Thinking about buying a Stryd power meter. What are the pros and cons?

I think it might be useful, but the key difference between cycling and running power meters is that cycling power meters actually measure power. Running ones only provide estimation. As in the above example with different surfaces that estimate might be very inconsistent.

It's mostly a toy for me. While it provided interesting data, i'd think most experienced runners would not find the data actionable. And the version I used had design flaws.

If you're super new to running then it might help you pace yourself on hills during a race. or if you typically rely on HR data than power may arguable be a better metric, but only marginally so.

Another minor benefit is that it records more accurate distance on treadmills, indoor tracks, outdoor tracks, and the woods compared with a garmin/gps watch. If you are super OCD about having an accurate online strava/garmin log than stryde will help you recover that missing mile each week.

Potentially if calibrated correctly, it could be used to more accurately gauge pace on treadmills and in the woods. This would be especially in single track, thick woods, or old inaccurate gym treadmills.

A last use, (which is probably useless,) but somewhat fun, is chasing new maximum power outputs either in flat or uphill sprints.

I stopped using it because:

1) it had bluetooth connection issues and would occasionally especially on the track for some reason. When it would drop connection, it would STOP recording. The timer would stop, everything would stop. It would completely botch an interval. New running watch gadgets are cool, but they have to be 100% reliable when it comes to interval workouts.

2) It's super annoying to move from shoe to shoe. The clip is an absolute pain.

3) I could never quite get the calibration dialed in. It was not huge, but could differ from a standard GPS by about 5-10s during tempo pace.

estimate my estimation wrote:

I think it might be useful, but the key difference between cycling and running power meters is that cycling power meters actually measure power. Running ones only provide estimation. As in the above example with different surfaces that estimate might be very inconsistent.

this seems to be a common critique of stryd. Stryd also seems to be focused on disapproving it. I think both sides are not seeing the forest through the trees. In the end of the day, why do you need to know power? I highly doubt if you randomly assigned (not blindly) runners to train with power and some to train by time/pace there'd be any difference.

outsideinwoodsandmountain - sorry I didn't respond right away! Didn't see this bumped on the boards when I checked last night. Can the surface be detected? No. Will the metrics like GCT, LSS, VO reflect the terrain or surface you're running on? In my experience running in the multitude of Colorado weather conditions, yes.

npurdy - The team is constantly working on making things better, but your comments are definitely appreciated.

adflkj;laaseg: - I'd love to hear more about your experience and why you believe the things you posted! I am not aware of anybody being paid to pump up Stryd.

greenandgold - Also to this point, our team is always working and researching to try and make things better!

heyyo - 1: how were you recording? With a phone or watch? 2: I imagine you have the original footpod. The version with wind had the clip redeigned to make it easier. 3: That is assuming that the GPS is 100% right on and has no variation. And to the last point, I really think that training by power takes the guesswork out of things. It takes a bit of investment from a time standpoint. Two weeks of focusing on running recovery at X number, threshold by X number, speed by X number, long run by X number, then things start to click and make sense.

On the different shoes requiring different calibrations, I've thought about this a ton (basically before every run when I'm manually changing my calibration settings haha) and I'm not sure that there's anything for Stryd to do. It'd be really nice if Garmin had a way to select what shoes you're running in before you start an activity and if that could automatically update a footpod's calibration, but that's probably asking for a lot. And I'm not sure there's a way to do it that's not super clunky from a UI perspective.

Thank you, good to know. I dont recall anyone at Stryd telling me I needed to calibrate for each and every shoe, a little more frustrating with how many shoes i have haha. I only thought that might be the issue today, because shoes were the only difference between the runs. Back to the track with a bag full of shoes i guess haha.

npurdy1112 wrote:

greenandgold wrote:

You have to calibrate with each of your shoes. Sort of annoying, but once you've got the calibration done it is more accurate and consistent than GPS.

One pair of my shoes is calibrated to 100.0 exactly (NB 1080v10s), another pair is 102.0 (Hoka One One Clifton 6), and another is 98.1 (Nike Zoom Flyknits), so you can have pretty big differences between shoes.

Thank you, good to know. I dont recall anyone at Stryd telling me I needed to calibrate for each and every shoe, a little more frustrating with how many shoes i have haha. I only thought that might be the issue today, because shoes were the only difference between the runs. Back to the track with a bag full of shoes i guess haha.

