sessions planned on the same day, Amberday judges the hardest one.

It's a trend to help you pace yourself, not a diagnosis: how you feel always has the last word. Amberday is not medical advice. If you are in pain, feel unwell, are ill or have any doubt, ask a doctor before training.

How is the verdict calculated?

The score of each session

Each session gets a load score: one hour at your threshold is worth about 100 points. Amberday uses the most reliable measure it has:

• power, with the cycling FTP or running power from your profile;
• otherwise heart rate, with your resting HR and max HR;
• otherwise pace, compared with your threshold pace (running, trail with elevation gain, swimming);
• otherwise duration and a typical intensity for the sport.

The score is then weighted by how hard the sport is on the body: running 1, trail 1.1, cycling 0.8, swimming 0.6… The page of each completed session shows which method was used.

Your recent load against your usual load

The load of the last 7 days is compared with that of the last 28, your usual load. Above 1.3 times your usual load, the load is “rising”; above 1.5 times, “well above your usual”.

This comparison needs 4 weeks of history to mean anything: before that, the trend is “still calibrating”. After a break, your usual load is counted as at least about 4 easy hours a week, so that an easy comeback isn't mistaken for a spike.

Signs of fatigue

Each sign adds one notch of fatigue, up to three:

• a rising load (one notch) or a load well above your usual (two notches);
• three or more hard sessions in 4 days;
• with Health: resting HR 5 bpm above your average, heart rate variability 15% below it, or a night under 6 h;
• a quality session or long session the next day, if another sign is already there.

Matching it with your session

An easy session tolerates a lot of fatigue, a quality session very little. With nothing planned, Amberday judges a moderate session.

• Easy session: “Ease off” at three notches.
• Moderate session: “Ease off” at two notches, “Rest” at three.
• Hard session: “Ease off” from one notch, “Rest” at three.

A planned rest day always gives “Rest”.

What should I fill in my profile?

The more references you fill in under Settings › Profile, the more accurate each session's score.

• Resting HR and max HR: used whenever a session has heart rate but no power.
• Cycling FTP: the power you can hold for an hour, for outdoor and indoor rides with a power meter.
• Running power: your critical power, from a sensor such as Stryd. It can't be compared with cycling FTP, hence a separate field. With running power, a session counts as hard from 90% of this reference, versus 85% elsewhere.
• Threshold paces: for running and swimming, used when a session has neither power nor heart rate.
• TRIMP coefficients: the heart-rate load formula differs slightly between men and women. “Standard” uses the original formula.

Without any reference, the estimate stays rough, especially for swimming.

Where do the suggestions come from?

With nothing planned, Amberday suggests two or three sessions; with a planned session, other options. Each one can be added to your plan with a single tap. Three sources are combined.

Your history over the last 28 days

• The sport: your main sport is the one you do most often (running and trail count together, as do outdoor and indoor rides). The second one is used for the “Cross-training” option.
• The duration: the median of your sessions in that sport, rounded to 5 min, between 20 min and 3 h.
• The example quality workout, suited to the sport: 6 × 3 min at threshold for running, 3 × 10 min for cycling…

Today's verdict

The type of session depends on your load, your fatigue and your recent hard sessions:

• Rest: full rest, mobility, walking.
• Ease off: short endurance (60% of your usual duration), a low-impact sport if you do one, mobility.
• Go, fresh and with room to spare: quality, endurance, then a long session if your load is low, or cross-training.
• Go, otherwise: endurance, a short tempo if you've done little intensity lately, cross-training or mobility.

Fixed values

The titles, the intensities, and the duration of a sport missing from your history: 45 min running, 1 h 30 cycling, 45 min swimming, 1 h walking, 45 min strength. With no history at all, you still see “Running · 45 min”.

The limits

• The window is strict: a sport you haven't done for a month drops out of the options.
• The median doesn't tell short and long sessions apart: if you alternate 30 and 60 min, your usual duration lands on one of them, not in between.

How do I import a Runna or Garmin plan?

Garmin and Runna don't share planned sessions with other apps. They can, however, publish your plan to the iPhone Calendar app, and Amberday reads it from there.

Set up once

1. In Runna or Garmin Connect, turn on calendar sync for your plan.
2. In Amberday's calendar, tap the plan button, then “Import from calendar…”.
3. Choose the calendars and sessions to import. With “Keep up to date automatically”, Amberday follows changes at every refresh.

