How YOUB Works
YOUB is an endurance coaching app built around a conversation. You connect your watch or training apps, tell the coach in the chat what you are training for, and the coach builds a training plan of real sessions. The sessions appear in the app, on supported watches and bike computers, and in your calendar. Your recorded activities sync back, YOUB analyses them, and the coach adjusts the plan with you as your weeks change. Everything except talking to the coach is free; the coach conversations start with a free trial of up to 4 weeks, depending on usage.
The Coaching Loop
YOUB works as a loop that repeats every week:
- Connect a wearable. Garmin, COROS, Polar, Suunto, Wahoo, Strava, Whoop, Oura, Apple Health and other sources bring in your activities, sleep and recovery data (see Wearables).
- Tell the coach your goal. In the chat you describe what you are training for (a race, a distance, a fitness goal), how much time you have and what limits you. The coach asks what it still needs.
- The coach builds the plan. The coach writes the sessions straight into your plan. There is no draft stage and no approval step: a session is live the moment it is created (see Training Plans).
- Sessions reach your devices. Planned sessions appear in the Plan and Calendar views of the app. Garmin, Wahoo, Suunto and the Hammerhead Karoo receive the sessions of the next three days as structured workouts. With Google Calendar connected, your sessions are also exported to a separate YOUB Training calendar (see Calendar).
- Activities sync and are analysed. When you finish a workout, the recording arrives from your connected source, YOUB links it to the planned session of that day and analyses it: zones, intervals, Load Score (see Activity Matching and How YOUB Calculates Training Load).
- The coach adapts the plan with you. Missed sessions, a busy week, poor sleep, an illness or a strong block are reasons to talk. The coach proposes a change, you agree or correct it, and the plan updates everywhere (see How the Coach Adapts Your Plan).
You can talk to the coach in the app or over WhatsApp. Both are the same conversation (see WhatsApp).
Sports Science and Conversation
The training logic in YOUB follows fixed sports-science rules. Your training zones, Load Scores, thresholds and the Fitness base, Recent load and Freshness curves are calculated from your data with defined formulas, and the plan follows established training principles: phases toward a goal, key sessions protected, gradual growth in volume, recovery weeks, an easy day before a race. The targets of each structured workout are computed from your own zones.
The coach is the conversational layer on top. It explains why a session looks the way it does, asks about your goal and your week, negotiates changes when life gets in the way, and reads your analysis with you. When the coach changes your plan, the result goes through the same rules.
Getting Started
Creating an account takes a few minutes and no payment method. The setup walks you through these steps:
- Terms & Privacy: accept the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy.
- Your name, the one the coach uses for you.
- Biological sex (optional).
- Weight, birthday and height, which calibrate your performance data and age-based training metrics.
- Connect a wearable (optional).
- Connect a calendar (optional).
- Allow push notifications (optional).
- Connect WhatsApp (optional).
Every optional step can be done later under Settings. After the setup, the coach opens the conversation: it introduces itself, says what it can already see from your connected devices (or that no workouts are coming in yet), and asks one question about what you are training for. Your answer starts the planning.
Do I Need a Watch?
YOUB works without a watch, with limits:
- Without a wearable you can talk to the coach, get a training plan, see it in the app and in your calendar, and tell the coach about workouts you did. The coach logs them as activities, and a logged run or swim with a distance, or any session with an average heart rate, still gets an estimated Load Score. You can also send a recorded .fit file in the chat.
- With a wearable activities arrive and are analysed on their own, thresholds such as your FTP can be detected from your recordings, your training load curves fill in without extra work, and sleep and recovery data feed the morning check-in.
Structured workouts are sent to Garmin, Wahoo, Suunto and the Hammerhead Karoo. Other watches still deliver your activities; the session targets are then read from the app.
Sports the Coach Plans For
The coach plans toward a goal in these sports:
| Sport | Goals |
|---|---|
| Running | 5K, 10K, half marathon, marathon, trail and ultra-trail |
| Cycling | Road races, gran fondos, time trials, mountain bike, gravel, stage races, cyclocross |
| Triathlon | Short to long distance; swim sessions are part of triathlon plans |
| HYROX | Running combined with the HYROX workout stations |
| Obstacle course races | For example Spartan or Tough Mudder |
| Cross-country skiing | Classic or skating, through the whole season |
Strength training can be added to any plan as a supporting block, and single swim sessions can be added on request. The sessions the coach prescribes are running (road and track), cycling (road and indoor), swimming (pool and open water), strength (gym and bodyweight), cross-country skiing (on snow, roller skis, ski touring) and other sessions such as hiking, walking, rowing and yoga.
Free and Coach Subscription
Everything in YOUB except talking to the coach is free, with no payment method and no time limit: your training plan and its sessions, race goals, activity upload and analysis, wearable connections, calendar sync and structured workouts on your watch.
The coach subscription covers the conversations with the coach: chat in the app, voice messages and file uploads in the chat, coaching over WhatsApp, and the messages the coach sends on its own. Every new account starts with free coach access, and the free trial lasts up to 4 weeks, depending on usage. When the coach access ends, your plan, analysis and connections keep working. Prices are on the pricing page; details are in Pricing and Subscription.
Messages the Coach Sends
The coach also writes on its own: a morning check-in after your sleep syncs, a short message after each recorded activity, a weekly reflection on your training, and on race day a send-off to the start line. These messages arrive on WhatsApp when you have been chatting there recently, otherwise as a push notification, and they always appear in the chat in the app. You can switch the morning check-in and the post-activity message off under Settings > Notifications or by asking the coach (see Proactive Messages).
Languages
The app is available in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish, and the coach can write in other languages on request (see Languages and Units).
Related
- Wearables: which devices and apps connect and what they bring in.
- Training Plans: how plans are built and where to find them in the app.
- How the Coach Adapts Your Plan: what changes your plan and who decides.
- Pricing and Subscription: what is free and what the coach subscription adds.
- How it works: the overview on the website.
- FAQ: short answers to common questions.