Haha, yea, lots of shoes makes it more work for sure. I don't know about you, but most of the tracks near me are closed right now, so I've been calibrating new shoes based on where I know the half mile markers and mile markers are at on the routes that I run all the time. At least on Garmin you can actually update the calibration in the middle of the run. So if I get a new pair of shoes, I'll put the calibration at 100.0, and then if the distance is off at the half mile marker, I'll adjust the calibration in whatever direction I need to based on a rough guess (so for example if my watch shows that I ran .49 at what I know is .50, I'll change the calibration to 101.0). Over the course of a couple of runs I end up getting the calibration pretty much right on.

That being said, for races I'll always go up to a track a couple of days before hand to make sure the calibration is 100% accurate. Nothing worse than crossing the finish line at a race just to have your watch think you ran a little bit short of the actual distance.

Good idea for on the fly adjustments. I dont have any marked paths near where I run. But there is a private college that has left their track open. Just have more people using it than normal. Taking 3-4 pair of shoes to the track tomorrow to knock this out in one painful run haha.

forcerunner wrote:

- I'd love to hear more about your experience and why you believe the things you posted! I am not aware of anybody being paid to pump up Stryd.

Are you seriously denying the Stryd doesn't provide free units to "reviewers" who then promote Stryd in their blogs?

Stryd user for the last few years here.

Just to address a few points made in this thread from my personal experience:

- Think of it as a great "Grade and Wind Adjusted Pace Meter". If you can see value in having that, then this is a wonderful tool.

- As a few people above asked, it cannot tell the difference between surfaces. If your foot is slipping, it does not react.

- Calibration for distance and pace: I use the lines on the track and run directly over them the entire way. That way I'm not drifting around in the lane which will throw off the actual distance run. The trick is knowing the actual length of each line. For me, out of the box the error was 0.2%. I haven't noticed a difference when wearing different shoes. When running with friends without GPS error inducing conditions, my mile splits chime off synchronously with their GPS but things change in sketchy areas (assuming GPS error and Stryd is still accurate).

- Accurate distance / pace on a treadmill sure is nice.

- Threshold Power: I'm quite surprised by how close to reality this estimate is. If I go out and run to my perceived threshold by feel and check the data later, it's right there. Running all out time trials by feel, the predictor calculators from Steve Paladino have been within 1%. After the fact, I wonder if I might have squeezed out a slightly better performance by running to the power target from the beginning.

I'm running mostly by feel but if I'm ever in doubt especially when it's windy or in the hills, I spot check it.

But again, the key is understanding that this is a "Grade and Wind Adjusted Pace Meter" while simultaneously mitigating GPS pace and distance inaccuracies.

Yeah um, so I've been researching around lately about Running Power, along with the advanced info that Stryd gives you about your form and how it can possibly be used for you to know what to look for efficiency. I am interested in this stuff because as an XC and Track runner I find that the info that my watch gives me is mostly due to my HR, which is good and all but I don't say the whole story. I am interested in this because HR doesn't really work all that well once you start doing serious speed work on the Track like Reps of 400m and below. It also isn't very useful for knowing how much strain and work you are really putting into Track work when doing things like 200m reps, and the HR data says you are doing easy pace HR zones while doing 200s. I do wonder if the information about my form and power would be all that useful in tracking my recovery, improvement, and setting zones for my training for me to able to increase power output in Track races and build more speed overall. I notice quite often that I lack real speed buildup for competition, when most of what we get are longer runs and longer intervals, and barely any speedwork, even for the track season.

Currently, I find the Polar ecosystem and HR measurements are pretty useful for training off of HR, and I don't know how much useful Power from the wrist from COROS or Polar would be when compared to just buying a Stryd Sensor and pairing it with my Polar watch.

I guess I just want to know if training with and paying attention to my power will actually help me know what types of training I lack, and know the strain that I am putting on my legs.

I bought the FR 645 to start using power, but it depends on an accurate pace (and this fluctuates a litte too much) and it depends on the incline/decline from the altimater which is way too inaccurate. So the power does not work well when the road is not flat and the GPS is good. I have skipped using it since I rather go by feel and the splits/paces I hit on known places. I can actually look at cadence since it is more accurate and more instant than HR. Actually for me, each value of cadence is 1% in pace, at least around threshold and down to 3k pace. But then the cadence might vary over weeks. Some weeks I have a couple of less steps per minute and others, some more, but...

Actually feel is maybe the best since it will also include recovery level. So using all those numbers to build up a good feel for the right intensity?