Training strategy
In STAS, a saved strategy is a compact preparation map, not a training plan or workout calendar. It preserves only the long-term decisions that are specific to your route and cannot be reconstructed from current goals, rules, and training history.
ChatGPT or Claude can help you create the strategy and save it to your profile. It preserves the relationships between your goals, the purpose of the current phase, the broad route ahead, and the evidence that should prompt a review.
What a training strategy is
A training strategy is a short coaching note saved in your profile. Create it with ChatGPT or Claude after discussing your goals, history, and the route ahead. STAS uses it to keep future decisions connected to the longer preparation journey.
A route, not a weekly schedule
The map is not a day-by-day schedule or weekly plan. It records the goal relationships, the purpose of the current phase, and a broad route of roughly three to six phases.
For each phase, it states what should be developed, preserved, or deliberately deferred. Phase dates are approximate; the remaining time to the next goal always matters.
Why STAS uses a training strategy
STAS works without a strategy, but a saved strategy preserves long-term decisions that are specific to your route, so every new plan can stay connected to the preparation journey.
Why it helps
STAS can already use your workouts, goals, rules, and calendar. The map adds only the longer-term decisions that connect those current facts into one route.
- Weekly plans can support the purpose of the current phase without turning the map into a weekly template.
- Workout reviews can relate progress to what the current phase is meant to develop, preserve, or defer.
- The coach can adapt the near-term plan while retaining the intended route to the next goal.
Strategy, weekly plan, and calendar are different layers
The weekly plan decides what to do next. The calendar stores exact workouts in Intervals.icu. The preparation map explains how the current phase and the route to the next goal should shape those choices.
Three separate layers
They work together, but they should not replace one another.
- Training strategy: goal relationships, phase purpose, route, and review evidence.
- 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 map should be short enough to use in chat and contain only route-specific, long-horizon decisions unavailable from current goals, rules, or history.
- Relationships between the main goal, intermediate goals, and the next goal.
- The purpose of the current phase and the broader route of roughly three to six phases.
- For every phase: what to develop, preserve, and defer.
- Approximate phase timing, with remaining time to the next goal considered at every review.
- Review triggers, unresolved questions, and evidence for changing feasibility, timing, sequence, or the goal route.
How to create and save a training strategy
Bring your context into the chat, then review it with the AI coach so it can draft a compact preparation map and save it to your profile.
Step-by-step workflow
Use this flow when you want ChatGPT or Claude to build a preparation map from your STAS context, rather than 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 goals, training history, the next goal, and any important unknowns about the route.
- Ask the AI coach to draft a compact preparation map, review the text, and confirm that it should be saved.
- After saving it, ask for weekly plans that already take this strategy into account.
- Review the map after an important race or goal, or when persistent consequences may change phase feasibility, timing, sequence, or the goal route.
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
Pain, poor sleep, illness, or an unusually difficult session normally changes the near-term plan first, not the strategy. Review the strategy only if the effect persists and changes the feasibility, timing, sequence, or route to a goal.
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 make near-term choices that support the purpose of the current phase.
- It can explain a workout in relation to the route and the next goal.
- It can adjust the near-term plan first and review the strategy only when a lasting change affects the route.
How to create a training strategy in ChatGPT or Claude
Create the map after connecting your workouts, completing your profile, and reviewing the route to your next goal. Do not start from a blank prompt.
What to give the AI coach
Ask ChatGPT or Claude to review your STAS context: goals, rules, history, calendar, the next goal, and the current map if one exists. It should propose a compact map and show it to you before saving.
- relationships between the goals and the next goal;
- the purpose of the current phase and the broad route ahead;
- what each phase should develop, preserve, or defer;
- review triggers, unknowns, and evidence that could change the route.
What to check before saving
Make sure the map has not become a workout calendar, a day-by-day schedule, or a set of weekly rules. It should contain only long-horizon route decisions; 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 evidence suggests that the route, not just the near-term plan, may need to change.
When to create one
Create a map when the route between your goals needs decisions that are not already captured by current goals, rules, or training history.
- Your goals have an order or relationship, such as a stepping-stone event before a main goal.
- You need a broad preparation route with several phases and different purposes.
- You want to make explicit what each phase should develop, preserve, or defer.
- You are starting a new route after an important race, goal, pause, injury, or change in priorities.
Main reasons
- When a lasting issue affects whether a phase remains feasible, or changes its timing or sequence.
- When an important unknown becomes clear, or new evidence changes the route to the next goal.
- After reaching an important goal, finishing an important race, or completing an important training block.
- When the goal, priorities, or main sport changes.
- When a lasting change in circumstances affects the route to the next goal.
Where to view or delete the strategy
Your saved training strategy appears in your STAS profile. You create and update it in ChatGPT or Claude; weekly plans can then be saved to Intervals.icu.
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 does not replace current goals, rules, training history, or reports. It adds context that is specific to your route for decisions beyond the near term.
What stays separate
The strategy works 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.
Local signals adjust the plan first
Current goals, rules, history, reports, and calendar data guide the near-term plan. Review the strategy only when a lasting effect changes the feasibility, timing, sequence, or route to the next goal.