Training guides

How to use Claude as your cycling coach with Strava

Strava's own connector lets Claude, a general-purpose assistant, read your rides if you pay for Strava. You can ask it to review your training or examine a ride's power and heart rate.

The ChatGPT training guide has the rider brief and ways to export files. The cycling training prompts work here too: change "attached is" to "pull from Strava".

Connecting Strava to Claude

You need a paid Strava subscription. Free trials do not include connector access.

Find Strava in Claude's connector directory and follow the connection steps to authorize read access.

The connector reads activity history, including laps and segment efforts. It can retrieve per-second heart rate, power, cadence, GPS and altitude, plus your zones and FTP. Your profile, gear, clubs and events are available too.

Access is read-only: Claude cannot upload or edit activities. Claude's and Strava's features described here were checked on October 9, 2026.

The FTP behind your zones

Ask Claude to show the FTP and zones it reads from Strava before judging your time in each zone. Compare that FTP with your current tested value. If you do not know where the saved value came from, say so.

Keep watts alongside zone labels in the answer so you can check what Claude is interpreting.

Four prompts for the Strava connector

Each prompt asks Claude to show what it retrieved before interpreting it. Change the dates and numbers to yours.

Count weekly riding hours with every ride included.

Fetch my activities from 1 August to today. If results arrive in batches, request all remaining batches. Keep only outdoor and indoor rides, and report how many activities you included and excluded. Use code, working only from those activities, to calculate hours per week starting Monday, weeks above 7 hours, and each week's longest ride with its date. Show the activity count and weekly totals before commenting. Flag any dates you could not retrieve.

Check heart-rate drift: how your heart rate changes while power stays steady.

Fetch my last seven days and identify Saturday's ride by name and date. Retrieve its power and heart-rate data. Show what you retrieved and whether both cover the whole ride; if either is incomplete, stop. In code, skip the first 20 minutes and find a continuous stretch of steady power. Explain which part you chose; if none is suitable, say so. Split it into equal halves. Show average power and heart rate for each half, then the percentage change in power divided by heart rate. Suggest one change for next time if the data supports it.

Check the FTP used for your zones.

Read my FTP and power and heart-rate zones from Strava. Show those values before interpreting any rides. If the data identifies the FTP as estimated or manually set, say which; otherwise, say you cannot tell. Ask me for my current tested FTP if the saved value is uncertain. Explain how that uncertainty affects your zone-based judgments.

Rework a week after a missed session; paste your planned week below this prompt.

I missed Tuesday because of work and slept five hours last night. Tomorrow I have forty minutes. Sunday's club ride is two hours. Fetch my last three weeks of rides and show which activities you retrieved. Check my club's events for Sunday's start time; say if it is unavailable. Explain how you account for the missed session and short sleep. Rework the plan below while keeping its training purpose. List what moved or was dropped, with reasons. Do not add sessions to make up the lost ones.

Add up the hours in the week Claude returns. Check that key sessions are as long as you requested.

RestOrTrain's tests found that language models default to weeks that are too light and key sessions that are too short. It is tuned to avoid that bias in training recommendations.

Your rider brief and a Sunday review

Claude's memory is on by default on Free, Pro and Max. Searching past chats requires a paid plan. That memory is general-purpose; it holds no computed training load or endurance athlete profile.

Open each training chat with your rider brief and last week's review, so Claude works from this month's FTP, available hours and aches.

Cowork is the part of Claude Desktop where paid plans can run scheduled tasks. Schedule "review my week from Strava" for Sunday. Ask it to show the rides retrieved and compare the completed week with your plan.

Where Claude with Strava stops

Claude checks Strava when asked, including by a scheduled task. A new ride upload does not trigger a review.

Strava's connector passes no sleep, HRV or resting heart rate. Claude's separate Health beta reads sleep, vitals and workouts through Apple Health on iPhone or Health Connect on Android 14 or later. It requires Pro or Max and works only in the US.

The Strava connector cannot send workouts to a bike computer. Community Intervals.icu connectors can write calendar entries for onward sync, but require separate setup.

What RestOrTrain calculates without AI

RestOrTrain calculates every number it can without AI, including training load, power estimates, FTP from your power curve, fitness and fatigue. These calculations run the same way on synced rides before the AI reads the results.

Claude can use code for arithmetic, as the prompts above request. That helps with calculation errors. Having training figures consistently computed beforehand leaves less room for error than asking a general-purpose model to work them out again for each request. RestOrTrain also has guardrails for assessing and recommending endurance load; general-purpose models do not.

You write no prompt and fetch nothing. The prompting is done for you and tuned for world-class endurance coaching. Ask in plain words and it gives concise, concrete recommendations informed by current endurance science.

Ask how to pace the climbs at your next club race. The answer draws on your whole training history, strengths, weaknesses and power profile. It considers your ride notes and conversations alongside sleep, HRV, resting heart rate, training load, plan and calendar.

It learns from every interaction, including post-workout feedback. It keeps what it learns organized for endurance training and acts on it in later recommendations.

Rides arrive automatically from services including Garmin, COROS and Wahoo. Sleep, HRV and resting heart rate sync from Garmin, COROS, Intervals.icu, WHOOP or Apple Health on iPhone, outside the US too. It needs no Strava subscription.

A season plan and workouts ready to ride

It plans your season toward your goal in dated phases, each with a weekly hours range and a reason. It builds each workout for you and the day, then keeps the upcoming sessions on your calendar. Ask for another workout or adjust one by chatting.

Tell it a session was missed or a race moved. It adapts the plan at once with your approval. Planned workouts sync to your devices, including Garmin Edge and watches, Wahoo ELEMNT, COROS and Zwift.

A ride matched to a planned workout can get a Workout Score out of 100 with the reason.

Ask for a chart of weekly training load since August. A bar or line chart appears from your computed data, with nothing to upload. Your power bests from 5 seconds to 60 minutes also show a percentile against other riders and an estimated racing category.

The indoor workout player is free on iOS and Android. It runs your workout on a Bluetooth smart trainer supporting FTMS, the standard used to control the trainer. A heart-rate strap is optional. ERG mode adjusts resistance to hold each step's target watts; you can turn it off. The ride continues with your phone locked.

The app requires iOS 18 or later or Android 8 or later. Its iPad app also runs on Macs with Apple chips. There is no web version. Apple Health, Apple Watch and home-screen widgets require an iPhone.

Frequently asked questions

RestOrTrain plans your season and puts today's session on your trainer or Garmin.

A few questions a month are free.

Published September 16, 2026, updated October 10, 2026