How STAS works

Training strategy

In STAS, a strategy is not a training plan or a workout calendar. It sets the long-term direction: the goal you are training toward, the main phases, the constraints, and the rules the AI coach should use when planning the next few weeks.

ChatGPT or Claude can help you shape this strategy and save it to your profile. Once saved, STAS can reuse the same direction in future chats, so weekly plans and workout reviews stay connected to your goal, current fitness and fatigue, and real-life constraints.

What a training strategy is

A training strategy is brief coaching guidance saved in your profile. You usually create it with ChatGPT or Claude after discussing your goals, training history, and constraints. STAS then uses it to keep future plans tied to the bigger picture.

Long-term direction, not a schedule

A strategy is not a day-by-day schedule or weekly plan. It describes the overall approach: training phases, planning rules, constraints, and the signs that the strategy needs a review.

A good strategy tells the coach what matters now, what should not be rushed, and when the overall approach needs to change.

Why STAS uses a strategy

STAS can work without a strategy, but a saved strategy gives the AI coach the bigger picture, so every new week does not start from scratch.

Why it helps

Without a strategy, STAS can still use your workouts, goals, rules, and calendar. A strategy adds the longer-term view behind those details.

Weekly plans become less generic because the AI understands what the week is meant to support.
Workout reviews can show whether a session actually supported the current training block.
The coach can adjust a rough week without losing the main direction.

Strategy, weekly plan, and calendar are different layers

The weekly plan says what to do next. The calendar stores the planned workouts in Intervals.icu. The strategy explains why the week should be built that way.

Three separate layers

They work together, but they should not replace one another.

Strategy: long-term direction and decision rules.
Weekly plan: the next few days or weeks turned into concrete training.
Calendar: exact workouts saved to Intervals.icu and, if your setup supports it, synced to the watch.

What it usually includes

The saved strategy should be short enough to use in chat and clear enough to guide planning.

Main goal or long-term training direction.
Your current starting point: strengths, risks, and limits.
Broad training phases and the current block.
Rules for a normal week: easy and hard days, long sessions, strength, rest, and sport mix.
Review triggers: what should prompt a strategy update.

How to create and save a training strategy

Start by bringing your data into the chat, then review it with the AI coach so it can draft the strategy and save it to your profile.

Step-by-step workflow

Use this flow when you want ChatGPT or Claude to build a training strategy from your Intervals.icu history, not from a generic prompt.

Connect Intervals.icu or upload your workouts there, so STAS can read your training history.
Fill in your profile, goals, and rules: available time, limits, sports, key races, and preferences.
Ask ChatGPT or Claude to review your current fitness, training history, and constraints.
Ask the AI coach to draft the strategy, review the text, and confirm that it should be saved.
After saving it, ask for weekly plans that already take this strategy into account.
Later, return to the strategy and review it when your data, goal, or constraints have clearly changed.

No manual editor

There is no manual strategy editor on the website. This keeps the saved strategy deliberate: you review the full coaching text before STAS saves a new version.

If you want to change the strategy, ask STAS in ChatGPT or Claude to rebuild it, review the new text, and confirm it.

Updates are not automatic

A hard workout, one tired day, or a small calendar move usually calls for a near-term plan change, not a new strategy. The strategy should change when the long-term direction or training conditions have really changed.

How the AI uses it

When ChatGPT or Claude creates a weekly plan or reviews training, STAS can include the saved strategy in the coaching context.

The AI can choose workouts that fit the current block instead of just filling the calendar.
It can explain a workout in the context of the larger goal.
It can help decide when the short-term plan should change while the long-term strategy stays the same.

How to create a training strategy in ChatGPT or Claude

Create the strategy after you connect your workouts, complete your profile, and review your current training. Do not start from a blank prompt.

What to give the AI coach

Ask ChatGPT or Claude to review your STAS context: goals, rules, recent workouts, calendar, and the current strategy if one already exists. After that, the AI should suggest a compact strategy and show it to you before saving anything.

the goal or training direction;
the current phase and constraints;
the logic for the next few weeks;
rules for when the strategy should be reviewed.

What to check before saving

Make sure the strategy has not turned into a workout calendar or day-by-day schedule. It should explain the training approach; the exact workouts belong in the weekly plan and calendar.

Completed workouts: the real history behind the strategy.

Training plan: how the strategy turns into calendar workouts.

When to review it

Review the strategy when the saved training logic may no longer match your real situation.

When to create one

Create a strategy when you want STAS to help with more than the next few days.

You need one clear approach for a race, several goals, or a period without a fixed race.
Your training has several moving parts: running, cycling, strength, travel, work, and recovery.
You want weekly plans to follow the same clear logic.
You are starting a new block after a break, injury, race, or change in priorities.

Main reasons

After 1-2 months of using STAS for regular weekly planning.
After illness, injury, a long pause, or a period with a badly disrupted routine.
After reaching a goal, finishing a race, or completing an important training block.
When the goal, priorities, or main sport changes.
When available time, work limits, family schedule, or recovery constraints change.

Where to view or delete the strategy

Your saved training strategy appears in your STAS profile. You still create and update it in ChatGPT or Claude, and weekly plans can be saved to Intervals.icu after that.

Strategy card

Open Profile and then the Strategy card.

You can read the saved strategy there.
You can see when it was saved and whether it is active.
You can delete the saved strategy. Goals, rules, completed workouts, reports, and planned workouts stay.
Later, the strategy will also be available from the Telegram bot menu item "Strategy".

What the strategy does not replace

The strategy is not a ready-made calendar, and it does not replace fresh data, workout reports, or training rules. It gives the AI coach context for the next plan.

What the strategy does not replace

The strategy sits alongside these parts of STAS.

Goals: what you want to achieve.
Rules: fixed limits and preferences for training weeks.
Reports: how you actually felt after workouts.
Calendar: the exact sessions planned in Intervals.icu.

Current data still wins

If new goals, rules, reports, wellness, training history, or calendar data no longer match an old strategy, the AI should use the current facts instead of following old logic blindly.