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What the numbers mean
Training notation is compact on purpose - it fits on a whiteboard. This page unpacks it: how a score is written, how a block is built, and what happens when you cannot do the movement as written. No prior experience assumed.
Score notation
A score like 6+45 is two numbers and a plus. The first is complete rounds. The second is reps into the round the clock cut short. Nothing else is implied - no partial credit, no rounding.
Worked example
6+45A round is 48 reps. Six full rounds, then 45 reps of the seventh - three short when time ran out.
Rounds first, then reps
Scores compare in order: rounds first, then reps. The partial reps are worth logging because they separate athletes who otherwise look identical.
Ranked, best first
7+0seven clean rounds
6+45three reps short of seven
6+12same round, less banked
The five score types
The format says what is being measured and how to pace it. Cairn scores five, each with its own shape - none of them is sets and reps.
As many rounds as possible. The work is fixed, the window is fixed, output varies - higher is better. Tap anywhere to bank a round; the score is whatever is banked at the buzzer.
A fixed amount of work; the clock stops when you finish. Lower is better - the opposite of an AMRAP.
Every minute, on the minute: do the prescribed work, rest whatever is left of the minute. Measures repeatability against a fixed clock. A missed minute is marked, not hidden - the score is minutes held of minutes programmed.
One pile of reps, chipped through in order, sometimes against a time cap. Finish it and the score is your time; get capped and it records what you did of what was asked.
Eight intervals of 20 seconds on, 10 off - the protocol is the name. Scored on your weakest interval, because the weakest one is the honest one.
Caps
A cap ends the piece whether the work is done or not - it keeps sessions comparable and keeps you from grinding for twice as long as intended. A capped score is an outcome, never a blank: it records what was done and what remained. Cairn writes it in tan, because capped is a fact about the day, not a failure state.
Worked example
73/100a 100-rep chipper capped at 20 minutes: 73 done, 27 remaining, all recorded
How it felt
After a save, Cairn asks how it felt: too easy, steady, working, hard, that sucked. Five words rather than a ten-point scale, because the distinction that decides anything is hard-and-correct versus too-hard - and nobody lands a 7-versus-8 accurately while still breathing through their teeth. Cairn records the run of answers and draws no conclusion from it. The decision stays yours.
Blocks and weeks
A block is a stretch of training - 4 to 16 weeks in Cairn - pointed at one outcome. Weeks are not interchangeable: each carries a phase. Accumulate opens with volume, build loads it, deload backs off on purpose, peak sharpens it, test re-measures it. One week can run the whole block, or each week can be its own programming on the same weekly skeleton.
Deloads
A planned week of less - lighter, shorter, or both. Training makes you tired before it makes you stronger; the deload is where the tiredness clears and the adaptation shows up. Skipping it does not accelerate the block, it flattens the end of it. Cairn draws deloads in sage: a deliberate reduction, part of the plan, never a deviation.
Test weeks
The last week of a block re-measures what the block was aimed at. Nothing new is introduced - a test week repeats work you have already done, which is what makes the comparison clean. Cairn compares scores only when the prescription genuinely matches; it never draws a comparison the arithmetic does not authorize.
Worked example
5+20 to 6+45week 8 reruns week 1's 12-minute AMRAP. The block worked.
Swaps
No GHD at your gym, or a grip torn up mid-week: a swap replaces the movement while keeping what the piece was there to do. In Cairn a swap is standing - decided once, applied every time that movement is prescribed, until you remove it. The prescription is never rewritten. The record shows what stood in for what, in tan, with the word, and your history stays whole instead of splitting in two.
Worked example
9 hanging knee raise for 9 toes-to-barrep count carried, recorded against the movement it stood in for
The rest is easier to understand by logging a piece.
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