As a Verified athlete, Pro or Verified club, you can leverage your unique influence to go further with brands, with Strava, and within your own community. Here’s how.
Make the most of your Verified badge
Kudos, you've officially earned the orange check mark! Now take five minutes and set your profile up for success from the start.
Make your profile unmistakably you
Your profile is the first thing a new fan meets. Make it count by adding:
A clear photo of you. Not a logo, not a stock shot – your face, so there's no doubt it's really you.
A bio that says who you are. Add your sport, your location, your pronouns, and your proudest achievement or results. Have fun and keep it short (under 150 characters).
A link to your sponsors, team, and Club. Give the community and brands behind you a shoutout.
Dial in your privacy settings from day one
We know it’s important to keep certain information about your training, performance, and location just for you. As a Verified or Pro athlete your profile is public, but you’re in control of what's visible to your community and what gets to stay private.
Here's what you can choose to share or not:
Where you are
Hide your map's start and end points, so your daily loop never leads to your front door – or create a privacy zone of up to a mile around your home or the places you train from most.
Hide a whole activity's map when a session should stay off the grid.
Choose who sees your Flyby so no one can retrace where and when you were near them.
Your numbers
Share your activity with a title, photo, or description but keep your power, heart rate, speed, and start time hidden. Keep certain stats from your most important training days to yourself while still getting the kudos. Here’s how to hide your details from your activities.
Who reaches you
Set your default activity visibility to ‘Everyone’,’Followers’, or ‘Only You.’
Block unwanted interactions and report impersonation or anything that crosses a line. Learn more here.
For the full breakdown on staying safe while growing your public profile, have a read through our Privacy 101: Balancing growth with safety.
Get connected in your first week
Now that you’ve got a Verified badge, here are 10 things to do in your first week to become a Strava power user:
Post activities that reel in the kudos. Show off your sport with a fun title, photos, videos, and a line about how it went. Move past "Morning Run" and let your community know how you're getting on, what your training towards, or big milestones you’re meeting. Check out How to post activities that get you noticed for more tips.
Upload your activities automatically. Connect to your favorite devices and apps – from Garmin, Wahoo, Coros, Whoop, Apple Watch, Heavy, and more (check the full list of compatible devices here) and let us do the rest. Your activities and stats will automatically sync the moment you finish so you never miss a moment.
Tag your favorite gear. Add your bikes and shoes under Gear to track mileage and tell your community the brands that keep you moving. Go to your profile, scroll to Gear and add yours. Use different kit for different activities (e.g. road vs. trail running, MTB vs. gravel)? Select your go-to gear by sport. Your gear will be displayed with the activity. 💡Pro tip: give your gear a nickname rather than naming the full make and model.
Create or join Clubs and Events. Clubs are where community happens on Strava. Whether it's a running crew, a gym, or a group of friends spread across cities, find your people, create events, and move together. Read Building community through Clubs to learn how to set one up. 💡Pro tip: Strava’s Event Discovery tool is great when travelling to discover social events near you. Go to Group Tab > Find events near you > Browse events.
Follow other Verified and Pro athletes. Find your peers, get inspired, return the kudos.
Set a Goal. Goals give your training direction. Set a weekly distance target, a time-based challenge, or a personal milestone for any sport type; running, cycling, swimming, strength, and more. Small targets compound.
Chase a Segment near you. Going for a Local Legend or a KOM/QOM is the fastest way to get noticed in your own backyard.
Build a Route. Then, share it as a link, an embed, or a Flyover in your Strava Clubs or on your other social platforms for others to come join you virtually or in real life.
Show up for your community. Reply to comments, give out kudos to your followers, or after a group session, send a kudo bomb to everyone who joined. Head to ‘Manage Group’ in the three dots, gently shake your phone and select “Kudos all.”
Share Sticker Stats to bring your training to life across your socials. Drop your activity map and stats, a new PR, or a Streak straight onto a photo.
You’re set. Go make moves
You’re ready to connect your device, optimize your profile, lock in your privacy, and engage with your community. Everything else builds from there.
Next up – check out How to post activities that get you noticed to take your activity uploads to the next level.
This article shows you how to stay in control of your privacy as a Verified or Pro athlete, even with a public profile — from keeping your location private to sharing it in real time with people you trust.
You've already got people who love following what you do. A Strava Club turns them into something stronger: a community that moves together.
Know the difference between an activity people scroll past and one that earns kudos, comments, and a growing community, so the whole story of your activity shows, not just the start line.
These steps outline showing up, engaging, and being discoverable. That’s exactly how your Strava community gets its own momentum going. Here's how to build on it.