Heart Rate

What is it?

Heart rate shows how hard you’re working.

It’s measured in heartbeats per minute (BPM), which as a percentage of your maximum heart rate is a key indicator of exertion level and helps determine the zone or zones you worked out in. (You can change or enter your max HR in your profile settings here.) A heart rate monitor is required to track this.

How do I use this?

Heart rate is a quick way to tell how hard a workout was and how it affected your fitness.

Heart rate is organized into zones that provide a shorthand for strain level – from Zone 1 (active recovery) to Zone 5 (near-maximum effort), heart rate zones will help you quickly assess what impact this activity had on your training.

For more details, read the extended help article below.

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Measuring your heart rate during workouts can help you better understand your fitness over time -- it’s a great indicator of how hard you’re pushing yourself and how well you’ve trained your body to respond to demanding activities. Heart rate data unlocks a number of helpful features for Strava subscribers, including Relative Effort, Heart Rate Zones, and automatic updates to your Fitness Score.

Strava is compatible with a number of GPS devices that record heart rate data, including Garmin, Fitbit, Apple Watch, Wahoo, Polar, and Suunto, and TomTom.* To connect a GPS watch or other supported devices:

• On the web,
• Select the plus sign icon in the upper right-hand corner and choose Upload activity from the drop-down menu.
• Click Get Started under the device you wish to upload from.
• Follow the on-screen prompts to finish connecting your accounts.
• On the mobile app,

  • Open your settings from the icon in the upper right corner of the You tab.

  • Tap Link Other Services on Android or Applications, Services, and Devices on iOS.
  • Tap Connect a device to Strava.
  • Select the device brand you’re using and follow the instructions to connect your Strava account.
  • If you don’t see the brand you’re looking for, check the Strava website using the instructions above.

*Please note that in order for an activity to contain heart rate data, that activity must be recorded with a device with a heart rate sensor. If an activity is recorded with a device that does not have a heart rate sensor, unfortunately, that activity will not display heart rate data. Heart rate data from another device or service, such as Apple Health, cannot be merged into your activity.

If you have a standalone Bluetooth heart rate monitor, you can pair it directly with Strava.

After you’ve connected Strava to a compatible device, and if you’ve allowed Strava to collect and process health-related data, heart rate data will be shared with the rest of the data in your activity uploads. You can hide heart rate data from your activity posts if you’d prefer not to share it with other members.