What Amberday understands

The sport, duration and intensity are read from each event's title, in French, English or Spanish. Without a duration or distance, Amberday uses the sport's typical duration: 20 min for an abs or core circuit, 1 h 30 for a long session.

Your changes are kept

At each sync, only what has changed in the calendar since the last import is applied. A session you edited or deleted in Amberday, or unchecked when importing, stays as you left it until the calendar changes it.

You can also import an .ics or CSV file, from the plan list.

How does the plan generator work?

In the calendar, “Generate a plan…” builds a plan towards an event: 5K, 10K, half marathon, marathon, trail or gran fondo. You choose race day, the number of sessions per week and the day of your long session.

The progression

• The starting volume is that of your last 4 weeks, and you can change it.
• It grows by 8% a week, up to 1.5 times the starting volume.
• One week in four is lighter, and the last two are a taper before the event.
• Each session comes with instructions, for example “Threshold: 3 × 10 min”.

One plan at a time

Creating a new plan replaces the old one. Its sessions are marked with a diamond in the calendar. The banner at the top of the calendar lets you pause it (its sessions stay visible but no longer count for the verdict) or delete it, without touching sessions you entered or imported.

When is the morning notification sent?

In settings, the morning notification goes out at a fixed time or when you wake up. It gives the verdict, calculated with the data available at that moment.

When you wake up

iOS doesn't let apps read your alarms or know when you unlock your phone. So Amberday detects that you're awake in three ways:

• Through Health: when your night shows up in Health, Amberday is notified. An Apple Watch sends it as soon as you wake up, a Garmin or other third-party watch only when its app syncs, sometimes after the deadline. And Health stays encrypted while the iPhone is locked: the night is only read at the next unlock.
• Through your alarm: a Shortcuts automation tells Amberday when you stop your alarm (see below).
• By opening Amberday: the verdict is right in front of you, so that day's notification isn't sent.

The notification then goes out after the delay you chose, once per morning. If no wake-up is detected, it goes out at the deadline.

Tie the notification to your alarm

1. In Shortcuts, on the “Automation” tab, create a personal automation.
2. Choose “Alarm”, then “Is Stopped”. For the alarm, “Wake-Up” matches your sleep schedule; “Any” or “Existing” work too.
3. Add Amberday's “Report my wake-up” action, then tap “Done”.
4. Make it run without asking: turn off “Ask Before Running”.

Since iOS 27, the trigger is added within the shortcut itself: tap +, add the “Report my wake-up” action, then, in the “Automation” category, “Alarm”, and replace “Goes Off” with “Is Stopped”. The app shows the steps for your version of iOS, under Help › When is the morning notification sent? › Tie to my alarm.

If it arrives late

Check that Background App Refresh is on for Amberday (Settings › General). Without it, Health can't notify the app, and only the deadline applies.

What does the widget show?

The widget shows the verdict and the icons of the sessions planned for the day it's about. It comes in a small size for the Home Screen, and three sizes for the Lock Screen.

• “Tomorrow” appears when a session has already been recorded today.
• With “Ease off”, the session shows its new duration, for example “1 h → 45 min”. With “Rest”, it's crossed out.
• At midnight, “Tomorrow” goes away, and a verdict from a past day no longer shows its sessions.

To add it, touch and hold the Home Screen or Lock Screen, then look for Amberday among the widgets.

What data does Amberday use?

Amberday has no server: everything is calculated and stored on your phone.

• Health: your workouts, plus resting HR, heart rate variability and sleep, if you turn it on. This data never leaves your phone.
• Calendar: only the calendars you choose when importing.
• Location: for the weather, read when the app refreshes its data. It's sent to Apple Weather to get the forecast, and nowhere else.

You can turn off Health and weather at any time in settings. The details are in the privacy policy.

I don't have any workouts in Health yet

Amberday reads the workouts your watch or apps save to Health. An Apple Watch does this on its own. For another watch, you need to let its app write to Health: in Garmin Connect, Coros, Polar, Suunto or Zwift, look for the “Apple Health” or “Health” setting.

In the meantime, demo mode shows the app with sample data: tap “Try with demo data” on first launch, or on the “No workouts in Health yet” card. In settings, “Leave demo mode” deletes this data.

Contact

A question, a problem, an idea? Write to contact@amberday.app. If you can, include your iPhone model, your iOS version and your watch.

Amberday is published by AROBASE (Arobase Créations), in France. See the legal notice.