You may have heard other runners talk about Strava, the “social network for athletes” that has become hugely popular since its launch in 2009. If you don’t have the skills to push, we’ll help. Soon, you’ll be following your training, climbing your runs. Following other athletes, handing out congratulations and comments, joining clubs and challenges, and maybe even creating your routes in no time.
Strava integrates many of the engagement-boosting elements found on social networking platforms like Instagram and Twitter with activity-tracking technology, such as RunKeeper or MapMyRun. (Some of these services also include social aspects.) Here are a few more of our favorite running apps.)
Here is your primer to get going with Strava right now.
Table of Contents
What Tools Will You Need to Use Strava?
You’ll be utilizing one of three devices with Strava: a smartphone, a computer, or a fitness tracker, the most common of which is a GPS watch.
You must first download the free Strava app to use it on your smartphone. Simply search for Strava in your device’s app store (App Store for iPhones, Google Play for Android devices) and download it. On a computer, it’s much easier: just type strava.com into your browser.
The setup process for a fitness tracker is much more difficult. But it is ultimately a simpler and more comprehensive tool. For additional details on how to connect it to your Strava account, keep reading. How to create a Strava account.
How to Create a Strava Account
You’ll need to create your Strava account when you get to the default screen on your phone or computer. It will use information from your Facebook or Google accounts. But if you choose to keep things separate, for example, for privacy or security concerns, it will begin the account creation process with your email address. You’re done if you follow the instructions (you’ll need to confirm your email or log in using the Facebook or Google platforms).
Remember that, as with all similar online services, your profile, and account are two independent things. Your profile is merely the knowledge (name, photo, location, etc.) that other users will see on the platform. Whereas your account is everything linked to Strava associated with you as private.
How to Customize Your Settings
Like all modern decisions when it comes to the web, deciding what ratio to reveal on Strava, whether it’s allowing corporate access to your information or deciding what your followers or any random user can see, is a tug of war between security and safety. convenience. . But the precise decisions are up to you.
Strava will prompt you to upload a photo, confirm your name, and verify your date of birth and gender as a replacement user. Most Strava users have profile images depicting themselves jogging or traveling, but privacy-conscious individuals often choose for something less personal. These latter two data pieces are largely used by Strava to place you on classified leaderboards, although they are optional.
Skip the opposite initial prompts with as little action as possible. There’s nothing Strava asks you in advance that you just won’t be ready to change later, and those decisions are more worth making as you learn to navigate the platform.
To do that on the desktop, hover over your profile photo in the top corner, then click Settings. On the mobile device, tap on your profile and then click the gear icon in the top corner. Here you will fill in as many missing pieces as you want.
To further personalize your profile, carefully explore all the configuration options. Set the notifications you want or add the shoes you wear (one note: you can’t add shoes in the app, only on the desktop). Privacy and connected devices and services are discussed in more detail below.
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How to Establish Privacy Settings
Pay careful attention to Data Permissions and Privacy Controls, both subsections in Settings, among Strava’s many customization options. You can choose whether or not to allow Strava to access personal health data that your other devices may require under Data Permissions. You can use Privacy Controls to:
- Decide who can see what from your account
- Set privacy zones, which generate random dead zones on your race map that obscure personal spots like your home.
- Avoid using your running data in Strava’s aggregated heatmaps, which have previously sparked debate.
- Make your training log, where Strava tracks all your activities in an intimate, public, or private way
- Allow Strava to market your activity to people (one of its strategies to extend social interaction on the platform) How to register an activity
How to Record an Activity
Strava has three options for recording an activity: manually entering the data, recording your run with the Strava app on your phone while running, or syncing the data from a fitness tracker, most likely a GPS watch.
Manual Entry – On both systems, choose the symbol (for example, top right desktop) and then the manual entry option. You’ll then fill in all the details you recognize, such as those found on a simple watch.
Strava app: tap the Record tab. You will change any settings you want, such as turning auto-pause or audio cues on or off, then press Start. Your smartphone’s GPS will record the information from there, and once you’re done with your workout, it will load into your activities once you hit save.
Tracker for Exercise: Unfortunately, this simple explanation will not go through how to utilize your GPS watch in detail. But, provided it’s one of the major brands recognized by Strava, it’ll link your Strava account to the watch. Following you to automatically sync and post the activities recorded on it to Strava. To upload a private workout from your device to the desktop, choose the banner and then click Upload Activity. After that, you’ll see a list of brands that you can connect to your Strava account. This connection will be preserved in your profile settings under My Apps.
Connect a tool to Strava in the app by going to Settings, Applications, Services, and Devices (or searching for “Link other services”). This will automatically load your workouts after you save them to your watch. Making it much easier to keep track of all your runs on Strava.
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How to Join the Strava Community
Now that you’ve explored the essential features, it’s time to dive into what makes Strava unique: the social element. We propose to explore these functions in the mobile application; they have been created much more intuitively.
You can join a challenge and compete against practically thousands of other users to complete a task such as jogging a certain amount of miles in a month or climbing a certain number of feet in a week. Tap Clubs to get a list of Strava clubs in your area (the main reason for adding a location to your profile). Tap any that piques your interest, then select Join. Clubs on Strava allow you to make new friends and run with people you’ve never met in person. As well as see what your real-life running companions are up to.
Another option to keep up with your running buddies’ news is to search for their profiles to follow. After which you’ll see their posts in your feed, the same as how you would on Instagram or Twitter. Make sure to congratulate them on their runs, or the Strava version of that. To find them, go to the Find Friends screen by tapping the two torsos symbol in the upper right corner. It will go through a list of options that are compatible with past Strava connections, Facebook pals, or the contacts on your phone.
Finally, after you begin logging executions, you will begin to discover how well you do in specific “segments” that are tracked. Strava has built a leaderboard for these portions of road or trail that are so popular with runners (or a user has created it as a segment). If you run similar routes frequently. You’ll notice that certain names appear repeatedly, and you’ll find yourself battling for a higher ranking on the scoreboard. Strava has two alternative leaderboards: one ranks people who have run the segment with the best times in the last 90 days, and the other ranks people who have raced the section with the quickest times in the last 90 days. How to use advanced features.
How To Access The Advanced Features
If you feel that you have learned to use Strava and it is becoming a fundamental part of your fitness lifestyle. You will want to think about some advanced features, accessed through a Strava subscription.
Subscriptions are often billed monthly (save $ 12 by paying for an entire year at once) via the Subscribe button at the top of your desktop screen. A subscription will give you access to the company’s advanced route planning tool and use of the Beacon feature. Which can allow your friends and family to track you in real time.
Plus, you’ll be ready to view advanced training metrics and analyze your previous training in more detail. You will also get deeper verification segments, so you will see pretty much just the KOM and QOM; You can see all your previous efforts and track your progress in front of your friends.
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