Actually one should think that the traffic light colors in myTRS are easy to understand. But if you go into more detail, it quickly becomes clear that there are some questions that need to be answered.
The traffic light colors: What do they mean for your workout planning with myTRS?
The colors displayed in the body chart or in the preview for today have the following meaning:
- Red: The muscle area is (still) heavily stressed and should not be trained on this day (exception: today’s day. Muscles are colored red immediately after the first set of the first exercise in today’s workout, but of course the muscles trained today can be loaded with several different exercises.)
- Yellow: The muscle area is (still) slightly stressed and should not be trained on this day (exception: today’s day – see above).
- Green: The muscle area is sufficiently recovered after the last training stimulus and can be loaded again. Training is recommended.
- Grey: The muscle area has never been trained before or a lot of time has passed since the last training stimulus. Training is recommended.
Already after a light set the muscle turns red?
You can’t believe that the trained muscle area is already displayed in red after a single light set? And that’s enough for today’s workout?
In this context, it is important to understand one thing very clearly: myTRS never tells you when you have done enough for a particular muscle group for today – it only shows you how long you should allow this area to recover after training. And for this purpose you indicate for each exercise with what intensity you have done it.
As far as intensity is concerned, you decide according to your own feelings: Was it a light, a normal or a heavy load? How many sets and which weights were involved in the game is individual and related to your current performance level: What was low intensity for you could mean high stress for someone else.
When do muscles become red?
Even the entry of a single low-intensity exercise will make the main muscle involved red, while supportive muscles may only turn yellow or even green because the load is very low. Figure 1 shows in the preview the colors after a light bench press: It can be seen that only the chest as the mainly involved muscle area turns red, while the front shoulder and the rear upper arm only turn yellow on the day of training and could therefore be loaded again the next day.
If the load of the same exercise changes to normal (medium) intensity, the assisting muscles are also displayed in red on the day of training: Also their load is now higher than at low intensity. Nevertheless: Both would be able to work again from the next day, while the chest as the mainly stressed part of the body now appears red for two days and yellow for one day. Figure 2 shows at a glance a preview of the coming days for the muscle parts involved.
Figure 3 shows at a glance that bench presses have now been trained with high intensity: Even the supporting muscles are now shown in red for one day and in yellow for one day, and the chest, as a primarily loaded muscle, should not be stressed again until the fourth day after today’s workout at the earliest.
In the preview for the next few days, the traffic light colors in myTRS show how the recovery process is going.
But why are exercises suggested for red areas?
If so, then this area only turned red in the course of today’s workout. You can easily check this by activating the corresponding filter on the body diagram page: Then today’s exercises will be ignored and you will see the state of your muscles as they were before today’s training.
But back to the question: Why are exercises suggested for red areas? Quite simple: Exactly today is the day for it. If you’ve been doing bench presses on your chest and it’s red, why shouldn’t you be allowed to do more chest exercises? Or other exercises in which the muscle part only plays a supporting role?
Actually, it’s quite simple: myTRS shows you what condition your muscles are in right now. And just because you’ve already stressed your muscles today, of course you don’t have to stop after the first exercise. Again: myTRS never tells you when you have done enough. You should listen to your body and decide for yourself.
Traffic light colors in myTRS: What happens if I train red or yellow areas?
The answer in a nutshell: Nothing.
And now for a little more detail:
myTRS never tries to take control of your behavior. So if you want to do heavy squats for the third day in a row: Go ahead! You yourself will have to live with the consequences, and the sore muscles could convince you not to do it this way next time. But anyway, the decision is up to you.
The best use of the web app myTRS is to be inspired by the suggestions. And if you think that a muscle part that is shown in red isn’t really under stress at all, then you can train it. myTRS will display a warning symbol, but nothing else happens – and nothing bad at all.
So red, yellow or green – it’s your game!
