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The five Strava users who make a mute button absolutely necessary

If you don't want to hurt someone's feelings by unfollowing them, Strava's new mute button is the best route to take

After years of following Strava users you don’t really want to see every day, the workout tracking app has finally come to your rescue by introducing its latest feature: a mute button. The mute function will let you hide an individual’s posts and workouts while still following them. All you have to do is go to the profile of anyone you’d like to hide, hit the “Following” button and then “Mute.” They won’t be notified that you’ve muted them, you’ll still follow each other and everyone will be happy. You won’t need this feature for everybody, but here are the five types of Strava users you follow who make a mute button necessary.

The courtesy follow 

You just want to see posts from your close friends, family and training buddies, but there are some people you feel the need to follow, like that nice person who’s always up for a chat on your group run. They followed you and always like your stuff, so you feel like you should at least follow back. This is the courtesy follow, and it’s a perfect opportunity to use the mute button. You can hide their workouts and they can keep a follower. It’s a win-win situation. 

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The private-account-you-creep follow

If you’re obsessed with course records (CRs), then this might be the reason you’ll love the mute button. You don’t need to see what your Strava CR rivals do on a regular basis, but you like being able to check in on them every now and then to see if there are any segments you need to steal from them. 

The obligatory follow 

This is similar to the courtesy follow but with an annoying twist: if you don’t follow back, this person will make sure to bring it up with you. You gave the other person a courtesy follow to be nice, but the obligatory follow is solely because you know you’ll never hear the end of it at your next group run if you don’t follow this person back. 

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The dose-of-inspiration follow

Like the accounts you creep, these dose-of-inspiration follows are for private accounts, so you follow in order to see their workouts every now and then. You don’t feel the need to see every one of the workouts these people post, but you know that when you’re feeling unmotivated you can kick right back into gear by checking out a few of their high-intensity runs. 

The why’d-you-post-that? follow

These are the people who start their watch for a walk to the corner store or record a session of waterskiing as a workout. Instagram is for photos of waterskiing, Strava is for runs, bike rides and other similar workouts. Sure, waterskiing is hard, but we didn’t sign up to see how far you got pulled on a pair of planks behind a boat. We all follow someone like this, and now we can finally hide their workouts without hurting their feelings by unfollowing them. 

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