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Strava has recently unveiled its Year in Sport: Trend Report for 2024, showcasing the Apple Watch’s dominance in the running market, outperforming other popular devices like Garmin watches.
Each year, Strava compiles insights from its extensive user base, analyzing data to highlight trends in sports, fitness gear, and user behaviors for the year ahead. The findings for 2024 are particularly revealing.
Strava by the numbers for 2024
The report presents several significant trends from the data collected. One of the standout features is a remarkable 59% surge in group activities on the platform. This increase reflects a growing trend among users to engage in collective workouts, including social engagements such as coffee breaks during runs. Notably, runners are also prioritizing rest, with marathon trainees logging no running activities on 60% of the days in their pre-marathon preparation.
As for gear preferences, the Nike Pegasus is identified as the most widely used running shoe on Strava. The Nike Vaporfly Next% also stands out, being favored for race days, while the Nike Alphafly secures its position as the go-to choice among marathon participants.
When it comes to running technology, the Apple Watch leads the pack, particularly among 5K runners. For longer distances, Garmin devices become more prominent, yet overall, the Apple Watch remains the top pick for running enthusiasts. The report lists the Apple Watch Series as the top device, followed closely by the more affordable Apple Watch SE, and the Garmin Forerunner 245 rounding out the top three.
Cyclists have their preferences as well, with the Garmin Edge 530, Garmin Edge 830, and Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT V1 being the favored devices among this group.
Strava also notes a shift in demographic participation, with older generations—Boomers and Gen X—outpacing younger users—Millennials and Gen Z—in distance covered and King or Queen of the Mountain titles. Interestingly, women are 20% more likely than men to claim these titles on the platform in 2024.
In terms of emerging fitness trends, weight training stands out as the quickest-growing activity for women on Strava, seeing an increase of 25%, while men engaging in yoga and Pilates has risen by 15%.
However, Strava has stirred controversy among its users with recent alterations to its API, which some believe could disrupt the existing app ecosystem built around the platform. Changes, particularly in data handling and AI usage, have raised concerns. In response to community dissatisfaction, Strava emphasized its ongoing commitment to the ecosystem and assured users that fewer than 0.1% of applications would be significantly affected by the new policies.
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www.techradar.com