The Outsiders 1.7.6: Deeper Workout Analysis, Custom Sharing, and Relative Intensity for Runners

Table of Contents

1. Key Highlights
2. Introduction
3. Breakdown: Splits Reimagined for Actionable Analysis
4. Customizable Sharing: More Control Over What You Publish
5. Relative Intensity for Runners: Translating Heart Rate into Workload
6. Body Temperature in Workouts: Why It’s Useful and What to Expect
7. Personal Goals UX: Small Changes, Big Behavioral Effects
8. Integration and Data Flow: How The Outsiders Uses Apple Health and Imports
9. Training Workflows: How Coaches and Athletes Can Use the New Features
10. Comparisons with Other Platforms: Where The Outsiders Fits
11. Data Accuracy, Calibration, and Practical Warnings
12. What This Update Means for Different Athlete Types
13. Practical How-to: Get the Most from 1.7.6
14. Limitations and Where The Outsiders Should Mature
15. The Bigger Picture: Athlete Tools That Respect Clarity
16. How to Evaluate Whether the Update Helps Your Training
17. FAQ

Key Highlights

• Version 1.7.6 replaces "Splits" with a richer "Breakdown" view that shows intervals, manually marked segments, and equal-distance splits across running, cycling, and swimming.
• New customizable sharing tools let athletes publish training sessions with selectable map styles, backgrounds, and filtered stats; runners gain access to a Relative Intensity metric tied to their lactate threshold heart rate.
• The update adds Apple Health-synced body temperature display for compatible devices and polishes Personal Goals UX, improving day-to-day training decisions and recovery monitoring.

Introduction

The Outsiders has positioned itself as an exercise-tracking app tailored to athletes who want clear, data-forward insights without clutter. The latest release, version 1.7.6 from developer Gentler Stories, deepens that focus by expanding how workouts are dissected and shared. The core changes center on a renamed and reworked splits interface now called Breakdown, more granular interval and segment reporting, refined social sharing options, and the transfer of a cycling-only intensity metric to running. A quiet but consequential bridge to Apple Health now surfaces body temperature readings from third-party devices, and an interface refresh makes setting personal goals smoother.

These changes do more than refine visuals. They change how athletes and coaches review sessions, compare efforts over time, and communicate meaningful results to training partners or followers. This article explains what changed, why it matters to athletes across levels, and how to use the new tools in real training contexts.

Breakdown: Splits Reimagined for Actionable Analysis

The most visible change in 1.7.6 is the rebranding and expansion of the Splits interface into something Gentler Stories calls Breakdown. That label is more precise: the view now aggregates multiple ways to partition a workout and makes those partitions immediately comparable.

What Breakdown shows

• Intervals: Automatically detected structured efforts such as repeats, intervals from a workout plan, or high-intensity blocks.
• Manually marked segments: Portions of a workout the user tagged live or retrospectively (for example, a climb, a tempo block, or a coaching-mandated set).
• Equal-distance splits: Standardized per-kilometer or per-mile splits for pacing review.

These three groupings solve different analysis needs. Equal-distance splits are the bread-and-butter tool for pacing: they answer whether your steady run actually stayed steady, and where fatigue appeared. Intervals isolate intended high-effort work from rest periods so athletes and coaches can evaluate whether prescribed intensities were met. Manually marked segments let athletes highlight context—terrain, weather, or race surges—so that a single workout yields layered insights rather than flat averages.

Practical examples

• A middle-distance runner performs 6 x 800m on a 400m track. Breakdown displays each 800m as an interval with its time, average pace, and heart rate, while equal-distance splits can confirm consistency across each 800m segment.
• A cyclist does a mixed ride with two sustained climbs. Manually marking each climb makes it simple to pull corresponding power (if available), heart rate, and cadence for those segments, rather than sifting through an entire ride.
• A swimmer using equal-distance splits can verify pace per 100 meters and view stroke rate or lap time trends—useful for technical work or pacing longer sets.

Why the change matters Athletic progress depends on reliable metrics that align with training intent. Many apps report a single average pace or heartrate for a session. Breakdown surfaces the session’s anatomy: where the hard efforts were, how effort varied across standard distances, and which parts of the workout matched the plan. That clarity speeds feedback loops—athletes and coaches can make adjustments within days rather than weeks.

