Acute Chronic Workload
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Acute workload is typically your training load over the most recent 7 days, while chronic workload is a longer rolling average, commonly 28 days, representing your established fitness base. Comparing the two shows whether recent training is a sharp spike or a normal continuation of your training pattern.

The ACWR is acute workload divided by chronic workload, so a ratio of 1.0 means recent training matches your established average, while a ratio above 1.5 means you've recently trained substantially harder than your body has adapted to, which research associates with elevated injury risk.

Much of the sports science literature points to roughly 0.8 to 1.3 as a lower-risk range, sometimes called the 'sweet spot,' with risk climbing notably above 1.5. However, these thresholds come from population-level studies and shouldn't be treated as precise individual cutoffs.

Load can be measured multiple ways: simple duration or distance, session RPE (rate of perceived exertion multiplied by session length), or more sophisticated measures like TRIMP. The specific load metric matters less than being consistent in how you measure it week to week for a meaningful ratio.

Not necessarily, since a low ratio can also reflect appropriate tapering or planned recovery, which are healthy parts of a training cycle rather than problems to fix. The ratio is best interpreted alongside context like where you are in a training plan, not as a number to constantly maximize.