Strava. That little orange logo…no, the one next to that Zwift one…yeah that one. What happens when you click on it? You clicking on it to see how many cups and crowns you gained on your weekly Sunday mash up? Or checking out what super Simon did on the weekend? Or just seeing what amazing places your jammy friend who sold his house for a camper van and now lives as a nomad is checking out this week?
A client recently told me (and this is not an unusual conversation) “is Strava helpful?” They’d downloaded the app in the hope – like so many others before them – that it would motivate them on their training journey. They had some aspirations to get some running done this year but had struggled last year and thought having something for everyone to see, might just help push them into action.
And that’s a great start, because we all know, that having an accountability partner is a great way to make you stick to those habits and commitments you don’t necessarily always want to execute, but you know will send you down the right path toward your goals anyway. Because who the heck is motivated to do anything 100% of the time?? So I guess in that respect, it’s helpful.
But then I started thinking about it…
…and I actually think Strava is a bit pants.
Okay. Rumbled. I am super-competitive. I literally compete with the stroke counter in the swimming pool. I even compete with my local car park barriers based on the number of times I can get out without paying because the barriers are malfunctioning (so far, we’re about even, which I’m quite pleased with). I have a problem. Equally, it makes me a really great tough athlete so whatever. So Strava for me poses the risk of being like cheap vodka for an ex-alcoholic – readily accessible ADDICTION.
But I actually couldn’t give two flying what-nots. My Strava is currently populated with a smattering of “morning run” and “evening activity” and little more of any interest or any information to anyone. Because I don’t care. I went off caring a long time ago. Because if you want to have a race, let’s go have a fucking race…let’s pay the entry fee, do the training and ACTUALLY COMPETE. Let’s do it PROPER.
There’s a time to go fast, there’s a time to go slow. There’s a time to look around, look ahead, look behind and there’s many more times when you need to stay in your own lane and focus on your own goals.
I’ve realised that Strava is actually an app which I’m pretty sure was invented to make people insecure about their abilities (for absolutely zero reason, just because they refuse to observe context and perspective) and also behave like total willy-waving psychopaths (because you had one good ride with no wind and all the coffee).
Strava exists to make money.
Exercise is a healthy habit and there’s far worse things you could be addicted to. And of course Strava was probably invented to encourage you to do exercise on that basis, when they also realised they could commercialise that. The problem is, that Strava takes our motivation from an intrinsic goal and reasoning to an extrinsic one. Which means it is all too easy to be derailed by it.
Instead of placing the emphasis on the importance of INTRINSIC goals like “I want to do this for my mental and physical health”, Strava started as an accountability and “social media” tool (all though quite frankly, it seems about as sociable as two weeks in solitary) and has quickly morphed into the local wall for “how high can I piss?”
Because the locus of motivation has been moved externally. Instead of just being about encouragement and “kudos”, it’s about smashing segments and scrolling through the endless “I wasn’t feeling that great today but look how many cups I got today anyway because I’m amazing” rides.
It’s basically become a platform for people to use to make them feel better about themselves. People delete the stuff they’re not proud of and keep the stuff they like, but the rules are you MUST ensure those particular activities are littered with pointers about how tough you are and why you could have done better if you’d actually tried (when we all know you were out there sweating your balls off and wiping salty tears away trying to reach the end of that section with the fastest time, even though you also had a tailwind and a massive 4×4 taking the wind in front).
The competition might be useful.
Comparing your own progress and efforts, keeping a log of your training and activity, having some fun friendly competition with friends are perhaps monitoring time trial progression means Strava might be helpful. And I have to give it that. But I also think if you’re serious about monitoring these for the purposes of more nuanced training, there’s other platforms out there and there’s coaches to help you with it. So yeah, there’s something in the favour of Strava – well done on making a basic and easy to use training tracker.
But my advice, to my client, was to be cautious.
Because all this means, that while Strava can be a great accountability tool when you’re taking on something new, it can also be a great way to lose sight of what’s really important.
The Sunday long easy ride, isn’t that sexy. Nobody cares. But why should they?? It’s about YOU. Not everyone else.
And that’s precisely what any journey should be about. With any kind of training, accountability is super valuable. But it’s more valuable to be AWARE of where that accountability comes from. It’s vital not to get derailed by trends and competition and stupid stats on online scrolling platforms that exist purely to make money from you and gather your data.
My activities continue to passively upload to the platform. I like to log on occasionally and throw some kudos out to friends and neighbours, clients and colleagues. But I also don’t ever pay attention to the “kudos” I’m given.
Essentially, Strava just seems like a weird, non-social media platform, where all I get to see are boring maps with lines on them, which mean nothing more than “look how great I am for going out on my bike”. I’m really happy for you Dave, but surely there’s more to life than your Saturday Strava league…?
And if you think there is, go check out the Super Human Scorecard and see how you measure up in ALL life foundational domains, not just on the Strava leaderboards…