Home/Cortisol 101/Cortisol for athletes

Built for athletes · Ships Q4 2026

The signal your
training has been
missing.

Hard efforts raise cortisol; easy ones do not. The Curve is a continuous cortisol monitor that measures the hormone directly, every two minutes, worn through every session and every rest day. Not estimated from your pulse.

Reserve a unit See what it shows
720 readings a day 14 days per sensor Worn alongside your tracker

Your tracker measures your heart.
It estimates the rest.

Heart-rate variability is a real measurement of autonomic tone, and a recovery score is a model built on top of it. Cortisol runs on a different axis, so the two do not always move together, and nothing you could wear has measured the hormone itself. How cortisol and HRV differ →

What does continuous cortisol actually show an athlete?

Feature 01

Watch the session land.

A hard effort raises cortisol while you are still cooling down. At a reading every two minutes you see the rise as it happens, instead of a number waiting for you the next morning.

A reading every 2 minutes · live in the app

Session response
Feature 02

Your baseline, not a population’s.

Cortisol varies widely between people, so a reference range tells you very little about you. Two weeks of continuous wear builds your own curve, and every reading after that is read against it.

Personal baseline · rolling 7-day trend

You vs your baseline
Feature 03

The load you never wrote down.

Travel, a short night, a hard week at work. Your body runs one stress axis, not two, and the hormone does not separate them. It is what makes a heavy week after an easy block finally make sense.

24-hour coverage · awake and asleep

One day, hour by hour
Feature 04

Two signals, read together.

Keep the tracker you already own. When your recovery score and your cortisol point the same way, the picture is simple. When they disagree, you are seeing something neither signal shows on its own.

Worn alongside the tracker you already own

HRV CORTISOL Layered, not replaced
Feature 05

Swap the sensor, keep the band.

The electrode card is the consumable. It lasts fourteen days and changes in seconds, so the band you buy once keeps working as the chemistry underneath it improves.

Sensors from CA$24 · subscribe and save

The Auromone Curve, a slim matte band worn on the wrist. Electrode array · 14-day card
In the app

The morning after a hard session.

Your curve for the day, your rolling trend, and a plain export whenever you want it.

The Auromone app showing today's cortisol curve. The Auromone app showing a multi-day cortisol trend.
Straight about it

What it will not do.

No single marker diagnoses overtraining, cortisol included. The ECSS and ACSM joint consensus statement reviewed the markers in use and found none of them meet all the criteria to be generally accepted; overtraining syndrome is diagnosed by exclusion, after organic disease has been ruled out. The Auromone Curve is a general wellness device: it monitors cortisol continuously, and it does not diagnose, treat, or cure any condition. Fatigue and falling performance that do not lift with rest deserve a doctor’s assessment before they get a training label. What to rule out first →

It cannot
  • Diagnose overtraining syndrome, or any condition.
  • Tell you whether to train tomorrow.
  • Tell you a single reading is abnormal.
  • Replace testing ordered by a clinician.
vs
It can
  • Measure the hormone itself, not a proxy for it.
  • Do it every two minutes, for fourteen days at a time.
  • Show it against a baseline built from you.
  • Carry load your training log never recorded.
Straight answers

Athlete questions.

Why does my recovery score say rested when I feel wrecked?

A recovery score is a model built mostly on heart-rate variability, which reflects autonomic tone. Cortisol is a different signal on a different axis. The two can point in opposite directions, and a morning where they disagree is usually the one worth paying attention to.

Should I add cortisol to a stack that already tracks HRV and sleep?

Only if you want a second, independent signal rather than a verdict. No single marker diagnoses overtraining, cortisol included, and the Curve does not either. What it adds is one objective input, measured rather than inferred, next to load, sleep and how you feel. More on cortisol and overtraining →

Can I wear the Curve alongside my current tracker?

Yes. The Curve is worn on the wrist and is designed to sit alongside whatever you already use rather than replace it. Your existing device keeps measuring your heart; the Curve adds the hormone.

Why read cortisol from sweat instead of blood?

They are different samples. Blood carries total cortisol, most of it bound to proteins; sweat carries the free fraction, the portion that is biologically active. In bench testing, the Curve tracked a lab blood test to within about 8% over 14 days of continuous wear. Sweat is also the sample that can be read continuously, all day, without a blood draw. That is a different job from a lab test, not a replacement for one.

Does the Curve measure the testosterone to cortisol ratio?

The testosterone to cortisol ratio is an established, and debated, marker in sports science. The Curve measures cortisol today. Testosterone sits on the sensor roadmap rather than in the product, so the ratio is not something the device reports yet.

Keep reading

The science underneath

Cortisol and overtrainingWhat the research actually shows about training load and the stress response. Cortisol vs HRVWhy a heart-rate proxy and a hormone are not the same measurement. Does a cold plunge lower cortisol?The evidence behind one of recovery's most repeated claims.

Train with the hormone in view.

The Curve measures cortisol continuously, on your wrist, alongside whatever you already wear. It ships Q4 2026, and reserving is free.

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