To add Strava stats to a video on iPhone, you either type the numbers as text layers in a video editor like CapCut or iMovie, or use an app that reads the activity from Strava and lays the stats over the clip for you. Strava's own share options focus on photos and maps, so it will not burn your pace into a video file by itself.
Below is each route, how long it takes, and how to film a clip that actually works with numbers on top.
What does Strava itself offer?
Strava's share menu is built around images. From an activity you can share a card with your map and numbers, or send a stats sticker to Instagram Stories. The sticker carries a few headline stats and a line drawing of the route, and you place it over a background inside Instagram.
That is a fast option for a Story. What I could not find is a way to export a video from Strava with the stats baked into the file, so for a Reel, a TikTok or a clip you want to keep in your camera roll, you need one of the two routes below.
If you mostly post photos, the guide to sharing Strava runs on Instagram covers every built-in option in more detail.
How do you add stats to a video manually?
This works with any free editor. CapCut and iMovie are the two most people already have. Instagram's own Story and Reel editor also lets you add text over a clip.
Steps in CapCut
- Open your Strava activity and write down the three or four numbers you want: distance, moving time, average pace, maybe elevation.
- Start a new CapCut project and import the clip.
- Set the canvas to 9:16 if it is going to a Story, Reel or TikTok.
- Add a text layer for each stat. Keep the label and the value in separate layers if you want them in different sizes.
- Stretch each text layer to the full length of the clip so it does not flicker on and off.
- Pick one typeface and one colour for every layer. Mixing fonts is the fastest way to make it look like a collage.
- Add a route if you want one: screenshot the Strava map, crop it, and drop it in as an overlay. It will carry the map background with it.
- Export at 1080 x 1920 and save to your camera roll.
Steps in iMovie
iMovie's titles are fixed templates, so you get less control over position and size. Add the clip, pick a title style from Titles, type your stats into it, and extend the title to cover the whole clip. It is fine for a single line like "10.2 km, 4:52/km, 49:38". It struggles with anything more.
The honest time cost
Expect 5 to 15 minutes per clip the first few times. Most of that is typing, aligning and checking numbers. The other cost is accuracy: every number is copied by hand, so a typo in your pace goes straight to your followers. And a cropped map screenshot never matches the rest of the design, because it brings Strava's map colours and labels along.
If you post a video once a month, this is a perfectly good way to do it.
How do you do it with an app that reads Strava?
The other route is an app that pulls the activity from Strava and draws the stats and route over your clip, so nothing is typed.
SHUTT is the one I make, so take this section with that in mind. It works on iPhone:
- Connect Strava once. Your activities appear automatically. SHUTT only reads them; it never changes anything in your Strava account.
- Open the run and pick a video clip from your camera roll instead of a photo.
- Pick a look. The same looks you would use on a photo work on clips: a finished design with the stats, and the route drawn as a line or a map.
- Choose a size: Story 9:16, Post 4:5 or Square 1:1.
- Save or share. The export is a video with the stats and route on it, keeping the brightness and colour you filmed.
Every block can be dragged and resized if the default position covers something in your clip. It is free to use; free exports carry a small SHUTT mark, which Pro removes. The features page lists the stats and looks.
Which route should you pick?
| Route | Time per clip | Stats accurate? | Route on the clip | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strava stats sticker in Instagram | About 1 minute | Yes, from Strava | Line drawing | Free |
| CapCut or iMovie text layers | 5-15 minutes | Only as good as your typing | Cropped screenshot | Free |
| App that reads Strava | About 1 minute | Yes, from Strava | Drawn on the clip | Free with a mark, or paid |
The sticker is quickest if the Story is all you need. The manual route gives you a saved file and full control. An app gives you a saved file without the typing.
How do you film a clip that works with an overlay?
Most running videos fail at the filming stage, not the editing stage. A shaky 40-second clip with the runner filling the frame leaves nowhere for the numbers to go. These rules fix most of it.
1. Keep it short and steady
Aim for 5 to 15 seconds. Viewers need about 2 seconds to read three numbers, and a short clip loops cleanly. Prop the phone on a wall, a bench or a water bottle rather than holding it. If you must hold it, walk, do not run, and keep your elbows tucked.
2. Leave negative space
Frame the shot so a third of it is calm: sky, road, a wall, water. That is where the stats go. If the runner fills the whole frame, any text you add will sit on top of a face or a pair of legs.
3. Film vertical for Stories and Reels
Stories, Reels and TikTok are all 9:16. A horizontal clip gets cropped down to a narrow strip of the middle, or letterboxed with black bars. Film vertical from the start and you keep the whole frame.
4. Mind the safe zones
Instagram puts your profile name at the top of a Story and the reply bar at the bottom. Keep important numbers out of roughly the top and bottom 250 pixels of a 1920-pixel frame. On a Reel, the caption and buttons sit on the bottom and right side, so stats on the left or upper middle read best.
5. Light from behind the camera
Backlit clips turn the runner into a silhouette and make the sky blow out to white. White stats on a white sky disappear. Film with the sun behind you or to the side, and early or late in the day if you can. The guide to making Strava photos look good covers light in more depth, and it applies to video the same way.
6. Pick three or four stats, not ten
Distance, time and pace cover most runs. Add elevation for a hilly route or splits for intervals. A clip only lasts a few seconds, and nobody reads a ten-line table in that time.
What should the overlay itself look like?
Keep the type large enough to read on a phone held at arm's length: a stat value of at least 60 pixels tall on a 1080-wide frame. Use one typeface. Put a dark scrim or a soft shadow behind white text if the background is bright. And place the stats where the clip is calmest, not where it is most interesting.
For the same advice applied to still images, see how to add stats to your running photos.