Zwift Becomes A Strava Rival Fitness Platform Thanks To Update

Zwift has launched a new Fitness Trends feature that turns the platform into a fitness platform as well as virtual cycling interface.

The app was already a good way to improve your fitness, but the new stats will make it easier to track your progress over time. Fitness Trends is available from today, July 2. This is a continuation of the fitness-led changes Zwift made back in April.

Zwift’s two core stats here are Training Score and your Stress Goal. Neither of these is a metric you can directly compare with those of another platform. It’s more like the fitness score Strava offers. And the “stress”part relates to the amount of load or exertion you put your body through, not the more commonplace definition of the term.

The Zwift app will let you see graphs of these figures over time, and they feed into your training status. This one is the kind of tag you’ll see in other fitness platforms, telling you know whether your current training routine is likely effective, “productive,” or not.

“All charts can be filtered by time, allowing Zwifters to better understand their training history at a simple glance,” says Zwift.

These added data features do not come with added costs, as they do on Strava. But then again, Zwift users already pay a fairly hefty membership just to access the service. This is rather a value-add upgrade, to make the $19.99 seem a better deal.

There’s more too. From July 15, the Zwift heads-up display will provide greater customisation, with options for new data fields. The bad news is the half of them require extra hardware, extra sensors, most Zwift users probably don’t have already.

Here’s the list:

• Average speed
• Average watts/kg
• Splits
• CORE temperature
• CORE heat Strain Index
• L/R balance

The first three do not require any special hardware. But the CORE ones rely on a body temperature sensor, while left and right balance uses data from pair of power meters.

It’s fairly hardcore stuff, but does sound like a meaningfully additive upgrade for the most serious of cyclists.