RAISE
New 2026 innovation!
A background on RED-S:
Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) is a widespread and underdetected condition among competitive athletes that can seriously impair performance and, more importantly, long-term health. It happens when one’s energy intake is inadequate relative to energy expenditure, with potentially devastating effects on metabolic, reproductive, immune, endocrine, skeletal and cardiovascular systems.
Current research shows that RED-S affects 22% to 58% of athletes depending on the sport studied (Dave and Fisher, 2022) and can lead to 4.5 times more bone injuries and significantly reduced training availability - the most significant predictor of athletic success (Cabre et al, 2022).
Detection of RED-S is challenging because over-training can initially lead to enhanced performance due to weight loss, masking underlying symptoms until the damage is difficult to reverse. Fewer than half of coaches can correctly identify RED-S flags (Stanislas, n.d.), and even these warning signs rarely trigger steps to diagnosis, which requires specialist consultations and expensive medical procedures to measure bone density and metabolic rate, among other tests.
Prominent athletes and organizations, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC), have begun speaking out about the prevalence of RED-S and the need for proactive measures early in athletes’ journey, to prevent long-term damage impacting life post-career.
What is RAISE?
Sitka developed RAISE (Recovery Analytics and Intensity Surveillance Engine), a machine-learning algorithm that flags RED-S warning signs for coaches using training data their athletes already collect on wearables, before clinical symptoms, injury or long-term damage occur.
RAISE combines Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural networks with XGBoost decision trees to analyze trends in objective metrics such as heart rate variability, sleep and training load, plus subjective athlete self-evaluation of fatigue and mood scores, which are all directly linked to RED-S risk. RAISE works in partnership with TrainingPeaks, an app where coaches and athletes communicate about training plans and data, to provide coaches with ongoing, detailed graphic analyses as well as a real-time risk score, a colour-coded alert and suggested training-plan adjustments.