Guia de Integração com o Strava
Strava and Garmin are not two routes to the same data, and treating them as interchangeable is the mistake this page exists to stop. Which one you connect changes what coaching is possible.
The short version: Strava is an excellent record of your activities and is not a source of overnight health data. Your sleep, your resting heart rate trend and your HRV are not in Strava, because Strava was never a watch. Connect Strava alone and you get good session analysis with a much thinner picture of recovery. That is not a flaw in Strava — it is simply what Strava is for.
Garmin versus Strava, row by row
Hedge the Garmin column against your own watch: the health rows depend on what your model measures, and Garmin's feature set varies enormously across the range.
| What a coach needs | Garmin connection | Strava connection |
|---|---|---|
| Completed sessions, sport, duration, distance | Yes | Yes |
| GPS route, pace and elevation | Yes | Yes |
| Heart rate during the session | Yes | Yes, where the recording device captured it |
| Lap and interval splits | Yes | Usually, where the original file contained them |
| Power, for cycling | Yes, with a meter | Yes, with a meter |
| Resting heart rate trend | Yes, daily | No |
| Overnight HRV | On models that measure it | No |
| Sleep duration and quality | On models that measure it | No |
| Stress and Body Battery | On models that produce them | No |
| Devices it covers | Garmin watches and bike computers only | Almost anything that can push to Strava |
| Best at | The full picture — training plus recovery | The training record, whatever recorded it |
Read down the two columns and the shape of the decision is obvious. The rows Strava cannot fill are all the overnight rows — and overnight is where the evidence for "am I absorbing this training or digging a hole" lives. A plan built from sessions alone can see what you did. A plan that also sees your resting heart rate and your sleep can see what it cost you.
So which should you connect?
If you own a Garmin, the Garmin connection is the one that matters. It carries everything in the Strava column plus the health rows Strava has no access to. Adding Strava on top brings nothing new about your training and some duplication, which is covered below.
If you do not own a Garmin, Strava is the realistic route in. Its real strength is breadth. Polar, Suunto, Coros and Wahoo devices, indoor platforms, and a long list of phone apps can all be configured to send finished activities to Strava, so Strava becomes a single place where training from mixed hardware arrives in one format. Whether your particular device does it depends on that device's own settings, not on Strava — check at the device end if activities are not appearing.
If you own a Garmin and also use something else, connect Garmin and let your other device's activities reach Strava as it already does. Just understand what happens next.
What happens when both are connected
This is the section that saves support tickets, because it looks like a bug and is not one.
Most Garmin users have Garmin set to auto-upload every finished activity to Strava. If you then connect both accounts to the same training app, one run exists in two places — once from Garmin's servers, once from Strava's copy of the same file. Two sources, one morning's work.
Understanding it is the point rather than panicking about it. The two copies are not identical: the Strava version has been through an extra step and can differ in small ways in its splits, its elevation or its trimmed start and end. The Garmin copy is the original recording. If a session appears twice and the numbers disagree slightly, the Garmin version is the one closer to what your watch actually measured.
The simplest way to avoid the whole situation is to connect the source your data actually originates from, not every service it has passed through on the way. For most athletes with a Garmin, that means Garmin. The Garmin connection guide sets out what that link carries and why it can look broken when it is working.
What a Strava-only setup still gets you
Plenty, and it is worth being clear about it rather than leaving a non-Garmin athlete feeling second class. Session analysis needs the session: your splits, your heart rate through the effort, how the pace held or fell away in the last third. All of that is in a Strava activity. So is the training load picture that comes from weeks of sessions stacked up — frequency, duration, how hard and how often.
What is missing is the recovery side of the ledger. Without resting heart rate and overnight HRV, nothing can tell you that you are going into today already short. The honest consequence: with Strava alone, the plan reacts to what you did. With overnight data as well, it can react to how you are absorbing it. If you want to understand what those overnight numbers actually mean, our guide to HRV status and the piece on a rising resting heart rate cover both. Athletes on an Apple Watch or iPhone should also read the Apple Health page, which is blunt about the routes in.
Frequently asked questions
Can a training app get my sleep and HRV from Strava?
No. Strava holds activities, not overnight health data, so sleep, resting heart rate trends and HRV are not available through a Strava connection no matter which watch recorded the run. Those come from a connection to the device platform itself, such as Garmin.
Should I connect Garmin or Strava?
If you own a Garmin, connect Garmin — it carries everything Strava would plus your overnight health data. Strava is the better choice when your training comes from a device or platform that already sends its activities there.
Do I need Strava's paid subscription for this?
No. Connecting your Strava account and reading your own activities does not depend on a premium Strava plan.
Why is the same run showing up twice?
Because Garmin is auto-uploading to Strava and both accounts are connected, so the same session arrives from two sources. It is expected behaviour rather than a fault. Connect the source your data originates from — usually Garmin — rather than every service it passes through.
My activities are not reaching Strava at all. Where do I look?
At the device or app that recorded them, not at the training app. If a session is not visible in Strava itself, nothing can read it from there. Check that your watch, bike computer or recording app is still authorised to send activities to Strava.
Does a Strava connection see my private activities?
It sees what you authorise it to see when you approve the connection, and Strava's own privacy controls govern the rest. If an activity's visibility is restricted in Strava, that restriction is the thing deciding what travels.
Connect the source, not the scrapbook
Strava tells you what you did; it cannot tell you what it cost you, and it cannot tell you what to do tomorrow. Lactate Training syncs Strava activities as well as Garmin activities and health data, then builds and adapts a plan around them with zones anchored to your lactate threshold.