(Image credit: Strava)

What you need to know

• The new Strava Instant Workouts feature analyzes prior activity data and generates personalized workout suggestions every Monday.
• The feature works across "40+" sport types, and auto-generates a GPS map for outdoor activities based on Strava’s Heatmap feature.
• The four workout "intent" types are Maintain, Build, Explore, and Recover.
• It’s only available to Strava subscribers, and the option to push Instant Workouts to Apple or Garmin watches is "coming soon."

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When I interviewed Strava execs last year, I asked if they’d ever offer personalized workout suggestions to users, based on their stats; they played coy but admitted that they wanted to make Strava more "forward-looking." This week, Strava Instant Workouts has arrived to fulfill that ambition.

The feature is quite straightforward: Every week, Strava’s algorithm will analyze your recent activities and create a series of sample workouts tailored to your abilities.

You can choose to "maintain" your current average pace or distance, "build" your fitness by going further than usual, "explore" new sports types, or "recover" with easier workouts. Each category will have a few workout cards you can select, showing you more details about the pace and route.

(Image credit: Strava)

Strava began beta-testing this feature with running and weight training in November — and claims users expressed 85% satisfaction with it — but has now expanded the feature to over 40 sports.

Strava’s Athlete Intelligence will label each workouts as easy, moderate, or hard, as well as provide a "rationale of the benefits to that type of workout."

For outdoor activities, Strava will auto-generate a potential route based on its Heatmap, which tracks where other users traditionally like to run. Whether you’re unfamiliar with an area or just crave something new, this feature sounds genuinely helpful, and you can save the route afterward.

Of course, to follow this route, you’ll either need to use the Strava app during the activity or push the route to your smartwatch. Strava says that "the ability to send workouts to your Garmin or Apple device and improved step-by-step guidance" will arrive in the coming weeks and months."

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In the past year, Strava acquired two apps with long-term training plans for runners (Runna) and cyclists (The Breakaway), but Instant Workouts is the first instance of Strava making personalized workouts available to its own subscribers.

How Strava Instant Workouts compare to Garmin Connect, Fitbit, and other workout apps

(Image credit: Derrek Lee / Android Central)

I’m planning to test out Strava’s Instant Workouts in the coming weeks, to see how useful and unique they are. On paper, they’re a fascinating alternative to options like Garmin’s daily suggested workouts — though not long-term plans like Garmin Coach, TrainingPeaks, or Strava’s own Runna plans.

Garmin’s daily suggestions for runners or cyclists rely on training load focus data, pushing you to do more low-aerobic or anaerobic workouts to sustain a good chronic load. Strava is counting on athletes to decide for themselves when they need to push harder, ease off, or maintain, with more suggestions at any given moment.

Garmin has only recently expanded its workout suggestions to indoor strength training on the Venu 4, and it’s worth noting that only some Garmin watches have suggestions in general. Strava’s workouts target a wider variety of sports, and even if you can only "push" them to Apple and Garmin watches, you could easily recreate "run 3 miles in 30 minutes" on your own fitness watch.

As a side note, I’m curious to see how well Strava’s Heatmap-generated routes work. Garmin’s own Trendline Popularity routing has never built especially useful or intelligent courses for me; I’ve always tended to make my own routes, if I use them at all.

(Image credit: Michael Hicks / Android Central)

It’s also worth comparing Strava Instant Workouts to the new Fitbit Personal Health Coach, which creates custom workout suggestions across a couple dozen sports modes.

Currently in a public preview, the new Fitbit app has you speak to an LLM "coach" about your workout goals, at which point it auto-generates a week of workouts at a time. You only see one per day, but you can always "adjust plan" and change your specific workout for the day.

Fitbit doesn’t have a Heatmap GPS equivalent, but its "AI" analysis is attempting something similar to Strava’s Athlete Intelligence, except designed to be more of a conversation instead of Strava’s per-workout summaries.

Ultimately, it’s no surprise that Strava challenged other apps with its own personalized workouts. It knew it needed to be more "forward-looking" and offer more coaching value to keep its subscribers happy. And its Instant Workouts" are well-suited to Strava users, who won’t want to be tied to a specific device or have to build and stick to a long-term workout plan. Always-available, tailored workouts on your phone will be more compelling to casual athletes.

Michael is Android Central’s resident expert on wearables and fitness. Before joining Android Central, he freelanced for years at Techradar, Wareable, Windows Central, and Digital Trends. Channeling his love of running, he established himself as an expert on fitness watches, testing and reviewing models from Garmin, Fitbit, Samsung, Apple, COROS, Polar, Amazfit, Suunto, and more.

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