What is Burn Score?

Burn Score is Burn Board's proprietary difficulty rating for daily Orangetheory workouts. It rates each workout on a scale of 1 to 10 based on the workout template, exercise selection, and overall intensity.

Unlike OTFInsider's generic 5-dot difficulty indicator, Burn Score is calculated algorithmically based on multiple factors in the actual workout intel.

How Burn Score is Calculated

Burn Score analyzes the daily workout template across several dimensions:

- Treadmill intensity — Speed, inclines, all-out duration, push-to-base ratios
• Floor complexity — Exercise difficulty, compound vs isolation movements, tempo demands
• Row component — Distance benchmarks, power intervals, endurance rows
• Overall volume — Total work time, rest periods, transition demands
• Workout type — Endurance days tend to score 5-7, Power days 4-6, Strength days 6-8, and ESP varies

The score is generated when daily intel is published and updated as community corrections come in.

Burn Score Scale

1-3: Light — Easy day, longer recoveries, simpler movements. Great for deload weeks.
4-5: Moderate — Solid workout with balanced effort. Most power days land here.
6-7: Challenging — Expect to work. Endurance templates and strength supersets often score here.
8-9: Tough — Signature days, benchmark-adjacent templates, minimal rest. Prepare mentally.
10: Brutal — Reserved for the hardest templates of the year. DriTri prep, Inferno-style templates.

Using Burn Score to Plan Your Week

Smart OTF members use Burn Score to plan their training week:

- Schedule hard days strategically — If tomorrow is a 9/10, maybe do today's 5/10 at base pace to save energy
• Predict your performance — Burn Board Pro combines Burn Score with your personal pace profile to forecast your tread distances
• Compare with your actuals — After class, log your actual performance and see how it compares to what Burn Score predicted
• Track trends — My Stats shows your performance correlation with Burn Score over time