Breakdown also supports cross-sport parity. Presenting the same segmentation schema to runners, cyclists, and swimmers helps multisport athletes compare efforts across disciplines, which is particularly useful for triathletes managing thresholds and recovery.

Customizable Sharing: More Control Over What You Publish

The update introduces a suite of sharing options allowing athletes to tailor how training sessions appear on social media or when sent to teammates and coaches. The controls cover three main elements: map style, background presentation, and which metrics are included.

Map and background options Users can pick from light, dark, or satellite map styles. Backgrounds can be set to a color or to transparent so the shared image integrates with platform aesthetics. The result resembles Gentler Stories’ other product, Gentler Streak: clean and minimal, with emphasis on the map trace and selected stats rather than an overloaded infographic.

Filterable stats Rather than forcing a fixed set of numbers onto a shared image, the app lets athletes choose which stats to display. A runner might prioritize pace, Relative Intensity, and elevation gain; a cyclist may opt for power, normalized power (if supported), and average cadence. This reduces noise and lets users present the narrative of the workout instead of an exhaustive dataset.

Social and privacy considerations Sharing tools can be powerful publicity instruments, but they carry trade-offs. The same map trace that looks impressive can reveal start/finish locations or training routes around a home address. The new sharing options help mitigate that risk: choosing a satellite view or transparent background makes the image aesthetic, while selectively hiding location-based stats reduces identifiable patterns. Athletes who want to be public about performance while protecting privacy should still review a session’s trace before sharing or use anonymization strategies such as cropping or obscuring the start/finish.

Real-world use case A coach asks an athlete to post a recent interval session for form feedback. The athlete filters the share to show only pace and interval splits, selects a dark map style, and keeps the background transparent so the coach sees the route overlay without household location details. This preserves privacy while sharing the intended data.

Relative Intensity for Runners: Translating Heart Rate into Workload

Version 1.7.6 extends a Relative Intensity metric that was previously available to cyclists into the running domain. The app compares your average heart rate during a workout with your lactate threshold heart rate and expresses effort relative to that personal limit.

What is lactate threshold heart rate? Lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR) approximates the heart rate you can sustain for roughly an hour at high intensity. It’s a training anchor used to set zones for tempo work, threshold sessions, and race-pace planning. While lab testing with blood lactate sampling provides the most accurate LTHR, many athletes estimate it from time trials, field tests, or algorithmic analyses of sustained efforts.

How Relative Intensity works The metric calculates the ratio between session average heart rate and lactate threshold heart rate. If your average for a run is 150 beats per minute (bpm) and your LTHR is 165 bpm, Relative Intensity = 150 / 165 ≈ 0.91, expressed as 91%. That tells you that the session averaged at 91% of an hour-long maximal sustainable effort. This simple percentage translates heart rate into a contextually meaningful workload metric.

Why Relative Intensity matters for runners Heart rate alone lacks context. An average HR of 155 bpm is high for one athlete and moderate for another. By indexing HR to an individual’s LTHR, Relative Intensity clarifies whether a session was easy, hard, or tempo-relevant.

Applications:

• Training consistency: Identical pace on two different days can correspond to different physiological loads. A humid or hilly day might yield higher Relative Intensity for the same pace, signaling additional fatigue.
• Session verification: After a prescribed threshold workout, Relative Intensity helps confirm whether the athlete achieved the intended target (for example, 90–95% of LTHR).
• Recovery planning: When an easy run pushes Relative Intensity above expected easy thresholds, it signals incomplete recovery or external stressors such as heat or illness.

Limitations and best practices Relative Intensity depends on an accurate LTHR. If LTHR is estimated incorrectly, the metric misleads. Athletes should periodically validate their LTHR with structured tests or coach-guided field efforts, and adjust it when fitness changes. Also remember that heart rate is influenced by hydration, sleep, caffeine, and environmental temperature—context matters.

Example scenario A 10K racer does a 40-minute tempo run and records an average HR of 162 bpm. Her LTHR is 168 bpm. Relative Intensity = 162/168 = 96%. That number confirms the tempo was appropriately hard—close to an hour-sustainable intensity—while providing a reproducible metric to target in subsequent sessions.

