Strava: How to Hide Your Heart Rate Data and Control Privacy

How do you not show your heart rate on Strava?

You can prevent your heart rate data from appearing on Strava activities by adjusting your account's global privacy settings, modifying the privacy for individual activities post-upload, or by ensuring your heart rate monitor is disconnected from your recording device before you begin an activity.

Why Control Heart Rate Data Visibility?

For many athletes and fitness enthusiasts, heart rate data is a critical component of training analysis, offering insights into effort levels, physiological response, and recovery. However, there are several valid reasons why an individual might choose to hide this information on public platforms like Strava:

• Personal Privacy: Heart rate is a direct physiological metric, and some users prefer to keep this sensitive health data private, not wishing to share it with a broad audience or even their followers.
• Competitive Strategy: For athletes, revealing detailed physiological data might be seen as giving away competitive insights into their training intensity, fitness levels, or race-day pacing strategies.
• Avoiding Scrutiny or Comparison: Some individuals may feel pressured or uncomfortable with others analyzing or judging their effort levels based on heart rate data, preferring to keep their training personal.
• Data Simplicity: A cleaner, less cluttered activity display focusing solely on metrics like pace, distance, and elevation might be preferred by some.

Method 1: Adjusting Privacy Settings on Strava (Post-Upload)

Strava offers granular control over your activity data, allowing you to manage heart rate visibility both globally and on a per-activity basis.

Global Privacy Settings

This method affects all future uploads, ensuring your heart rate data is hidden by default unless you choose to make it visible for specific activities.

1. Access Settings: On the Strava website, navigate to your profile picture in the top right corner, then click Settings. On the mobile app, go to You (profile icon) > Settings (gear icon).
2. Privacy Controls: Select Privacy Controls from the left-hand menu (website) or scroll down to Privacy Controls (app).
3. Heart Rate Visibility: Look for the "Heart Rate" or "Health Data" section. You will typically find options like:
   • "Everyone": Your heart rate data is visible to all Strava users.
   • "Followers": Only your followers can see your heart rate data.
   • "Only You": Your heart rate data is visible only to you. Select "Only You" to hide your heart rate from others by default.

Individual Activity Privacy

If your global settings allow heart rate visibility, or if you want to hide heart rate for a specific activity without changing your default, you can edit it post-upload.

1. Open the Activity: Navigate to the specific activity on Strava (either via the website or mobile app).
2. Edit Activity: Click the "Edit Activity" (pencil icon) button.
3. Privacy Options: Within the edit screen, scroll down to the "Privacy" or "Heart Rate" section. You may see a toggle or a dropdown menu specifically for heart rate visibility. Select the option that hides your heart rate data (e.g., "Hide Heart Rate" or "Only Me").
4. Save Changes: Ensure you save the changes to apply the new privacy setting.

Method 2: Disconnecting Heart Rate Sensors (Pre-Activity)

The most direct way to prevent heart rate data from appearing on Strava is to simply not record it in the first place. This involves ensuring your heart rate monitor is not connected to your GPS device or smartphone app before you start your activity.

For GPS Watches/Bike Computers (e.g., Garmin, Wahoo, Apple Watch, Coros)

• Unpair the Sensor: Go into your device's sensor settings and unpair or disconnect your heart rate strap or optical sensor.
• Disable HR Recording: Some devices allow you to disable heart rate recording for a specific activity profile or entirely without unpairing the sensor. Consult your device's manual for precise instructions.
• Do Not Wear/Power On: If using a chest strap, simply don't wear it. For optical wrist HR, you might need to disable the sensor if it's integrated into your watch.

For Strava Mobile App Recording

• Bluetooth Settings: Ensure your external heart rate monitor (chest strap, armband) is not paired via Bluetooth to your smartphone before starting a recording session in the Strava app.
• In-App Sensor Settings: If you've previously paired a sensor within the Strava app itself, go to the app's record screen, tap the sensor icon, and ensure your heart rate sensor is disconnected or turned off.

Method 3: Editing Activity Data (Post-Upload, Manual Removal)

This is a more advanced and less common method, typically used when other options are not feasible or if you need to remove heart rate data from an already uploaded file that you wish to keep but without HR.

1. Export Original File: On the Strava website, open the activity, click the wrench icon (or three dots for more options), and select "Export Original". This will download the activity file (usually .GPX or .FIT format).
2. Edit the File: Use a third-party GPX/FIT editing tool (many free online options exist, or desktop software) to manually remove or redact the heart rate data points from the file. This requires some technical proficiency.
3. Delete Original Activity: Delete the existing activity from Strava.
4. Re-upload Edited File: Manually upload the modified .GPX or .FIT file to Strava.

Note: This method is more complex and generally unnecessary for most users, as Strava's built-in privacy controls are highly effective.

Understanding Strava's Privacy Controls

Strava's privacy ecosystem is designed to give users significant control over their data. When you hide heart rate data, it means:

• No Graph: The heart rate graph will not appear on your activity page for others.
• No Metrics: Metrics like average and max heart rate will not be displayed.
• Impact on Relative Effort: Strava's "Relative Effort" metric, which quantifies your cardiovascular output, relies on heart rate data. If heart rate is hidden or not recorded, this metric will either not be calculated or will be less accurate.

It's crucial to regularly review your Strava privacy settings, especially after app updates or if you link new devices, to ensure they align with your preferences.

The Implications of Sharing vs. Hiding Heart Rate Data

The decision to share or hide heart rate data involves weighing personal preferences against the utility of the data for training and community engagement.

Benefits of Sharing Heart Rate Data:

• Comprehensive Performance Analysis: Allows for a deeper understanding of training zones, effort, and recovery.
• Coach/Trainer Insights: Facilitates informed feedback from coaches who can analyze your physiological response.
• Community Engagement: Can inspire or inform others, and allows for more detailed discussions about training.
• Strava Metrics: Enables the calculation of metrics like Relative Effort, which can provide a useful summary of your workout intensity.

Benefits of Hiding Heart Rate Data:

• Enhanced Privacy: Protects sensitive personal health information from public view.
• Reduced Pressure/Comparison: Eliminates the potential for external judgment or comparison based on physiological data.
• Focus on Other Metrics: Encourages a focus on pace, distance, elevation, and other non-physiological aspects of performance.

Conclusion

Strava provides robust options for managing your heart rate data visibility. Whether you prioritize personal privacy, competitive strategy, or simply prefer a cleaner activity summary, you have full control. By utilizing Strava's built-in privacy settings or by proactively disconnecting your heart rate sensors, you can ensure your physiological data is shared only as much as you desire, allowing you to tailor your Strava experience to your exact preferences while still leveraging its powerful tracking capabilities.