Strava is excellent at telling you what you did. Fitiv tells you what it meant for your body — and what you should do next. Strava logs your routes, compares your segment times, and connects you to a global running and cycling community. Fitiv adds HRV readiness, training load management, and recovery scoring that answer the question Strava never asks: was that effort good for your training, or did it push you into a hole?
For serious athletes, the most useful answer is often not "how fast did I go" but "am I building fitness or digging a fatigue debt?"
What Strava Does Well (And Why People Love It)
Strava has one of the most vibrant fitness communities in the world, and that community is a legitimate product feature. Kudos, segment competition, club challenges, and the social feed create accountability and motivation that is genuinely hard to replicate. Millions of athletes upload to Strava every day not just for data but because they want to share their training with people who understand it.
GPS route recording on Strava is mature and reliable. The segment system — which compares your time on a specific stretch of road or trail against every other Strava athlete who has run or ridden it — is a uniquely compelling motivation layer for competitive outdoor athletes.
Strava Premium adds route planning, heart rate analysis, power curve analysis, and fitness and freshness charts. For cyclists and runners who want to explore new routes and participate in Strava's curated challenges, the premium tier adds genuine value.
Strava's third-party integrations are extensive. Wahoo, Garmin, Apple Health, TrainingPeaks, Zwift — most fitness platforms sync to Strava automatically, making it a useful central repository of workout history even if your primary tool is something else.
Where Strava Stops Short for Serious Training
Strava measures the external output of your training: distance, pace, power, elevation. It does not measure the internal cost: how much physiological stress you accumulated, how your heart rate variability responded, or whether last Tuesday's hard effort is still suppressing your parasympathetic nervous system three days later.
This is not a gap that Strava has overlooked — it is a deliberate product focus. Strava is a logging and social platform. It is excellent at those jobs. The limitation is what it means for athletes who want to train intelligently, not just consistently.
Training load is incomplete. Strava's Relative Effort score uses heart rate to estimate workout difficulty, and the Fitness and Freshness chart (on Premium) does track an acute and chronic load model. However, the implementation is less configurable and less accurate than dedicated training load tools. There is no TRIMP calculation based on individual heart rate zones, no TSS from power data calibrated to your functional threshold, and no daily readiness score that synthesizes load with overnight biometrics.
HRV is absent. Strava does not measure or display heart rate variability. It cannot tell you whether your body is adapting positively to training or being ground down by accumulated stress.
Strength training is a second-class feature. Strava added strength training logging as a workout type, but the implementation is minimal. There is no set-by-set tracking, no exercise database, no progressive overload analysis. Athletes who lift alongside their endurance training get essentially no useful data from Strava about those sessions.
Recovery guidance does not exist. After a big training week, Strava shows you the volume you completed. It does not tell you that your HRV dropped 18% this morning and today should be a recovery ride, not another hard interval session.
What Fitiv Adds to Your Training
Fitiv and Strava actually complement each other well for athletes who value both dimensions. Here is what Fitiv brings that Strava does not:
HRV readiness — the "why" behind how you feel
Every morning, Fitiv synthesizes your overnight HRV trend, sleep quality, and cumulative training load into a readiness score. That number is not arbitrary — it is grounded in your personal HRV baseline and adjusted for how hard you have been training. A readiness score of 45 the morning after a race-effort long run is information. It tells you the body stress is real and recovery should take priority over pushing another hard session.
Training load management — TRIMP and TSS
Fitiv calculates TRIMP (Training Impulse) and TSS (Training Stress Score) for every workout. These are the industry-standard metrics used by coaches and serious self-coached athletes to manage fatigue and fitness over training cycles. Fitiv tracks your acute load (recent fatigue) and chronic load (fitness base) and presents both in a form you can act on — without requiring a coach or a desktop app.
Strength training integration
Fitiv logs strength workouts with sets, reps, exercises, and heart rate. More importantly, it factors that strength training stress into your overall training load calculation. If you did a hard leg day Wednesday and a long run Saturday, Fitiv's readiness score Sunday morning knows about both. Strava knows about the run.
Apple Watch native experience
Fitiv is built around the Apple Watch. You can start workouts, log sets, check your readiness score, and review training load from your wrist without touching your phone. This is a fundamentally different experience from Strava's watch app, which is primarily a recording tool.
Feature Comparison: Fitiv vs Strava
| Feature | Fitiv | Strava | |---|---|---| | GPS workout tracking | Yes | Yes — best in class | | Route planning | No | Yes (Premium) | | Segment leaderboards | No | Yes — unique feature | | Social / community | Yes — challenges | Yes — large global community | | HRV readiness | Yes | No | | Recovery score | Yes | No | | Training load (TRIMP/TSS) | Yes | Partial (Relative Effort only) | | Strength tracking | Yes — sets/reps | Minimal | | Apple Watch native app | Yes | Basic recording only | | Garmin support | Yes | Yes | | Bluetooth HR monitor | Yes (Polar H10, Wahoo TICKR) | Via connected device | | VO2 max | Yes | No | | Price | Free tier + from $4.99/month | Free tier + $11.99/month |
The Case for Using Both
Many serious athletes use Strava and a training intelligence platform simultaneously, and this is not a bad idea. Strava's social layer and segment system motivate many athletes in ways that pure data cannot. Fitiv's readiness scores and training load management inform how hard those Strava activities should actually be.
If you currently only use Strava and feel like you are training consistently but not progressing, the data Strava lacks — HRV trend, training load balance, recovery score — is often what explains the plateau.
Who Fitiv Is Best For (As a Strava Alternative or Addition)
- Athletes who want to understand the physiological cost of their training, not just the output
- Hybrid athletes who mix running or cycling with strength training
- Self-coached athletes who want training load management without a coaching platform
- Athletes whose training is stagnating despite consistent volume and want a new analytical layer
- Apple Watch users who want a native wrist-based training experience
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Fitiv have GPS like Strava? Yes. Fitiv records GPS routes, pace, elevation, and heart rate during outdoor workouts via Apple Watch or Garmin. Strava's GPS implementation is more mature and has more route-planning features, but Fitiv's GPS tracking is fully functional for training purposes.
Does Fitiv have segments like Strava? No. Strava's segment system is unique and has no direct equivalent in Fitiv. If segment competition is a primary training motivator for you, Strava is irreplaceable for that feature.
Can I use Fitiv alongside Strava? Yes. Fitiv can sync workout data to Apple Health, and Strava can pull from Apple Health, allowing you to use both platforms simultaneously. Many athletes use Fitiv for readiness and training load analysis while uploading to Strava for social and segment features.
Does Fitiv have a social community like Strava? Fitiv has community challenges and social features, but Strava's global community of millions of athletes is in a different category. If the social accountability of a large athletic community is a primary feature you need, Strava's installed base cannot be matched.
What does Fitiv cost compared to Strava Premium? Both apps have free tiers. Strava Premium is currently $11.99/month. Fitiv's premium tier starts lower and includes HRV readiness and training load features that Strava Premium does not offer.
Will Fitiv improve my training if I switch from Strava? If you have been training with volume but without recovery awareness or training load management, adding that analytical layer — whether through Fitiv or another tool — typically helps athletes train more efficiently and reduce overtraining. Strava tells you what you did; Fitiv helps you decide what you should do next.