August 31st, 2025 | Lawrence, KS
Competitive sporting events demonstrate athletic prowess, but also a culmination of many other factors. Culture, training philosophy, strategy, management of sport and athlete, the psyche, nutrition and recovery, as well as several other factors play a considerable role in fitness, fatigue, and optimal athletic performance.
The acute to chronic workload ratio has been developed to compare acute (typically 7-days; fitness) to chronic (typically 28-days; fatigue) workloads in an effort to monitor workloads, improve training periodization, and of course ensure that athletes are in the best position to perform their best.
Practically, this seems to work across sport and competitive. However, there is an obvious limitation. The traditional model is only valid after 28-days. This means that 28-days of athlete monitoring are needed to determine the ratio between fitness and fatigue. One-month in sport can be a very long time from a physical, technical, and tactical development standpoint. Perhaps alternative approaches to these models would be better suited for the sporting world where time is invaluable.
QJF and TCA posits that perhaps, a 4:16 or 5:20 workload ratio may be better suited. Has anyone had any experience with this?
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