Differences among activity types?

1

Hi - I noticed that activity type “workout” has a field for weight lifted. This happens to be the type that is assigned to cardio activities from Garmin. I’m guessing that in Strava “workout” is used for strength training and that’s the reason perhaps?

@david already explained that activity type mapping is coded to Strava and not easily changed - but I wondered if there were any clear differences in what fields are used and whether anything is handled differently among the different types.

Workout and Crossfit both get that barbell icon (which makes me think they have something in common), but only Workout shows that weight lifted field.

Basically my question is whether there are significant differences in how Intervals treats data based on the activity type? For instance, does it understand that paddling activities all have a stroke rate ? Or is it treated the same as any cadence data?

2

There are some hardcoded rules around some activity types (e.g. swims, weight training, rowing etc.). So cadence data is treated as (no stroke rate for paddling) is but rowing gets “Stroke power index” because it is something people like for that sport.

The icons are shared between similar activity types (or because I couldn’t find a nice looking icon to use).

The current list:

    Ride("Bike", "Riding", "Biking", "MTB", "Cycling"),
    Run("Running"),
    Swim("Swimming"),
    WeightTraining(0.0, 1.0, "Strength", "Gym", "Weights"),
    Hike("Hiking"),
    Walk("Walking"),
    AlpineSki,
    BackcountrySki("Ski", "Skiing"),
    Canoeing("Canoe"),
    Crossfit,
    EBikeRide("EBike"),
    Elliptical,
    Golf,
    Handcycle,
    IceSkate,
    InlineSkate,
    Kayaking("Kayak"),
    Kitesurf("Kitesurfing"),
    NordicSki,
    RockClimbing("Climbing"),
    RollerSki,
    Rowing("Row"),
    Sail,
    Snowboard("Snowboarding"),
    Snowshoe,
    Soccer,
    StairStepper,
    StandUpPaddling(0.0, 0.0),
    Surfing("Surf"),
    Velomobile,
    VirtualRide,
    VirtualRun,
    WaterSport,
    Wheelchair,
    Windsurf("Windsurfing"),
    Workout(0.0, 1.0),
    Yoga(0.0, 0.0, "Stretch", "Massage"),
    Other;
1 Like
3

This is helpful, thanks!

4

David, is there any difference between the “rowing” and “virtual rowing” types?

5

I would think that rowing has a real GPS track while Virtual rowing a virtual or no GPS track. Recording units switch GPS off for indoor activities.