STRAVISTIX - ELEVATE - Deeper Analysis with ELEVATE for STRAVA aka STRAVISTIX

ELEVATE is a browser plugin that provides deeper insight into your workout data that resides in STRAVA. It used to be called STRAVISTIX but the developer ThomasC recently decided to re-brand it to ELEVATE FOR STRAVA. It’s currently only available on Chrome & Opera but the Firefox plugin is also imminent. It takes a while to sync your STRAVA data to ELEVATE but that’s a one-off initial task. It’s worth it though, ELEVATE is FREE. There are some similarities to STRAVA’s own SUMMIT Analysis pack. But the main difference, apart from the lack of cost, is that ELEVATE is separate software to STRAVA but which offers more in-depth analysis and a few more options that you can tinker with. Summary & Extended Stats The Extended stats are superficially like your normal STRAVA activity view but you see several modified stats like BEST 20 MINUTE SPEED rather than the usual AVERAGE SPEED as well as some wholly new stats like TIME CLIMBING. Further down the workout view you see a link to the EXTENDED STATS where you can drill through into even more detail for the workout as a whole — including extra detail for CADENCE and ELEVATION. Fitness, Fatigue and Form – covered in your FITNESS TREND The Fitness, Form and Fatigue chart is fairly standard across analysis packages. It looks complex at first but you may well soon find this kind of chart influential in you deciding exactly what your next workout will be like. STRAVA’s Summit chart has a very similar look, feel and functionality. Year Progressions ELEVATE produces interesting charts to compare your totals from one year to any other year. You can change the time periods and sport to give you a sense of the time you are putting into your fitness. There is also a ROLLING PROGRESSIONS view — customisable, moving totals. For endurance athletes, this is a GREAT way to check you are continuously and progressively stressing your body. Q: Do I need a power meter or heart rate monitor? A: No. Nevertheless, the more sensors you have, ‘the merrier’ will be the time you can invest in looking at your performances. Q: What’s the cost? A: Absolutely nothing. You even use the free version of STRAVA. Opinion It’s nice. Go on…you know you want to try ELEVATE for STRAVA. If you do not currently have a view of your fitness, form and readiness to race in general then…you ought to have. ELEVATE for STRAVA is as good a tool as any to start understanding if you are overloading yourself as well as how well you are tapering for races. You can spot trends that you need to rectify and you can also perform some pretty clever analyses by using some of the settings such as, for example, the ability to set different FTP value to apply from a different date. I suspect that, for most people wedded to STRAVA, then ELEVATE will give you lots of fun stuff and lots of useful stuff to help in the analysis of your performances. You probably do not need to look much further afield. It’s tools like this that will keep a LOT of you hooked into STRAVA and, whilst it’s not TRAININGPEAKS, I’d find it hard to convince all of you to pay extra for TRAININGPEAKS over ELEVATE. ← Back to the Strava Hub If you enjoyed reading this, here is another in the Indie Spotlight series: Strava apps - Cool Apps, Not-So-Cool Apps & Freebie Apps.