Strava's New Strength Update Is Built for Athletes Who Do It All

Hybrid athlete Tanvi Lonkar doesn't separate her running life from her lifting life. Strava's new strength experience is now offering the full picture. 

Day 136 of her run streak, and Tanvi Lonkar is still going.

Between the miles, there are CrossFit sessions and strength blocks, mobility work, recovery walks, content creation, and a full-time job as a sustainability project manager in Atlanta. She's training for a half marathon. She's also training for HYROX. Most weeks, she fits in three or four runs and three or four gym sessions, and somehow makes it look like a single, coherent life.

"A typical week for me usually includes 3–4 runs, 3–4 strength or CrossFit sessions, mobility work, recovery walks, and honestly just trying to balance all of that with a 9-to-5 and content creation."

On Strava, that full story is now coming together.

NOT JUST A RUNNER. NOT JUST A LIFTER.

Tanvi came to running late, relatively speaking. She found CrossFit and strength training about five years ago, then added running at the start of 2025, when she started training for a trail half marathon. The two practices didn't compete. They completed each other.

"Once I realized how much strength training improved my running performance and resilience, the two just became connected for me."

That connection is central to how she thinks about fitness, not as a series of separate disciplines but as one integrated identity.

"For me, hybrid training means not limiting myself to one type of fitness identity. I love endurance training, but I also genuinely enjoy lifting and feeling strong. I don't want to only be able to run long distances or only lift heavy, I like the challenge of doing both."

She has a phrase for what the gym means to her. "The gym is where I actually cook and clean," she says. It's a foundation, not a supplement. Since adding intentional strength work, she's felt stronger on hills, more stable through long runs, and more resilient to the overuse injuries that sideline so many runners. The payoff isn't just physical.

"Mentally, it's made me feel like a more complete athlete instead of feeling boxed into one category."

WHAT THE NUMBERS DIDN'T SHOW

For all of that, her strength training lived somewhere else.

Tanvi used Garmin for runs, Runna for race training, and her CrossFit gym's programming app to track lifting. Her Strava profile showed pace, mileage, and splits. Her gym sessions, logged under broad categories like "HIIT" or "strength," told a much flatter story.

"The biggest thing that felt missing was specificity and progression tracking. With running, you can clearly see pace improvements, splits, mileage trends, PRs, and all these metrics that make progress feel tangible. Strength training didn't always feel as visible or celebrated in the same way on the platform."

"I also think hybrid athletes want their training to feel connected instead of split across multiple apps." — Tanvi Lonkar

That gap isn't unique to Tanvi. Strength has become one of Strava's fastest-growing sport types, more than 400 million uploads in 2025 alone. The platform has long excelled at capturing the run, the ride, the race. But the work happening in the gym, the sets and reps and slow-building progression, hasn't had the same home.

YOUR LIFTS BELONG HERE TOO

This week, Strava announced an update of its strength experience. It introduces 14 partner integrations — Garmin, WHOOP, Runna, Fitbod, Hevy, and more — bringing the data from apps and devices athletes already use directly into Strava, alongside a dedicated workout log, auto-populated muscle maps, and new strength-specific shareables.

"This overhaul brings the same depth, motivation, and shareability that Strava is known for to a myriad of strength activities," said Matt Salazar, Chief Product Officer at Strava. "Whether someone is training for a race, lifting for general fitness, or building strength as their primary activity, they now have tools that meet them where they actually are."

For hybrid athletes managing both endurance and lifting loads, Tanvi sees recovery as the real use case.

"When you're training hybrid-style, recovery management matters a lot. Seeing visual patterns of what muscle groups you've been hitting throughout the week could help prevent overtraining and help people train more intentionally."

PROGRESS THAT DESERVES TO BE SHARED

Alongside the tracking tools, Strava is launching new strength-specific shareables — giving gym milestones the same visibility that runners have always had for a PR or a big long run.

Tanvi thinks that visibility matters more than it might seem, especially for athletes still building confidence in the gym.

"For a long time, endurance achievements have been more visible socially, but strength milestones matter too, especially for people who are newer to fitness or building confidence in the gym."

And for her, sharing achievements is about honesty — showing the full picture of a training life, not just the highlight reel.

"People love seeing relatable training journeys, not just elite performance."

"It also reflects how people actually train now. A lot of us aren't just runners or just lifters anymore." — Tanvi Lonkar

The new strength experience is rolling out globally to Strava users in the coming weeks. Learn more about how Hevy is integrating here. Strava has more than 195 million users across 185 countries.