Body Temperature in Workouts: Why It’s Useful and What to Expect

A less flashy but technically meaningful change in 1.7.6 is the automatic display of body temperature when the user tracks that metric on a non-Apple Watch device that syncs to Apple Health. The app pulls the temperature reading into the workout view, giving athletes another data point about physiological state.

What body temperature tells you Core and peripheral temperature measurements provide signals about thermal strain, adaptation, and recovery. A raised body temperature during exercise is expected; persistent elevation at rest can indicate illness or insufficient recovery. Tracking trends rather than single readings reveals patterns that inform training load and readiness.

Potential applications

• Heat training and acclimation: Tracking how temperature responds to similar sessions over time helps athletes judge whether they are adapting to hot conditions. Reduced temperature response for the same effort suggests improved heat tolerance.
• Illness detection: A sustained elevation in resting temperature can precede symptomatic illness. Pairing temperature trends with sleep and heart rate variability (HRV) gives a broader early-warning system.
• Recovery and stress monitoring: Nighttime temperature changes may correlate with illness, hormonal cycle phases, or disrupted sleep—useful for athletes who want to tune recovery days.

Device variability and data hygiene Body temperature sensors and algorithms vary across devices. Wrist or ring sensors estimate peripheral temperature and infer core trends, but they are not substitute for clinical thermometers. Differences in placement, calibration, and ambient conditions can affect readings. The Outsiders surfaces the data from Apple Health, so accuracy depends on the upstream device and its Health export fidelity.

How to use the data in practice Focus on patterns over days or weeks. Use temperature alongside heart rate, perceived exertion, sleep, and HRV rather than as a single decisive signal. If temperature rises unexpectedly and persists, reduce intensity and consult a healthcare professional before returning to high-intensity work.

Personal Goals UX: Small Changes, Big Behavioral Effects

The update refreshes the Personal Goals interface, smoothing the interaction of setting and adjusting training objectives. On the surface, UI tweaks may seem cosmetic. Behavior science suggests otherwise: friction in goal-setting reduces follow-through.

Why the refresh matters

• Reduced friction: Faster, clearer goal setting encourages athletes to define and commit to short-term targets such as weekly mileage or frequency of quality sessions.
• Better tracking: When goals are easier to set, they’re more likely to be updated alongside evolving training plans or seasonal focus.
• Psychological momentum: A satisfying interface—little animations or streamlined flows—can increase adherence by making goal updates a smaller cognitive lift.

Application examples

• A runner returning from a break sets a two-week consistency target (four runs per week). The refreshed UI makes that quick to configure and adjust as training resumes.
• A cyclist sets a monthly climbing distance goal and receives clearer progress feedback, which supports pacing training and motivation.

Design changes like this rarely win headlines yet play a central role in long-term engagement and habit formation.

Integration and Data Flow: How The Outsiders Uses Apple Health and Imports

The 1.7.6 release builds on previous improvements that expanded workout import options and added Home Screen widgets. The Outsiders positions itself as a focused analysis layer within the broader Apple Health ecosystem, rather than a full-device firmware competitor.

Data sources and imports Athletes commonly collect data on dedicated sports devices—wrist GPS watches, power meters, chest heart rate straps, cycling head units, or rings that track temperature. The app’s utility rises when it can accept and synthesize that multi-device output. The Outsiders imports workouts from Health and other sources, then layers its own analytics and visual presentation on top.

Practical implications

• Multi-device athletes: Someone who swims with a dedicated pool device, bikes with a head unit, and runs with a watch benefits from an app that normalizes and compares efforts across devices and sports.
• Coach-athlete workflows: Coaches who use different platforms can request a The Outsiders-exported image showing the session’s Breakdown and Relative Intensity, saving time in interpreting raw FIT or TCX files.
• Apple ecosystem synergy: Because the app reads Apple Health, it inherits whatever data the user's devices publish to Health, including HR, cadence, power (when available), and now body temperature. This reduces the need for direct integrations with each hardware brand.

Limitations Data fidelity still depends on upstream devices and how consistently they sync to Apple Health. Delays in syncing, inconsistent metric naming, or missing sensors limit what the app can display. Athletes should validate the presence of critical metrics—heart rate, GPS trace, and, where necessary, power—before relying on the app for analysis.

