QFit in Action

Getting to Know You

QFit simplifies and standardizes the data collection during athlete onboarding

Physical Assessment

Athletes complete a series of baseline tests based on their goals

Range of Motion

Accurately assess joint mobility and functional movement capabilities

1 Rep Max

Determine strength and power baselines

Wear & Tear

Gather injury data for a specific muscle or joint

Fatigue Characteristics

Typical activity patterns are characterized and converted into appropriate starting conditions

Short-Term Recovery

Determine the athlete’s ability to recover from short intensive exercises

QFit creates a personalized training profile for each athlete

QFit matches athlete profiles to preexisting workout plans, then optimizes the plans to create the best workout plan

Customize plans, exercises, sets and reps while monitoring the impact using QFit’s key metrics

Metric Driven Program Optimization

Key metrics including muscle strain, workload and intensity are quantified after each training session. Visualizations of these metrics over time provide insights into training load, fatigue, and recovery needs, enabling you to spot trends and make informed program adjustments.

The Mechanical Energy Generated (MEG) looks at the totality of the work done during a workout. It takes body weight and external weight into equation and the distance that the body or external weight was moved. It describes in a simple number the volume of work that was done during a workout. Using this number makes completely different workout plans comparable. If group sessions are conducted with different group members using different workout plans, this allows both the coach and the athlete to compare the work done. Similar to looking at tonnage as a metric to describe volume, MEG adds the distance aspect and therefore normalizes the out for athletes with different heights. It is also a great metric to use when planning workouts for an entire week and allowing for lighter and heavier days. QFit recommends that a peak performance day is followed by a day that has a 30% reduced workout volume. Tracking this over time, should result in higher volumes to be achieved. Finally, it allows athletes to be categorized more easily when looking at the kcal numbers on any given day regardless of the program type. In this example, we are looking at the MEG numbers over time and apply an automatic trendline that helps us understand if the athlete is increasing or decreasing his workout volume.

Whenever we do something for the first time, it tends to be hard, the more often we do the same task, the easier it gets. As we typically perform a workout plan multiple times over a period of several weeks, it is easy enough to use the Metabolic Efficiency Percentage (MEP) as a means to track how well we have become adapted to a specific bundle of exercises. When MEP goes up as we become more adapted to a workout, we can use this as an indicator to step up the workout volume by increasing the weight that is used but not the reps. MEP, however, is subject to other daily parameters, such as the athlete’s stress level or –recovery. As such we need to look more so at trends rather than specific numbers on any given day. If we have an entire week’s worth of data, we can average through unique outliers and get an overall good read of the athlete’s development.
It should be noted here that metabolic efficiency does require the measurement of the athlete’s heart rate (HR) over the course of the workout. Qfit works with a number of devices that are compatible and that can be synced with the workout plan in order to present data for the entire workout but also for specific exercises.
In this example, we have tracked a 5 day workout plan that was repeated in a second week and we can tell that the athlete is experiencing increasing adaptation week over week as depicted by the upwards pointing trendline.

Every workout consists of two different intensity categories: Time under Tension (TuT) and Recovery Time (RT). Heavy activity with significant Force*TuT volume require RT period that are often 10 times longer than the TuT. While the whole body requires recovery from any given exercise, the specific musculature involved in a set will demand more downtime than musculatures that were not activated. Therefore, it can be tempting to mix upper and lower body exercises in order to super-set exercises calling on the triceps and shoulder with routines that stimulate the hamstring and calf muscles. However, while a plan can be designed to achieve a very high MEG and WIM, this approach may not be desirable as we don’t reach ample volumes for each and every musculature of importance to us. The workout plan designer has to keep that in mind and balance a focus on a specific musculature for one day with a subsequent recovery of two days before the next workout targeting that musculature vs. an approach where all muscle groups are being targeted every day.
The Workout Efficiency Percentage (WEP) is defined as the ratio of TuT over the total time of the workout. Higher percentages are better but not always achievable as the workout plan designer balances higher weights and lower reps. When comparing workout plans for quality, both parameters should be taken into consideration: WIM and WEP. Both of them should be maximized without compromising recovery time.
In this example, the WEP of different workouts are compared over a two-week period and it can be seen that the numbers trend up during the second week. This implies that the athlete is benefitting from greater adaptation and is able to minimize recovery times while slowly increasing TuT.

Workout Intensity Metric (WIM) as a relevant metric for strength training has been established above. Naturally, Workout Intensity, as is the case with Mechanical Energy Generated (MEG) / Workout Volume causes fatigue which accumulates over time and additional exercise. As a general rule of thumb, it typically takes 4-5 days of rest to fully recover from an intense workout. As fatigue accumulates and ultimately reaches a certain level, the athlete’s performance will stagnate. When that happens, a significant change has to be introduced to the workout regime in order to help the body recover faster and get to a place where it can further build strength. One of those significant changes is sometimes referred to as ‘deloading’. QFit calculates a Cumulative Workout Intensity, applies a personalized recovery score and predicts how fatigue will develop. When tracking the actual WIM scores, athlete and trainer can quickly identify the personalized Fatigue threshold which is equivalent with performance stagnation.
Using the trendline option in the Fatigue graph allows the prediction of performance trajectories properly and is particularly relevant as athletes prepare for competition. However, it also allows for the quickest pursuit of the athlete’s goals.
It is important to note that every athlete is different, and trends, thresholds and boundaries have to be determined as trainer and athlete work together. QFit will provide the tooling to make this process easy and rewarding.

