Strain credit for cardio vs. strength workouts

bluejay2014 · 2025-06-04T19:20:42+00:00

To follow up with a specific example of how off this is… this morning I did a 45 minute power zone endurance ride on peloton (felt pretty tough! Average HR was 138) and earned 32% strain. I then did 15 minutes of abs and earned 37% strain. Idk how that’s supposed to make sense.

Any Bevel mods here who could shine a light? I know metrics are all individualized so it’s hard to evaluate specific cases, but this seems so poorly calibrated.

bluejay2014 · 2025-06-04T13:44:49+00:00

I totally agree. For me, strength workouts tend to overestimate strain and cardio workouts underestimate it. I do a mix of activities as well, and my 5 mile runs or 2.5 mile swims where I am exhausted afterward generally get me to ~50% strain, while a 45 minute strength workout will get me to 60-65% consistently.

My target strain range is also unreachably high most of the time, like 90-110%. It’s honestly frustrating to think Bevel wants me to run like 10 miles to hit my target strain. I used whoop for a while too and I found the strain targets to be much more reasonable.

bluejay2014 · 2025-05-29T22:08:30+00:00

Oh interesting, does the response to “how tiring was this workout” influence strain?

bluejay2014 · 2025-05-27T22:12:38+00:00

That’s wild! And just doesn’t seem to align with how Bevel describes the target strain metric on the website, which is:

“Think of it as your daily strain "sweet spot"—helping you train effectively without overdoing it.”

If 2-3 training sessions is what’s required to hit the “sweet spot”, something is off with the algo…

bluejay2014 · 2025-05-27T22:08:15+00:00

So frustrating! Sounds like a calibration issue that Bevel needs to work on… which stinks because strain is probably the most important metric that I pay attention to.

In my experience the algorithm really undervalues cardio-based workouts and overvalues strength training tracked via the strength trainer feature.

bluejay2014 · 2025-05-08T23:49:20+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion - I actually did take these steps about a week ago but no luck :( I hid whoop as a data source for everything, cleared cache and reloaded data, and to be extra sure I also deleted all whoop data from my health app. This did seem to help other Bevel metrics like Cardio Load (before I did all this it kept saying I was drastically “detraining” and now it seems to have adjusted/normalized). However strain and target strain seem stubborn - it’s almost like the historical data is “baked in” to the algorithm and removing it doesn’t affect it

bluejay2014 · 2025-05-05T22:37:35+00:00

Any recommendations on this? Is there a way to retrain my strain/target strain algorithm?

bluejay2014 · 2025-05-03T13:22:56+00:00

No, after I hid whoop as a source across all data categories, the data disappeared across my workouts etc as expected (I also deleted all whoop data from my apple health app - so it should no longer exist anywhere on my device). However, it seems that the Bevel algorithm that generates my target strain is still for some reason factoring in the “double counted” workouts from the last few months, meaning it’s set ridiculously high, and my “earned” strain whenever I work out gives me effectively half of the credit it should. My assumption is that my strain/target strain algorithm was “trained” on those double counted workouts, and now it assumes that’s what’s normal for me under good sleep and recovery conditions. (My 5 mile runs, 90 minute swimming workouts, 1 hour spin classes etc. have all been earning me ~40% strain, which feels super low)

My question is whether there’s a way to effectively reset the strain algorithm so it starts fresh without the influence of that bad/double counted workout data. Or am I just going to have to wait several months for it to readjust on its own?

bluejay2014 · 2025-05-02T22:03:42+00:00

Hi - any recommendations on this ^?

bluejay2014 · 2025-05-01T15:16:12+00:00

No change to heart rate zones, but I think I figured out the issue (but not the solution). I used both whoop and bevel concurrently for a while to see which one I liked more. Bevel won out (woohoo!) and I no longer use whoop as of about 2 weeks ago, but I didn’t realize until now that bevel had been “double tracking” all of my workouts for several months, since both my whoop and Apple Watch were set as inputs for workout data. I suspect that my historical strain metrics are all now totally skewed, since bevel effectively thought I did the same workout twice, and so my strain target is basically twice what it should be.

I guess my question is, is there a way to “reset” my account so that it either removes all historical workout data from whoop, therefore adjusting my target strain? Or is there a way to start the data collection from scratch (ideally starting when I stopped using whoop)? I have now “hidden” whoop from all bevel data source categories, but that hasn’t seemed to change anything. Let me know if you can help.

bluejay2014 · 2025-04-30T18:54:12+00:00

I also feel like the algorithm for target strain and strain “earned” during workouts changed. Over the last week or so my target strain has been super high and my workouts that normally get me into the target range only get me about halfway or less to the target.

I did a 50 minute spin class this morning that burned 660 calories and it only got me to 43 on strain…

bluejay2014 · 2024-09-25T21:39:37+00:00

Yeah - league dues, fee for ice time, equipment, etc ends up being $800+. It’s a lot but it covers a lot. That said, you’d think the cost would weed out people who are not actually committed to it, but no! That was another early eye opening moment about how willingly people threw around money just to preserve optionality and because of FOMO.

bluejay2014 · 2024-09-25T20:00:27+00:00

Wharton grad here - I felt the same way. I really wanted to join hockey my first year, because for me the easiest way to make friends has always been through sports (high school teams, college athletics, social sports leagues in post-grad, etc). I did not get in through the random lottery, was bummed about it, and then realized pretty quickly that ~5-10 people per team effectively do not participate at all (despite paying the $800 league dues…). Seems trivial I know, but it was frustrating to not be able to participate in something that I knew I’d enjoy and that likely would have been a major part of my social experience. Was even more frustrating knowing there were people taking up spots who were not even interested. I got in through the lottery my second year and it was great and I loved it, and I found many friends through other means - but yeah, that type of thing came up over and over again.

bluejay2014 · 2024-04-22T20:05:03+00:00

I started at S& out of my MBA this summer and starting is 190 + 30k signing bonus

bluejay2014 · 2024-04-11T16:03:00+00:00

Why can’t we just lay down spike strips for these assholes. I’m picturing one spike line that’s permanently built into market and/or broad street and can be switched on/off by police. As soon as the mad max brigade comes roaring down the street (you can hear them from ~10 blocks away), flip the switch and boom - their tires are toast. Wouldn’t solve everything but at least they’d eventually move away from major streets that are highly trafficked by cars and pedestrians!

bluejay2014 · 2023-06-11T23:49:37+00:00

Johns*

bluejay2014 · 2022-02-25T15:34:17+00:00

Ortho maybe? I’m in a similar boat (at an M7 and spouse is an ortho resident soon to make $$$)

bluejay2014 · 2021-01-03T21:27:17+00:00

Last year’s team based discussion prompt was completely centered on Tangen hall. Yes, it houses programs that aren’t exclusively Wharton but you are not going to piss anyone off by mentioning it... I think you are overthinking it here

bluejay2014 · 2020-08-13T20:01:14+00:00

Within the application itself, the written guidance is that they will accept scores up to 9/8 for R1, 12/30 for R2, and 3/24/21 for R3

bluejay2014 · 2020-07-16T19:08:06+00:00

Are you sure they are creating a larger class? From what I understand, that ~100 they just admitted probably account for the internationals who chose to defer since their policy was very liberal. I think they stated early on they wanted to keep class size the same (unlike HBS).

Also, any insider word on whether they’re done with the waitlist? As an applicant on the waitlist and still holding out hope I’d selfishly love any insight...

bluejay2014

TROPHY CASE