Training Workflows: How Coaches and Athletes Can Use the New Features

The new Breakdown and Relative Intensity features shape multiple practical workflows for athletes, from daily training to periodized plans.

Workout verification and feedback loop

• Design: Coach prescribes a session: 5 x 5 minutes at threshold with 2-minute recoveries.
• Execution: Athlete completes the session wearing a heart rate monitor and records the workout.
• Verification: Athlete opens Breakdown, checks that intervals were detected correctly or marks them manually, and verifies Relative Intensity and average HR of the interval blocks.
• Feedback: Athlete shares the session with the coach, filtering to show only intervals, average HR per interval, and map trace without revealing the starting address.

Pacing and race planning Athletes preparing for a target race distance can use equal-distance splits to simulate race pacing. A marathoner testing steady-pace sessions at projected race pace can compare per-kilometer splits across similar long runs and watch how Relative Intensity changes over weeks. A rising Relative Intensity for the same pace suggests accumulating fatigue or environmental drag.

Cross-sport comparison A triathlete can compare the Relative Intensity and Breakdown of a long bike with a long run to evaluate cumulative fatigue before a brick session. Equalizing effort across sports helps determine whether a particular ride leaves the athlete fresh enough to run quality sessions afterward.

Recovery planning with temperature and HRV Combine trending body temperature, resting heart rate, and HRV (if available) to build a readiness score. A single-day spike in temperature plus an elevated resting HR suggests postponing high-intensity work. Use Breakdown to confirm whether recent sessions have unusually high Relative Intensity, which may explain physiological signs of overload.

Example week: adaptive decision-making

• Monday: Easy run, Breakdown shows low Relative Intensity—good recovery.
• Tuesday: Threshold session, Breakdown confirms intervals hit target intensity.
• Wednesday: Rest day, temperature elevated slightly; coach recommends additional recovery.
• Thursday: Easy bike with low Relative Intensity; athlete proceeds cautiously.
• Friday: Planned hard session postponed due to persistent temperature and reduced HRV. This adaptive flow blends objective session anatomy with physiological markers to reduce injury and overtraining risk.

Comparisons with Other Platforms: Where The Outsiders Fits

The market for workout-analysis apps includes broad social platforms, coach-focused tools, and device-first ecosystems. The Outsiders occupies a niche between aesthetic, social-centric apps and heavyweight coach platforms.

How The Outsiders differentiates

• Minimalist, athlete-centric presentation: The app emphasizes clean visuals and essential metrics rather than exhaustive dashboards.
• Focus on session anatomy: The Breakdown view, Relative Intensity, and sharing options make it easier to communicate and verify the intent and outcome of workouts.
• Apple Health integration: By drawing on Health, the app can consolidate disparate device data into one analytic layer.

How it compares

• Social platforms: Apps with large social graphs emphasize segment chasing and leaderboards. The Outsiders prioritizes analysis and shareable clarity over competition.
• Coaching platforms: TrainingPeaks-style tools provide planning, workout prescription, and advanced metrics such as Training Stress Score (TSS) and chronic training load. The Outsiders is lighter on planning features but stronger on post-session storytelling and visual clarity.
• Device ecosystems: Watch manufacturers offer native summaries. The Outsiders complements these by providing a focused second opinion with shareable graphics and granular breakdowns.

The Outsiders never needs to replace a coach’s planning tool to be valuable. It can be the middle layer that synthesizes device data and makes sessions communicable and interpretable.

Data Accuracy, Calibration, and Practical Warnings

Meaningful insights require accurate inputs. The Outsiders can only analyze what it receives. Understanding common data pitfalls helps athletes interpret the new features correctly.

Heart rate considerations Wrist-based optical HR sensors can under-report during very high-intensity intervals compared with chest straps, especially with rapid arm motion or poor contact. For threshold or VO2 max efforts, a chest strap or more accurate optical sensor produces better Relative Intensity and interval verification.

GPS and pace GPS accuracy varies with device model, firmware, and environmental conditions (urban canyons, heavy tree cover). For short-interval detection, GPS jitter can produce misleading splits. When precise distance and pacing are essential, use a calibrated foot pod or ensure the GPS device has a clear sky view.

