Fitness & Sports

Training numbers and scoring systems. Pace and splits for runners, power zones and gear ratios for cyclists, one-rep-max estimates for lifters, and the statistics side of baseball, cricket, bowling, and golf handicapping.

One-rep max is the page that needs the biggest caveat, so it gets one on the page too. Every formula for it, Epley, Brzycki, Lombardi, is a curve fitted to averages, and they diverge badly above about eight reps. At three reps they agree within a couple of percent. At twelve they can be 15% apart, which is the difference between a hard set and an injury. Use low-rep inputs, and treat the output as a training number rather than something to attempt.

Calories burned uses MET values from the Compendium of Physical Activities, the same reference the research literature uses. Worth knowing that those figures carry real individual variation, easily 20% either side, because they are population averages applied to one person. Useful for comparing activities against each other. Much less useful as a budget to eat back.

Sport statistics pages follow the governing body’s published formula rather than a simplified version. Golf handicapping uses the World Handicap System calculation, which is not the old one, and Duckworth-Lewis-Stern for cricket follows the published tables.