Sleep, resting heart rate, and readiness: the numbers that matter
Readiness isn't a magic score. It's sleep-derived resting heart rate and a trend — and knowing what it can't tell you is part of using it well.
Every fitness app has a readiness score now. Most of them are proprietary black boxes with a single confident number. The honest version is simpler and, honestly, more useful.
The signal: sleep-derived resting heart rate
Your resting heart rate — read during sleep, not a single daytime check — is a real, defensible signal. When it's trending at your normal level, your body is in a familiar place. When the baseline climbs night over night, something is off: too little sleep, too much play, or a body asking for rest.
What we add: last-played awareness
Recovery isn't just about tonight's sleep. How recently and how hard you last played matters. Back-to-back games and high-intensity nights should count — and in Over The Boards, they do. It's a heads-up, not a diagnosis.
What readiness can't tell you
Readiness from a wrist can't tell you about illness, hydration, or the 40 other factors a sports scientist would measure. Pretending a single number captures all of it is the competitor's move.
Three states, plainly stated
We keep it to three honest states — ready, partially ready, rest — with the confidence behind them. When the data is too thin to say anything (new user, missed sleep tracking), the app says exactly that instead of inventing a number.