Temperature sensor caveats Peripheral temperature sensors estimate trends but are not clinical devices. Air temperature, clothing, and sensor positioning influence readings. Use trends and corroborate with subjective symptoms.

Lactate threshold estimation LTHR derived from algorithms or field tests is useful but approximate. To maintain Relative Intensity as a reliable metric, retest LTHR periodically, particularly after significant changes in fitness or seasonal training phases.

Subscription vs free features The Outsiders is free to download and offers subscription tiers to unlock advanced features. Evaluate whether the additional analytics and sharing flexibility justify subscription costs by trialing the app during a training cycle. For athletes who rely on coach integration, confirm whether the paid features significantly streamline workflows.

What This Update Means for Different Athlete Types

Recreational runner

• Value: Simple pacing review, motivational sharing, and a clearer sense of whether hard sessions are hard enough.
• Use: Equal-distance splits for tempo runs, selective sharing for community encouragement, and goal setting for consistency.

Competitive amateur

• Value: Granular interval verification, Relative Intensity to anchor threshold sessions, and better coach-athlete communication.
• Use: Manually marking key segments, sharing filtered statistics with a coach, and monitoring temperature trends during heavy training blocks.

Elite or professional athlete

• Value: A fast visual and numerical check of sessions, but not a substitute for lab testing or full coaching platforms; useful as a compact review tool during travel.
• Use: Quick verification of interval compliance, sharing clean session visuals for team analysis, and tracking temperature as one of several recovery metrics.

Multisport athletes

• Value: Unified Breakdown across running, cycling, and swimming reduces friction in cross-discipline comparison.
• Use: Compare Relative Intensity across sports for cumulative load planning and manage back-to-back sessions using clear segment reports.

Coaches

• Value: Faster interpretation of athlete sessions via consistent visuals, saving time when triaging countless uploaded workouts.
• Use: Request targeted shares with specified metrics, or ask athletes to mark segments for context before coach review.

Practical How-to: Get the Most from 1.7.6

Step 1: Update and review permissions Install the 1.7.6 update and confirm The Outsiders has permission to read the necessary Apple Health data: heart rate, workouts, and body temperature if you want it displayed. Ensure your third-party devices sync properly into Health.

Step 2: Validate lactate threshold heart rate If Relative Intensity matters to your training plan, confirm your LTHR is set. Use a trusted field test: a 30- or 60-minute maximal effort can provide a reasonable LTHR estimate, or consult your coach for a structured protocol.

Step 3: Use Breakdown actively

• After a session, open Breakdown and examine intervals, manual markers, and equal-distance splits.
• If automatic detection misses a segment, mark it manually and re-examine the data.
• Look for drift in equal-distance splits and rising Relative Intensity across similar sessions as signs of fatigue.

Step 4: Share with purpose Choose the map style and background that match your audience. For coach or teammate review, include only the metrics they need. For social posts, pick an aesthetic map style and omit home location details.

Step 5: Add temperature to your review habit If you have a device that writes temperature to Apple Health, monitor the trend line over days. Use temperature as a contextual signal, not a standalone determinant for canceling training.

Step 6: Adjust goals with the refreshed UI Set or update Personal Goals to reflect short-term focuses (consistency, threshold work, weekly mileage). Revisit goals regularly; the smoother UI reduces avoidance.

Limitations and Where The Outsiders Should Mature

The 1.7.6 update is constructive, but a few areas could improve with future releases.

• Direct device integrations: Relying on Apple Health keeps the app lightweight but introduces dependency on third-party sync behavior. Direct integrations or a simplified manual import flow for obscure file formats could reduce friction.
• Advanced planning features: Athletes and coaches who need periodized planning or multi-week macrocycle management may still prefer platforms built for that purpose. The Outsiders could add planning layers without losing its analytic simplicity.
• Power metrics for cyclists: If users bring power data to Health, deeper normalization and power-analysis features (if absent) would increase the app’s appeal to performance cyclists.
• Privacy-by-default sharing: The new sharing features are flexible, but additional defaults that anonymize start/finish locations or obscure home addresses could provide one-click privacy.

The app’s strengths are clarity and presentation. Future growth will depend on balancing simplicity with advanced analytics for serious athletes.

