Strava is a mobile phone app that you can use to record your exercise and upload your physical exploits for your friends to see in a Facebook style “feed”. You can enter your activities manually but most people use it to integrate with their smart watches and heart rate monitors.

The main advantage to Strava is that you and your friends can see what exercises each other is doing. This helps you “egg” each other on and also keep in touch. With us all in lockdown, it’s more relevant than ever.

The app was originally designed to record triathletes’ running, swimming and cycling sessions but it now also records rowing sessions (both indoor and on the water). You can manually enter your activities but most people use a smart watch (such as Garmin, Apple or Polar) to upload their session data, including your course, speed, heart rate and rate for you and your friends to see after your session. For those who have a Concept2 account, it can also be synced with your ErgData logbook so your Indoor rowing efforts will also be uploaded.

Our club has a growing presence on Strava, including many of our single scullers, the women’s squad, the Bullsharks and Harpoons. Everyday I give “kudos” (Strava’s version of Facebook’s “like”) to a lot of activities by our club members. Sadly that hasn’t involved on-water efforts since lockdown but there have been plenty of cycling (including virtual cycling on Zwift), running and erg sessions recorded.

I have found this app is a good way to lift your game and also to encourage members of your squad to improve their fitness.

We have a set up a Leichhardt Rowing Club Strava group. Once you have downloaded and installed Strava, you can be added to group by clicking on this link: https://www.strava.com/clubs/Leichhardt

The app is available for Apple and Android phones and can also be accessed from your PC using a web-browser and login.

Hope to see more members on Strava soon.

Vice-President David Rayment