Every athlete that pursues his or her athletic goals seriously has at some point dealt with injury. Planning workouts must take injury history into account. QFit addresses this during the onboarding process with a number of queries related to the anamnesis of the athlete. It only makes sense that the use of the impacted body part whether a musculature or a joint is being monitored. QFit offers a solution for this whereby a joint, such as the knee or the hip are being monitored for their loads over time and both, peak values per workout as well as cumulative figures are calculated, and the coach is being alarmed if excessive levels are programmed. The workout plan can be adjusted accordingly.
Initial start values are determined using historical information. Over time, more accurate data will be collected, and threshold definitions will become more accurate.

Training for strength and training for power can be similar by resorting to many of the same exercises. While strength ultimately leads to greater muscular force output capacity, power takes speed into account. In fact, smaller force numbers can still create larger power output when achieved with appropriately greater speed. Looking at power numbers means that trainers and athletes can properly assess the workout results using the metric that directly correlates with the goal of the athlete. Of course, when talking about different exercises through the actual skeletal geometries each musculature produces different force output and does it at different velocities. Therefore, QFit offers the ability to track power numbers by supported musculature. It is helpful to include different exercises into different workout plans for different days calling on the same muscle group and comparing the power numbers to understand what other conditions may affect the athlete.

At this point, QFit is designed to work without external sensors and for that reason, the power numbers used are based upon programmed/ mandated times per rep. It can be expected that the athlete will tire over the length of a set and therefore the avg. velocity and power per set will decrease, we will assume that the Avg Rep Power number (ARP) is one that the athlete achieves early on in any given set.
In this example, we display the ARP per musculature. The workout plan should be optimized for WIM and WEP in general for the primary and secondary musculature of interest.

Workout Intensity is a metric (WIM) that is critical to growing muscle mass or hypertrophy. It most directly correlates with the amount of muscle mass. The basis for its relevance lies in the fact that it does take into account that muscles that are asked to simply hold a weight are not generating mechanical energy, yet everyone that has ever done a plank knows that holding a position while fighting gravity can be hard. Looking at time under tension (TuT) and considering the forces/weights involved offers the ultimate metric of Force*TuT. When deciding on pursuing strength gains as a goal, the WIM figure for any given workout plan should be maximized in order to make the workout most effective. One can change the actual exercises used in the plan or the recovery times between sets or the reps or the tempo mandates used in order to develop greater WIM. However, minimizing recovery times will lead to faster exertion and an athlete might not be able to complete the set. QFit actually supports this process by obtaining recovery and strength information during the on-boarding process and from time to time, in order to set thresholds that allow the athlete to complete the workout. Long term fatigue and Wear & Tear Metrics have to be considered as well in order to plan a bundle of workouts for an extended period of time that will result the athlete meeting his or her goals.
Similar to the Mechanical Energy Generated (MEG) metric we can use WIM as a comparative measure for different workout plans and specifically when pursuing strength goals WIM is the more appropriate parameter to use.

QFit takes advantage of radar plot views of your global goals. It then provides guidance to the workout plan designer when compiling one or multiple workout plans in support of those goals. When the goals are combined with the time commitments, injury related limitations and other aspects such as equipment availability, real world factors introduce limitations which results into actual workout plan, but results are not being able to perfectly match the goals. QFit offers a way to visualize how well a plan matches your goals. It also clarifies which specific goal areas are compromised. This is used as the basis for the dialogue between workout plan designer/ trainer and athlete and may result in a greater time commitment made by the athlete, different equipment being procured or acceptance of an injury impact on progress.

While power output has been described above, it is the ratio of work or energy divided by the time it took to generate the work or energy. It consists of two parts the generated force and the achieved velocity. Assuming that athletes have maximum force outputs that combined with their maximum movement velocity will yield their maximum power numbers. In general, it is easier to separate the development of force output from increasing velocity capability. In fact, very often pursuing greater force output (strength goal) will lead to diminished velocities. If maximum power is the ultimate goal, both of those parameters, force and velocity have to be monitored to avoid regression.
When designing workout plans for athletes with power goals, operating in the right velocity category (i.e., > 1m/sec) is important. However, the plans have to be managed such that the conflict of increasing weights while maintaining or increasing speeds is achieved.

A Glimpse into QFit

Enter your athlete info and log workout details. QFit's algorithm generates personalized fitness metrics for your next workout.

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