How to Track Your Training Progress with the Traffic Light System
Understanding when to push hard and when to back off in your training isn't just about numbers – it's about combining how you feel with how you're performing.
Why Track Anything Besides Performance?
Your body is complex and no single metric tells the whole story. By tracking significant areas of your life in addition to objective performance, you can:
- Prevent overtraining before it happens
- Adapt training to match the demands of the rest of your life - training around your life rather than in spite of it.
- Identify when you're ready for breakthrough performances
- Build confidence in your training decisions
- Understand your body's patterns and responses to training
Understanding Training Readiness: A Three-Dimensional Approach
Good training tools usually include an ability to record metrics and some wearables will also track these and give you some training advice. Our experience of these AI tools is that they are limited. Training decisions require understanding the complex interaction between three key areas: training metrics, work/life balance, and wellbeing and how they change over time.
At Endurance Bike and Run we have developed a Traffic Light System which uses a mixture of AI tools and the athletes personal assessment to better identify when you are ready to train and when you might need to back off.
The Three Key Areas
The three key areas we track are Training, Work/Life Balance and Well Being; each area is assessed as either Green, Yellow or Red on a daily basis and then an overall 'colour' is given for the day.
Whilst AI tools can look at this data objectively we then add the 'human touch' by personalising the parameters to the individual so that we can account for your personality, individual areas of risk and your personal strengths.
Implementing the system requires working knowledge of your training and personal history as well as ongoing completion of the weekly reports so your Traffic Light System becomes a live document, always changing and developing as you get better and better at managing the balance between work, life, well-being and your training.
Using this system we can then make decisions about training AND help you implement changes in the other areas of your life to create the optimum training environment for you.
The table below shows an example personalised triggers in each areas:
| Training | Work/Life | Well-Being | |
| 🟢 GREEN Indicators |
- IF 0.60-0.70 for endurance rides - Sessions consistently completed as planned - Notable fitness gains are being made within expected time. |
- Clear boundaries between work and life - leaving work on time/arriving on time; maintaining 37.5 hour working week. - Tasks at work and at home feel manageable - Good energy for work and family time - Balanced commitments between work and home |
- Good sleep including consistently 1.5 hours of deep sleep per night and 8 hours of sleep per night overall - Feeling happy and positive about the future - No anxiety symptoms - Low anxiety |
| 🟡 YELLOW Indicators |
- IF below 0.60 for endurance sessions - Sessions RPE consistently exceeding IF - Some missed/incomplete sessions (3+ in one week) |
- Boundaries between work and home blurring - late home 2+ times in one week; late to work 2+ times in one week. - Tasks at home and work becoming more demanding demanding - Time pressure increasing - Training guilt emerging |
- Sleep declining - reduced sleep quality with less deep sleep and less hours sleep per night (less than 7 hours in total less than 1.5 hours deep sleep) - Mood level drops - increased anxiety, feeling anxious/depressed about the future. - Mild stress symptoms - grumpiness, chest pain, headaches 2 + times in one week. - Stress rising and temptations to maladaptive coping - increased caffein intake for e.g. |
| 🔴 RED Indicators |
- IF below 0.55 for endurance sessions - Unable to complete multiple sessions (3+) in one week - RPE consistently above completed IF (3+ sessions in one week) - Poor recovery - 48+ hours needed for harder sessions; unusual muscle fatigue/soreness/ fatigue from harder sessions carried into endurance 3+ days later. |
- Boundaries broken (late home 4+ times in one week, late to work 4+ times in one). - Tasks at home and work are overwhelming; multiple missed deadlines, day to day routines collapsed (e.g. take out needed 2 + times in one week as unable to prepare meals). - High time pressure - late to events at home and work. - Multiple training conflicts |
- Poor sleep - less than 6 hours per night in total on consecutive nights with less than 1 hour in deep sleep per night. - Physical symptoms present on multiple days (chest pain, grumpiness, tearfulness) - High anxiety - unable to focus - No positive triggers and reverting to maladaptive coping (e.g. drinking too much caffein, using alcohol to get to sleep). |
Daily Assessment Protocol
1. Check all three areas independently
2. Note status of each (🟢/🟡/🔴)
3. Consider interactions
4. Assess combined impact
5. Make training decision
6. Record response and outcomes
Understanding the Interactions
Life can change very quickly from green to red and vice versa and having one area of your life in yellow/red doesn't necessarily mean that you need to stop training or change much about it at all; it's about being able to interpret the interactions between the various areas of your life and adapt them appropriate to you and your capacity.
Identifying positive actions to take when you are in red or yellow might mean that you can quickly get back to a green status and carry on as planned, which is the great advantage of this kind of tracking system.
Making Training Decisions
Having a weekly structure which stays more or less the same week on week will help you notice other changes. Our system helps you select what days you want to be hard and what days you want to be easy/strength based. Thinking about this carefully so you have adequate recovery between your hard sessions is a key to maintaining a good training routine. If you also plan easier blocks (e.g. every third or fourth week) this will help keep things on track without you having to react quickly because everything is in red. A good structure to follow is as follows:
- Monday: Strength
- Tuesday: Easy
- Wednesday: Easy
- Thursday: Endurance pace
- Friday: Strength
- Saturday: Hard
- Sunday: Endurance pace
You can then modify the structure based on how many red/yellow or green areas you see day by day and week on week.
Success Metrics
As you continue to fill in the document you will quickly see areas of success and areas of weakness. If you have made good notes, you will also be able to identify triggers which bring you down from green and positive actions than bring back from red/yellow into green in all three areas.
As you get better and better at managing your training in the context of the other key areas you should see more and more green blocks on your spreadsheet and quick returns to green from red/yellow.
Key Principles
1. All three areas affect training capacity
2. Weakness in one area impacts the others
3. Recovery needs increase with any yellow/red
4. Prevention better than cure
5. Sustainability requires balance in all areas
Remember: Success comes from understanding and respecting the interaction between training capacity, work/life balance, and wellbeing. No single area operates in isolation.
Long-term Progress Tracking
In order to track how you are doing it's a good idea to set aside time for reviews. These could be as frequent as every week if you are currently in red and then as your life and your management of key areas improves you might need only to review once a month or once a quarter.
Reviewing the information you put in your spreadsheet will help you keep on track with your training goals and how they relate to your other life goals.
Monthly Reviews might include analysis of the following:
- Overall energy trends
- Performance progression
- Recovery patterns
- Sleep quality average
- Training consistency
- Goal achievement
Quarterly assessments mgiht include reviewing:
- Major performance improvements (e.g. Time Trial results/race results/PB's)
- Injury patterns or concerns
- Training block effectiveness (e.g. Max 5 minute power progress/FTP increase)
- Goal alignment and adjustments
- Lifestyle factors impact
Conclusion
The art of training lies in balancing how you feel with what the numbers tell you. By tracking both subjective and objective metrics, you can develop a deeper understanding of your body's responses to training. This awareness helps you make better decisions about when to push and when to recover, leading to more consistent progress and fewer setbacks.
Remember:
- No single metric tells the whole story
- Learn to trust both feelings and data
- Be patient with the process
- Adjust based on patterns, not single days
- Keep detailed records for future reference
With practice, you'll develop an intuitive yet informed approach to training that helps you optimize your progress while minimizing the risk of overtraining or injury.
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