Most of us use Strava as an awesome form of tracking our fitness and also keeping track of what our friends are doing. It is one of the most used Social Media apps on many athletes phone, but are we causing ourselves "Strava Burnout"? chance are you or someone you know will have experienced this.
Like any social media app, used safely it is an excellent way of tracking your progress, sharing your workouts, stories and photos, encouraging your friends and even following professional athletes to see how they train.
Recently we have spoken to a number of athletes who have been suffering from the more negative side of what these kind of apps can do. Now the disclaimer is here, I'm not in anyway putting down Strava, in fact I love it for what it can do for us all, but I have seen the bad side and felt this myself.
The negative side of it can be people feeling the pressure to post a certain speed on the bike, or run pace per km/mile for example. Generally feeling the pressure of "having" to hold or be able to do a certain speed or pace to almost feel worthy of it being on Strava. This can weigh heavily on athletes of all ability and is nothing more than social media pressure.
Personally I have had people ignore some of the better workouts I have ever done, instead comment on how slow my "recovery rides" were for example, which is exactly the point of a recovery ride! I've spoken to people and have witnessed some others who have had people dive into their pace, average speed for example, and make some remarks about it. Or even look at a power or per km pace and make negative comments.
Then you get the people you follow uploading a run for example, with a title, "easy 10km" , when you look at their pace and heart rate there is nothing easy about it. That has some issues in itself:
1- That person is suffering from the pressure of social media, instead of a title such as "awesome 10km, felt great", they feel the need to play it down to act more pro, or punch above their weight and outside their abilities.
2- Now imagine the people following that person who could only dream of doing that pace? they will be crushed.
This can ad up to nothing more than social media bullying and is not what the app or what we are all trying to achieve. This then ads a lot of pressure, people training harder than they should, or creating a false workout.
It can actually put people off working out altogether and that is a major problem.
How do we avoid it? here are some of our top tips:
1- If you are suffering from it, take a break. Personally I have not run with a watch for month now and its liberating! Sometimes changing things up can help.
2- Go through your followers, and like Facebook, have a clean out every now and again. You can block the people who create any negativity for you, and obviously unfollow them as well.
3- Remember, your workout is YOUR workout, no one else has your life.
4- Change things up on recovery days, see how slow you can go for a change, or go on a MTB instead of your road bike, it will be slower for sure.
5- You can hide your pace etc when you upload if you don't want people to know or see.
6- Make sure to give everybody Kudos, and drop a comment also when you can. We all love a bit of praise, and we all feel good giving it as well.
7- Easier said than done but ignore any workout titles that irk you, chances are that someone saying that they 100km ride at over 35km average titled "easy ride" was not easy, if it as then they should probably head to Europe.
8- Treat the app as the social media it was intended for. Follow good people, find new routes, see new photos, share the love that for anyone on there they are making their lives better by working out.
For me, I absolutely love following peoples journey. There are so many people I follow whom I know have had struggles, from weight loss, to family and works issues. Seeing them progress is humbling and that is the reason I am on it.
I hope that helps in some way. Please get in touch and share your stories anytime.
