Strava expands functionality of app with Fitness & Perceived Exertion
Strava has just announced it is adding two new features dubbed ‘Fitness’ and ‘Perceived Exertion’ to its popular smartphone iOS/Android app. They are aimed at better quantifying and tracking effort over time.
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More than just a popular GPS-based exercise tracker, Strava is a social fitness network that lets you set challenges for yourself and others. Some 44 million runners, cyclists and active people worldwide use this app to record their activities, compare performance over time, and share the photos, stories and highlights of their adventures.
The Strava app allows you to track and analyze every aspect of your activity allowing you to dive deep into performance stats. These new features make it an overall better workout companion.
The Fitness tool provides users with insights into how workouts are adding up over time. They are assigned a daily Fitness Score that is plotted on a graph. Users can zoom in or out to view trends over multiple month or year periods. Great for spotting if you are under or over training.
Perceived Exertion is a more simple affair. It allows users to manually rate how their run, ride or other workout felt on a scale between 1 and 10.
We’ve seen this functionality featured in many other apps for a reason. Relying on heart rate alone as an indicator or exertion is not always precise. Combining with a manual rating provides an overall better insight. It’s also useful, for example, if you are training without a heart rate monitor.
Perceived Exertion is available for all athletes using the free Strava’s iOS and Android mobile apps. You will need a monthly subscription to Strava Summit, though, to access the new Fitness tool and other advanced features. This currently runs at $59.99 per year.
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