UNDERBARK

Why Activity Score and recovery can look different

Activity Score and recovery use different records and answer different questions. Neither result gives permission to train or predicts injury.

Why two results can look different

Recovery summarizes available sleep and overnight health context. Activity Score describes today's recorded activity compared with a typical recorded day. They use different records and answer different questions, so they do not need to move together.

Two results from the same day can therefore look as though they disagree. They are not competing descriptions of one thing. Each preserves a different part of the available record, over a different period, and each leaves parts of your day outside the result.

What recovery summarizes

Recovery starts with the overnight records available from a supported device and Apple Health. Depending on what was recorded, they can include sleep, heart rate, heart-rate variability, and breathing rate. The result is limited to those available records, not a complete account of how you are doing. Temperature readings can be shown alongside your night and do not change the score.

Underbark calls its summary a Recovery Score. It compares available readings with your recent personal history, what is typical for you based on earlier records. That comparison is a personal baseline. An individual reading without a baseline does not contribute. An early baseline can contribute while the app is still calibrating.

If no input can contribute, the current app can display 0, Calibrating. This is a software calibration state, not a physiological zero or an adverse health finding. It means the app does not yet have a usable scored input.

The score is an interpretation of available overnight context. It is not a direct measurement of fitness, performance, or what your body can do. The guide to what a Recovery Score can tell you explains that boundary in more detail, and the guide to heart-rate variability and personal baselines explains how earlier records add context.

What Activity Score summarizes

Activity Score begins with recorded activity. It describes today's active energy and exercise time compared with a typical recorded day from your own history. That is a different question from what overnight sleep and health records can summarize. When history is incomplete, the result can remain unavailable rather than guessing from a short record.

Underbark calls this result Activity Score. It uses a 0 to 20 scale, where 10 represents a typical recorded day for that person. The app checks that enough recent and earlier days were recorded before it shows the score. Those days are a data-availability gate, not a second recent-period score and not instructions about how much activity a person ought to do.

Activity Score describes what was recorded today in relation to your earlier activity record. It does not measure overnight recovery, identify why activity changed, or complete an activity record that was never captured.

If activity is recorded by more than one device or app, the current version does not combine every source into a complete total. Its activity history may therefore be incomplete.

Why the values can differ

Recovery and Activity Score answer different questions. Recovery can change with the sleep and overnight health records that are available, while Activity Score can change with today's recorded activity. A change in one record does not establish the cause of a change in the other.

A result is also not a complete story about your day. Sleep and overnight readings can be incomplete, and activity can be missing or partial. Your experience, circumstances, and details outside the available record still matter even when an app result is displayed. A displayed result does not predict injury from those records.

The same day can show different combinations

  • Higher recovery context with higher Activity Score can appear when the overnight record and today's activity record each produce their own summary.
  • Higher recovery context with lower Activity Score can appear when the available overnight context differs from the amount of today's activity in the record.
  • Lower recovery context with higher Activity Score can appear because the two summaries use separate sets of records over separate periods.
  • Lower recovery context with lower Activity Score can appear when both summaries reflect their respective available records without one result determining the other.

These combinations describe separate summaries, not a verdict about a person. They do not explain what caused the records or predict what will happen next.

When a result looks unexpected

Check the record before assigning a meaning to a change. Device wear, charge, Health permissions, whether the device or app supports the relevant information, and whether it recorded enough information can all affect what reaches Underbark. Recent activity history also needs to be present before an activity comparison can appear.

A missing reading is not a physiological zero and does not prove that nothing happened. It does not prove that no activity, sleep, or overnight change occurred either. Underbark does not reconstruct an unavailable part of the record. A displayed 0, Calibrating is the software state described above, not proof of a zero health reading.

If the available record still seems unclear, the Underbark support page can help explain what the app displays. It cannot supply a missing record or interpret a health concern.

Keep both results in proportion

Questions can keep the results in their proper context:

  • Which result changed?
  • Were the expected records available?
  • Is this one day or a repeated pattern?
  • How do you actually feel?
  • Is pain, illness, or another concern present?

Pain, symptoms, professional advice, and your own judgment take priority over app context. For health or exercise-safety concerns, seek advice from an appropriately qualified health professional.

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