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Question

Setting perceived exertion through the Strava APIs doesn't work

  • October 15, 2025
  • 5 replies
  • 56 views

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I'm trying to programmatically set the perceived exertion for an activity in a lightweight commute logger chrome extension I've written. Setting perceived_exertion through the Strava API doesn't seem to work. I can set other attributes of the activity, like type == commute, but not perceived effort. I tried setting it via UI manipulation but was unsuccessful doing that as well. I was able to successfully correct distance by using UI targeting, but nothing I do will change the perceived exertion.

 

Any thoughts as to what I might be doing wrong? Ideally this would be settable through the API.

5 replies

Jan_Mantau
Superuser
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  • Superuser
  • 1782 replies
  • October 15, 2025

The API documentation does not list perceived_exertion as updatable. That doesn’t have to mean much because the API documentation is not very well maintained by the Strava API team, so the question is: Do you have seen somewhere that it should work anyway?


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  • Author
  • Hub Rookie
  • 2 replies
  • October 16, 2025

@Jan_Mantau no, I just assumed it was updatable similar to other fields (like ride type). I also tried to update it by targeting the UI elements on the activity page. That was also unsuccessful.


Jan_Mantau
Superuser
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  • Superuser
  • 1782 replies
  • October 16, 2025

In that case please lookup https://developers.strava.com/docs/reference/#api-models-UpdatableActivity which fields are meant to be modified with the API.


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  • Author
  • Hub Rookie
  • 2 replies
  • October 16, 2025

Thanks! I still want to update the perceived effort… is there no way to do that programmatically? And if not, Strava, can you please add a way to do it?


Jan_Mantau
Superuser
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  • Superuser
  • 1782 replies
  • October 16, 2025

Except you find some convoluted solution that somehow calls and manipulates the edit screen of an activity there is no way. And I can’t remember that the API team ever fulfilled a user request made in this hub, their only reply is usually “thank you for the feedback” and then no one hears of it again.