A fighter readiness score is a single number, usually on a 0–100 scale, that summarises how recovered and prepared an athlete is to train hard on a given day. It blends a handful of daily inputs — sleep, muscle soreness, mood, resting heart rate and the previous day's training load — into one figure a coach can read at a glance. The point of the score is decision-making: a high number means push, a middling one means proceed with caution, and a low one means hold back or rest before fatigue turns into injury or a flat performance on fight night.
That's the definition. The rest of this article is the practical part: what each input actually measures, a simple weighting you can compute with pen and paper, where to set red/amber/green cut-offs, and exactly what to do when a fighter logs two red mornings in a row. None of this requires software — though it gets a lot easier once the arithmetic is automated.
Why a Single Number Beats Eyeballing It
Every coach already judges readiness informally. You watch how a fighter moves on the bag, how they talk in the warm-up, whether their feet are heavy. The problem with eyeballing it is that the gym actively hides fatigue — adrenaline and competitive pride mask a lot, and by the time it shows in sparring you've lost a week of lead time. A readiness score forces the assessment to happen before training, in the calm of the morning, on consistent inputs you can trend over time.
It also makes the call objective and explainable. "You're at 48 this morning, down from 81 on Friday, so we're doing technical work only" is a conversation a fighter accepts. "You look tired" is one they argue with. The number isn't smarter than you — it just makes your judgement repeatable and harder to override with ego.
The Five Inputs
A solid readiness score doesn't need a lab. Five inputs, collected in two minutes each morning before training, cover the great majority of what matters.
A Pen-and-Paper Weighting You Can Use Today
Here's a simple 0–100 model a coach can compute by hand. Each input is scored within its own band and the bands add to 100. You don't need to be precise to the decimal — readiness is a trend tool, not a lab assay.
| Input | Weight | What full marks looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Sleep | 25 | 7.5–9 hrs, woke rested |
| Resting HR | 20 | At or below personal baseline |
| Soreness | 20 | Fresh, no whole-body heaviness |
| Previous load | 20 | Rest or light day yesterday |
| Mood | 15 | Keen and motivated to train |
Add the five and you have a number out of 100. Worked example: a fighter logs 6 hours of poor sleep (12/25), resting HR +6 bpm over baseline (8/20), moderate soreness (12/20), a hard session yesterday (9/20) and decent motivation (12/15). That's 53 — amber bordering on red. Eyeballing it, they might have insisted they were fine. The number says cap the intensity today.
Red, Amber, Green Thresholds
A single number is only useful if it maps to an action. The simplest, most usable mapping is a traffic-light system:
| Band | Score | Default action |
|---|---|---|
| Green | 75–100 | Train as planned — push if the plan calls for it |
| Amber | 55–74 | Proceed, but cap intensity or volume; skip max-effort work |
| Red | 0–54 | Cut load hard or rest; technical/movement work only |
Calibrate these to each fighter over two to three weeks. Some athletes simply run lower on the scale and perform fine; a flat 60 for one fighter might be their normal green, while for another it's a genuine warning. The bands are a starting point you tune, not a verdict you obey blindly.
What to Do After Two Consecutive Red Mornings
One red morning is often noise — a bad night's sleep, a stressful day, a single hard session. Two reds in a row is a pattern, and it's the moment to act rather than hope it passes.
The fighters who peak on the right day aren't the ones who trained hardest in the final fortnight. They're the ones whose coach had a number, watched it trend, and had the discipline to pull back when it dropped — even when the fighter swore they were fine. A readiness score is just the tool that makes that discipline repeatable across a whole roster.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a fighter readiness score? A fighter readiness score is a single number, usually on a 0–100 scale, that summarises how recovered and prepared an athlete is to train hard on a given day. It combines daily inputs like sleep, muscle soreness, mood, resting heart rate and the previous day's training load into one figure a coach can read at a glance to decide whether to push, hold or rest that fighter.
How do you calculate a readiness score by hand? Score five inputs each morning — sleep, soreness, mood, resting heart rate versus baseline, and yesterday's load — then weight them (for example 25% sleep, 20% resting HR, 20% soreness, 20% load, 15% mood) and add them to a single 0–100 figure. It takes under two minutes per fighter once you have each athlete's baseline resting heart rate.
What are good red, amber and green readiness thresholds? A common starting point is green at 75 and above (train as planned), amber between 55 and 74 (proceed but cap intensity or volume), and red below 55 (reduce load hard or rest). Calibrate the cut-offs to each athlete over two to three weeks, because a number that's low for one fighter may be normal for another.
What should a coach do after two consecutive red mornings? Two red mornings in a row is a signal, not noise. Insert a genuine rest or very light day, talk to the fighter about sleep, stress and soreness, and review accumulated camp load. If a third red follows despite reduced training, treat it as overreaching and deload for several days rather than pushing through.