What does Runna do well?
Runna is a running app, and on its own pages a thorough one, each line here linked to its source:
- Distances. Race plans from 5K to 50 km; its HYROX and triathlon plans cover the running only.
- When life gets in the way. Adapt your plan with holidays, B-races or Not Feeling 100%; drag and drop single workouts.
- Questions about your plan. Its team answers questions about your plan.
- Where it runs. iOS and Android apps.
That is a lot of help aimed at one goal. If your week is running and nothing else, you do not need an app built to plan around sports you do not play. The rest of this page is for the week that has something else in it.
What does Runna's strength training do?
Runna's strength page describes strength sessions with step-by-step instructions and demo videos. In our view, demo videos are a real advantage when a movement is new to you: watching it done well is quicker than reading about it.
The detail that matters for a busy week is how those sessions sit beside the running plan, and whether your runs respond to them. Runna's help centre answers that in its own words on its cross-training page. Read it before you commit, because it tells you how much of your week the plan takes into account.
Whether running blunts strength gains is its own question, answered in running and lifting on the same day. If your week also has a match in it, the next question matters more than any exercise list.
What happens to a match or a class in Runna?
Runna's help centre answers this directly, on its cross-training page, which also covers its own strength sessions. For a match or a class, in short:
- A sport or a match. Sports and matches can be logged as activities, and only scheduled running workouts affect the plan; in practice, a high-intensity match can replace that week's speed session.
- A class. Logged as an activity, outside the plan; it suggests a HYROX-style class can replace a speed session in practice.
That is a clear, honest design: the plan stays a running plan, and Runna says so. As the class line shows, its help centre even suggests how to swap by hand. The planning is still yours, because a logged match is a record of what happened, not an input to what comes next.
Why a match is not just another activity
A football match is a hard session in its own right, and its cost lasts. A 2018 meta-analysis of 77 studies and 1,105 football players found hamstring force, physical performance, muscle damage markers, well-being and soreness all still impaired 72 hours after a match. Whatever the plan puts in those three days, a run or a lift, starts from there.
So a running plan that is never told about Saturday's match can still give you intervals on Friday or a long run on Sunday, and you are the one who has to notice. You can manage that by hand, week by week, and if it works for you, keep doing it. What to do the day before a match is its own question, answered in the gym the day before a match.
Search the app's help pages for the word match. If the answer is that a match is logged and the plan stays as it was, the planning around it is yours. Runna's help centre answers it plainly.
What does Smash Coach do differently?
In Smash Coach you add the sport and the class, and with Pro or during your trial your coach plans around them instead of on top of them. In the words our help centre uses:
Your sports. Go to You and, under SPORTS STACK, tap + ADD. With Pro or during your trial, your coach plans around what you add instead of on top of it. Each one has its own settings: Flexible, where the app picks the days, or Fixed days, where each day you pick is one session a week, plus your usual session length. More in sport settings.
Your classes. Add one from GROUP CLASSES. It counts as training you have done, so with Pro or during your trial your coach adjusts what it gives you instead of adding on top. A class starts on Fixed days, because a timetable decides when it happens. More in add a sport or a class.
Coach sessions. The strength, conditioning and mobility work your coach plans on top of the sports you already do, with Pro or during your trial. You choose how many you want. More in set how often you train.
Warm-ups. The Coach warm-up and cool-down toggle adds them around your own session, written by your coach with Pro or during your trial; for a class, an activation routine to do before it.
An injury or a tired week. Report an injury or a fatigue flag, from Cleared to Serious. With Pro or during your trial, your plan is rebuilt around what you report. Your coach is a training tool, not a medical service: it will not diagnose you or suggest treatment, and it tells you to see a physio or a doctor. More in report an injury.
A coach to talk to. With Pro or during your trial, chat with your coach, which already knows your week. Any change it proposes appears on a card first, and nothing reaches your plan until you tap Confirm. More in what you can ask your coach.
How each exercise looks. A clean illustration of the movement on a plain background, with nothing extra, so you see what to do at a glance. The team is exploring video and moving images. More in exercise illustrations.
When your week changes. With Pro or during your trial, your plan is rewritten when something real changes, never on a timer, and moving a session does not reshuffle the week. The full list is in when your plan changes.
Where is Runna ahead?
Plainly: Runna is ahead on running races, the range of watches, apps in the iOS and Android stores, demo videos, and a team of people who answer questions about your plan. Its own words for each are in the table below. Here is what Smash Coach does not have:
- Human coaches. Your coach is AI. Feedback you send reaches a person, not a queue, and a person looks at a session or change that fails the safety check.
- Running races. HYROX is the race you can pick today. Running races from 5K to the marathon, and other hybrid races such as ATHX, DEKA and GYMRACE, are coming soon.
- Other watches. Garmin only.
- The app stores. It installs from the website to your home screen.
- Exercise videos. Exercises are illustrations, not videos yet; the team is exploring video and moving images.
Some of those are choices and some are simply where Smash Coach is today. If one of them is a deal-breaker for you, Runna is the better fit.
How do they compare?
The same facts side by side: Runna's from Runna's own pages, Smash Coach's from our help centre.
Read the first two rows together. For anyone who plays a sport or takes a class, they shape every week: Runna's help centre says a match or an outside class is logged and only scheduled runs change the plan, while Smash Coach plans around them, with Pro or during your trial. Most of the other rows are differences of reach, and on those Runna has more.
Which should you choose?
- Runna, in our view, suits a runner whose goal is a running race from 5K to 50 km, who wants plans designed by running coaches, strength sessions alongside and wide watch support.
- Smash Coach, if a sport or a class shapes your week and you want one plan built around all of it, with Pro or during your trial, and you can live with an AI coach, a web install and HYROX as the one race for now.
Our view is that Smash Coach is the right choice for an athlete who does more than one sport, because it plans one week around every sport and class you do, has a coach you can talk to, shows each exercise as a clear illustration and changes the plan when your week does. The planning, the rewrites and the chat come with Pro or during your trial. That balance of features and simplicity is our view, not a test result.
If you came looking for a Runna alternative because your running plan keeps colliding with a match, that is the only sense in which Smash Coach is one: a different tool for a different week. If running is your whole week, it is not.
More comparisons: Smash Coach and Edge, hybrid training apps compared, and every comparison on the Compare page. Racing HYROX? Read choosing a training app for HYROX, and running and HYROX in one week if you run as well.