How does Base decide I need a deload?

Primarily by counting fatigue signals rather than counting weeks. Two or more independent signals firing at once — depressed heart-rate variability, elevated resting heart rate, poor sleep, a recovery score below threshold — is the trigger. One signal is noise; two is a pattern. Week six acts as a backstop for when the signals get missed rather than as the primary rule.

What is the readiness banner on the Workout tab?

A row that appears only when it has something to say. It reads Primed, Steady, Under-recovered or Deload week, with a message explaining which signals fired. On a normal day it does not appear at all, because a banner that says Steady every day is furniture and furniture stops being read.

What actually changes when I am under-recovered?

Your RIR target backs off by about one rep. Under real fatigue the same bar sits further from failure than it feels, so holding the usual two reps in reserve on a compound turns into a missed set and a deload. Backing the target off keeps the session productive rather than turning it into a hole to climb out of.

Can I ignore a deload recommendation?

Yes. Base never blocks a session or changes your programme without you. The banner is information, and the decision is yours — it has no idea that your deadlift felt fine or that the poor sleep was one bad night rather than a trend.

Do I need a wearable for this to work?

For the recovery signals, yes — heart-rate variability, resting heart rate and sleep all come from your health store. Without them the banner falls back on what it can see, and it will state that rather than producing a readiness verdict from nothing.

When Base Tells You to Deload, and Why

The Workout tab. The readiness row sits above the day's session and appears only when there is something to act on — a banner reading "Steady" every day is furniture, and furniture stops being read.

Four states, and the app deliberately renders nothing on a normal day.

State	Means
Primed	Recovery signals above your baseline. A good day to push.
Steady	Normal. Not shown.
Under-recovered	Signals below baseline. RIR target backs off.
Deload week	Two or more signals firing, or the week-six backstop.

The two-signal rule

The signals are drawn from your own thirty-day baselines rather than population norms: heart-rate variability, resting heart rate, sleep, and the composite recovery score.

One signal is noise. Two is a pattern. A single bad night of sleep moves HRV and resting heart rate together and means very little. HRV depressed for four days while sleep is fine is a different claim, and so is HRV plus resting heart rate plus a poor week of sleep.

That is why the threshold is a count of independent signals rather than a threshold on any one of them.

Why not just count weeks

The 2024 survey work has athletes deloading every 5.6 ± 2.3 weeks on average. That average is useful and it is also, as a rule, worse than reading the signals — because the spread is enormous and the whole point of measuring recovery is to stop guessing.

So week six exists as a backstop. If the reactive trigger never fires — because you have no wearable, or because your signals are unusually stable — the calendar eventually says something. It is the floor, not the mechanism.

What changes when you are under-recovered

One thing, and it is smaller than people expect: the RIR target backs off by about a rep.

That sounds trivial and is not. Under real fatigue, the same bar sits further from failure than it feels. Holding the usual two reps in reserve on a heavy compound when you are genuinely under-recovered turns into a missed set — which triggers a 10% deload on that lift and costs a week rebuilding.

Backing the target off keeps the session productive instead of turning it into a hole.

Base does not rewrite your programme, cancel your session or reduce your sets. The prescription softens; the decision stays yours.

What a deload week should actually be

Base tells you when. It does not run it for you, and the honest reason is that the evidence on optimal deload structure is much weaker than the evidence that deloads help.

What is reasonably well supported:

Reduce volume rather than intensity, or reduce both moderately
Keep the movement patterns
Do not stop entirely for a week

For a hybrid athlete there is a second consideration that lifting-only advice misses: a lifting deload during a heavy running block is not much of a deload. Both halves draw on one recovery budget, which is the premise the whole app is built on. If the signals are firing during a big endurance week, the endurance volume is the more likely cause and the ramp rate is where to look.

When to ignore it

Freely, and with a specific reason.

The banner sees four numbers. It does not know you flew overnight, that you have a cold, that the low HRV followed a single glass of wine, or that you feel excellent and your warm-up sets moved well.

The failure mode worth avoiding is the opposite one: ignoring it every week because you always feel fine. Signals are useful precisely when they disagree with how you feel — feeling fine is what fatigue does until it does not.

Common mistakes

Reading one bad HRV reading as a deload signal. It is not, and Base does not treat it as one.

Waiting for the banner before ever deloading. No wearable means fewer signals. The week-six backstop exists for this.

Deloading by stopping. Reduce volume, keep the pattern.

Deloading the lifting while adding endurance volume. That is not a deload; it is a swap, and the recovery budget does not care which half spent it.

Treating Under-recovered as a rest day. It backs the RIR target off by a rep. It is a normal session, held slightly further from failure.

Assuming the signals cover everything. Illness, stress and travel move recovery in ways a wrist device sees only partially.

What to do next

Train through the next Under-recovered banner and rate your sets honestly. If the ratings come in a rep short of where you aimed, that is the signal agreeing with your body — and worth trusting the next time it fires.