The Bigger Picture: Athlete Tools That Respect Clarity

Athletes face data overload. Many established platforms generate dense dashboards and lengthy summaries. The Outsiders takes a different posture: it reduces a workout to its informative elements and packages those as visuals and numbers that mean something to athletes and coaches. The 1.7.6 update advances that mission by improving segmentation, adding an interpretable intensity metric for runners, and surfacing a physiological data point—body temperature—that many athletes now collect.

This approach suits athletes who want fewer distractions and more decisive answers: Did I hit the intervals? Was the tempo at threshold? Did my body show signs of heat strain? The app’s emphasis on shareable clarity makes it especially useful where communication matters—between athlete and coach, or within small training groups.

How to Evaluate Whether the Update Helps Your Training

Measure the update’s value by runtime outcomes:

• Faster decision cycles: Are you and your coach resolving session questions more quickly?
• Better compliance: Does immediate feedback from Breakdown improve adherence to prescribed intensities?
• Fewer surprises: Do temperature trends and Relative Intensity reduce instances of training through early illness or uncontrolled fatigue?

If the app helps deliver clearer decisions and fewer training missteps, the upgrade has practical ROI.

FAQ

Q: What does the new "Breakdown" view show that Splits did not? A: Breakdown consolidates multiple segmentation methods: automatically detected intervals, manually marked segments, and equal-distance splits. It makes it easier to see structured efforts, compare identical distances, and highlight context-specific parts of a session.

Q: How does Relative Intensity work for runners? A: Relative Intensity compares your session average heart rate to your lactate threshold heart rate, expressing workload as a percentage of that threshold. For example, an average HR of 150 bpm with an LTHR of 165 bpm yields a Relative Intensity of about 91%.

Q: Do I need a specific device to get body temperature in The Outsiders? A: No single device is mandated, but the temperature metric appears only if a non-Apple Watch device writes temperature data to Apple Health. The Outsiders reads that Health entry and displays it in the workout view.

Q: How accurate is body temperature from non-clinical devices? A: Peripheral sensors estimate trends and are useful for pattern recognition—heat acclimation, rest or illness signals, and recovery monitoring—but they are not clinical thermometers. Interpret values in the context of other measures like resting heart rate, HRV, sleep, and subjective symptoms.

Q: Will sharing a session reveal my home location? A: Shared map traces can reveal start and end points unless you adjust the presentation. The new sharing options allow you to choose map styles and filter stats, but athletes should review traces and consider removing identifiable start/finish points or using image cropping/anonymization before posting publicly.

Q: Does Relative Intensity replace other load metrics like TSS? A: Relative Intensity is a contextualized heart rate metric that helps gauge effort relative to your threshold. It is not a direct replacement for platform-specific load metrics like Training Stress Score (TSS), which incorporate power, duration, and sport-specific weightings. Use Relative Intensity alongside other load measures for fuller picture.

Q: Is the Personal Goals feature part of the free app or behind a paywall? A: The Outsiders is free to download and offers subscription tiers that unlock additional features. The refresh to the Personal Goals UI enhances the user experience; whether all goal functionality is behind a paywall depends on your subscription tier. Evaluate the free tier and trial subscription options to test the features you need.

Q: What should athletes do to make Relative Intensity reliable? A: Keep LTHR updated through periodic testing or coach-guided reassessment. Use accurate HR sensors—preferably a quality chest strap or a high-performing optical sensor—for intense sessions. Remember that heart rate is influenced by extrinsic factors like heat, sleep, and hydration.

Q: Can coaches access athlete data from The Outsiders directly? A: The app facilitates sharing via images and filtered exports designed for coach review, but direct coach access or multi-athlete management features depend on the app’s current integrations. Coaches can request specific shared views from athletes or use exported data in their platform of choice.

Q: Where can I get The Outsiders? A: The app is available through the App Store. It offers a free download with optional monthly, yearly, and lifetime subscription options to unlock its full feature set.

The 1.7.6 update sharpens The Outsiders’ core promise: clear, athlete-oriented analysis that supports high-performance training without excess. Breakdown brings session anatomy into focus, sharing tools let athletes present results deliberately, and Relative Intensity gives runners an easily interpretable effort anchor tied to lactate threshold. Body temperature support and usability polishing round out a release that moves the app further toward being a concise, communicative tool for athletes and coaches who want actionable answers from each training session.