Ryan Macready

If you’re an athlete of any level, the chances are that you have used Strava. It has become the go-to app for tracking your exercise: from runs, to cycles, swims, yoga, and gym sessions. In the UK alone, an estimated 17 per cent of the population uses Strava and the platform boasts over 125 million athletes in more than 190 countries, globally.

Recently, Strava updated its terms and conditions, particularly around data sharing with third-party apps. Let’s break down what this means and how it might impact you.

What has changed?

Strava has updated its terms and conditions to change its treatment of your personal data, recorded on its platform. The data recorded may include your heart rate, your power output, your pace, and (most importantly) any King of the Mountains titles (KOMs, representing a fastest time over a given segment) that you have stolen from your friends. 

For many people, this data will be uploaded to Strava and Strava alone. For those people, the changes are unlikely to have much of an effect. 

However, for many people, Strava is one of a number of fitness tracking apps that they use. Other apps may include TrainingPeaks and TriDot (coaching platforms popular among triathletes), Runna (which can create personalised training plans for runner), and Trainer Road (which uses science-based analysis to improve cycling performance). These platforms may access a user’s workout data (uploaded to Strava as a FIT File), and allows the platform to view performance metrics, analyse, make suggestions, and assess the training load and structure that may follow. 

This has generally been seen as a win-win for both platforms. Strava allows the athlete to record their runs to a wider social media audience and obtain the endorphin-boosting KUDOS for their efforts. TrainingPeaks (or such other linked third party application) allows the athlete to dig into their data and work with a coach to plan out further sessions, and track performance in a more detailed manner.

The changes to Strava’s terms and conditions are intended to restrict users from sharing this data with these third-party apps. This has sparked fear among athletes and the fitness community that sharing their data concurrently with Strava and linked apps may be banned.

Artificial intelligence

Further to this, the changes to Strava’s terms and conditions made specific reference to artificial intelligence. As the influence of AI increases, various companies from Reddit to X (formerly Twitter) have made changes to their policies in recent months amid concerns that AI platforms will gather their data to train their own AI models. 

It is clear that there is a fear across industries as to the possibility of AI models replacing or challenging their platforms. Strava, itself, has recently introduced its own (beta version) AI model, to provide personalised insights based on your activity data. This in mind, it may be the case that Strava wishes to maintain autonomy over the use of its data to protect from future competition.

What next?

There has been wide discussion among the Strava community as to the impact of these changes, with some claiming that it will kill off third-party apps designed to provide coaching or analysis. Strava sought to allay fears by stating to its userbase that the changes will have “no impact to most developers” and will affect only a “small fraction” of its users.

Developers of the fitness tracking app Intervals.icu confirmed that they have been informed that their app is “in conflict with Strava’s updated terms”, whilst VeloViewer (a cycling-specific app) confirmed that they were “working our way through these changes” with Strava directly.

It remains unclear how the end-user experience will be affected, but there are concerns among the community that the changes will impact their ability to share, analyse, and track their metrics across different platforms.

For the time being, those looking to vent frustration via their uploads may be interested to read the following, from a recent blog post issued by Strava: “per our Community Guidelines and Guidelines to Ideas, posts requesting or attempting to have Strava revert business decisions will not be permitted”. 

Final thoughts

Whilst the full impact of Strava’s updated terms and conditions remains to be seen, it’s clear that the fitness tracking landscape is evolving. For athletes who rely on multiple platforms to optimise their training, these changes may feel like a curveball. However, they also highlight the growing importance of understanding how our data is used and shared in the digital age.

Whether you’re a casual runner chasing kudos or a Functional Threshold Power-obsessed cyclist diving deep into performance metrics, it’s worth keeping an eye on how these updates unfold. In the meantime, as debates rage on about data sharing and AI, one thing’s for sure: hitting “START” on your watch will remain the simplest part of your training routine.

So, keep logging, keep pushing, and keep those KOMs safe - just in case!

Ryan Macready is an associate director at Macdonald Henderson Solicitors