Strava branches out to include activities from gym sessions and studio classes

Strava is set to open its doors to a range of new indoor exercises, announcing integrations with several gyms, studios and fitness platforms.

After partnering with MindBody - the fitness booking app - in the US back in August, the company has said its UK users will now be able to sync workouts and class sessions from PureGym, Digme, Technogym, Concept2, TrainerRoad, Zwift and MySwimPro. Serving as the country's largest fitness booking service, MindBody integration will also be coming to the UK.

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The partnerships mean that Strava is now no longer just a place for those who want to post about their outdoor rides and runs, with all kinds of exercises now available to sync with the platform.

"Nearly two-thirds of Strava members exercise indoors at least once a week," Strava's director of devices, developers, and integrations, Mateo Ortega, told Wareable. "With strength training, yoga, treadmill running and indoor cycling ranking as the most popular activities, we wanted to make the experience even better for our members by creating a genuine home for their active life - allowing them to keep track of all their activity in one place."

So, just how exactly will the feed of Strava be changing? Well, if you look right now, it'll no doubt be filled with the runs and rides of people you follow. But, as Ortega described it, the Gym and Studio Sync partnerships should broaden this to include everything from yoga to HIIT classes.

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"It's both a class and time-based integration. For example, if you go to PureGym to do a personal weight or HIIT session, then the amount of time you spent at the gym working out is what will be displayed in your Strava feed.

"The activity title will then be editable in the same way as for an automatically logged ride or run - for example, 'Evening Workout at Gateshead'. And if you attend a class at PureGym, Digme or through MINDBODY, the class name, location and duration will appear alongside some imagery associated with that class or partner," he said.

The experience won't be exactly the same as outdoor activities right away, as you might expect. If you take a spin class at Digme, the session would be automatically populated with the length of the ride and the distance covered. However, gaining more advanced metrics (such as effort tracking) from the likes of indoor equipment is in early stages, and Ortega indicates that integration with wearables and these indoor activities will come soon.

Of course, on the surface, the fresh partnerships can only be a good thing for the platform. What was once a club geared towards hardcore runners and cyclists is slowly opening up to include potentially millions of new users, whether they want to track daily weight training sessions or log their weekly spin class.

Strava says it currently sits at 34 million members across the globe, and we suspect that these UK-based partnerships will represent the first crop of many, as the platform continues to expand.

"With the increasing popularity of fitness studios and classes, as well as the technology inherent in gyms and their equipment, we definitely hope that the combination of community, outdoor tracking and indoor logging will be appealing to new members too," said Ortega.