What to Log for Cardio

Cardio logging spans more fields than strength because intensity can be expressed several ways. The full menu:

• Duration — total time; the backbone metric and the basis of weekly volume.
• Distance — from GPS or a calibrated machine (see gps-distance).
• Pace / speed — time per distance (min/km, min/mile) or distance per time (see cardio-pace).
• Heart rate — average and max (see heart-rate-logging).
• Time-in-zone — minutes spent in each HR (or power) zone (see time-in-zone).
• Power — watts and FTP for cycling/rowing/running power (see power-ftp).
• RPE — perceived effort, the intensity field that needs no device (see cardio-rpe).
• Cadence — steps/min running, rpm cycling, strokes/min rowing/swimming (see cadence).
• Elevation — gain/loss, which reframes how hard a given pace really was (see elevation-gain).

Log only what your goal uses. A general-health walker needs duration and maybe steps; a cyclist chasing FTP needs power and time-in-zone; a marathoner needs pace, HR, and weekly distance volume. The session intensity should be classifiable against fitt-vp-cardio and heart-rate-zones so the data layer can confirm the prescribed easy/hard distribution was met.

• Core fields: duration, distance, pace/speed, avg & max HR.
• Intensity fields: time-in-zone, power/FTP, RPE.
• Form/terrain fields: cadence, elevation gain/loss.
• Duration is the volume backbone; weekly duration or distance trends progress.
• Log to the goal — don't capture power for a casual walker.

• cardio-pace — pace/speed handling and normalization.
• heart-rate-logging — avg/max HR capture.
• time-in-zone — intensity distribution.
• power-ftp — the most objective cardio intensity metric.
• fitt-vp-cardio — the prescription the log is checked against.