I’ve just finished a week of following Strava Instant Workouts, a premium feature recently introduced to the mobile version of the activity tracking app.
On the whole, I was impressed by these recommendations Strava says are tailored to your recent activity history.
The AI behind these suggestions doesn’t seem as clever as TrainerRoad’s, which adapts daily, but that’s understandable considering the difference in subscription cost.
I liked how Strava gives you a choice of Instant Workouts, instead of Garmin’s single suggested workout which can feel too prescriptive.
After briefly explaining more about how this feature works, I’ll analyse the cycling, running and weight training sessions I followed.
What are Strava Instant Workouts?
Strava subscribers will find the Instant Workouts in a carousel at the top of the home page in the mobile app. You get a fresh set of recommendations every Monday.
The workouts themselves are divided into four categories or ‘intents’ as Strava calls them: Maintain; Build; Explore and Recover.
Slightly confusingly, Strava says the Maintain workouts “build endurance and ensure consistent progress”, not maintain fitness.
The work ‘build’ undersells the apparent objective of this category to “challenge yourself to increase fitness”.
Strava implies you are supposed to pick a category that meets your objectives for the week. But after completing a week of Build workouts, I think many athletes would be on their knees – the one session I did from this category was extremely hard.
To follow a hard/easy day cycle, you’d have to switch between categories or follow the Maintain workouts.
Once you’ve selected your workout, you can either record from the app or send the session to your Garmin or Apple device. Because I was training with a Wahoo Roam, I built up the interval sessions in TrainingPeaks and ported them to my bike computer from there.
Strava will also suggest an outdoor route for each Instant Workout. When I rode outside I chose my own route because I felt the suggested course was unsuitable for the power and speed I’d be riding at.
Strava Instant Workouts analysed
I started my week with a pyramid-style interval session from Build section of Instant Workouts.
Apologies that the text in the screenshots is partly in Russian. I switched my phone back into English to take them but the workout description didn’t translate. From the numbers, non-Russian speakers should get any idea of the intensity targets.
After a warm-up, I rode for:
- 6 minutes at tempo
- 2 minutes at recovery
- 4 minutes at threshold
- 3 minutes at recovery
- 2 minutes at VO2 max
Like the rest of the Instant Workouts, this session was on the short side for me at 45 minutes. So I extended it by riding alternating between steady and tempo for another 45 minutes.
But if you had less time to train, this would be a solid workout across a range of intensities.
Later that day, I performed a 40-minute weights session from the Build tab. The exercises, number of repetitions and sets, and weights it recommended seemed to tally with best practice for an strength training plan.
If I’d stayed with the Build workouts, Strava would have had be do another tough interval session.
Change of Intent
As endurance sport coaches generally recommend, I followed it with an easier day, picking an endurance ride from the Recover category.
Again, I extended the duration from one to two hours. For a ride on my local roads, which junctions and traffic frequently interrupt, my power was fairly steady.
The next day I did a spin on a tempo session from the Maintain section of the carousel. I split the 40-minute block Strava recommended into three 15-minute intervals. This made the session less monotonous and enabled me to slightly lift my target power.
Then I selected another endurance ride from the Recover tab, adding 30 minutes in zone 2 to bring total ride time to 90 minutes.
While away without my bike for the weekend, I took advantage of how Strava will suggest workouts for sports you do less regularly, like running for me. Instant Workouts are available for 40 sports, according to the brand.
As best as I could on muddy and hilly trails, I used the session structure for an 8km progression run.
When I ran full-time, I really enjoyed this kind of session and felt it boosted my finishing speed in road races.
Bottom line
Planning training on a weekly basis isn’t suitable for committed athletes who are better off making training plans months in advance.
However, Strava isn’t targeting that kind of user with Instant Workouts.
In its crosshairs are beginner to intermediate athletes who know the benefits of structured training but don’t want the rigidity or potential expense of a longer term training programme.
And with acquisitions such as Runna and The Breakaway, Strava is trying to appeal to people who do want an affordable training plan.
I’d recommend trying Strava’s Instant Workouts if you’re not sure how to make your own sessions or would rather a seemingly pretty clever AI does the work for you.
The workouts seem sensibly structured and generally match the intent of their category with the exception of the very intense Build suggestions. With this in mind, I’d recommend mixing and matching the categories to maintain a hard/easy day routine.
They’re not perfect and I’d take the suggested route with a pinch of salt. But compared to aimless exercise, Instant Workouts should help many people get fitter for the reasonable cost of a Strava subscription.
