I tend to believe it’s not useful, at least not any more useful than pace, HR, blood lactate, and VO2 max. But some people seem determined to train based on “power” because it’s used in cycling. Discus.
I tend to believe it’s not useful, at least not any more useful than pace, HR, blood lactate, and VO2 max. But some people seem determined to train based on “power” because it’s used in cycling. Discus.
Useful for hilly running. For instance, you can track progression in your hill sprints, etc.
Yes
Disclaimer: I work at Stryd. But I’ve been training with Power while running for the past three years.
When talking about Power as a metric in running it’s important to understand what is actually being calculated as opposed to cycling. In cycling you’ll typically have a power meter measure force via a strain gauge and the Power you see is “mechanical power”. The ability to measure actual force production in running is much more complicated.
Some watch brands will display their version of power on the run based on your speed via GPS and the elevation profile. From the Stryd perspective, there’s a lot more factors taken into account like the motion of your foot through 3D space, air resistance you’re running through, high sampling frequency.
A more complete definition of how Stryd calculates running power can be found here:
https://blog.stryd.com/2020/12/17/running-power-definition-utility-article/
When it comes to answering the question of if it’s a gimmick or not, I really don’t think so. Training by pace is fine, but you lose any and all portability if you’re not running the exact same terrain or if you switch any environmental conditions like heat, humidity, altitude, or wind.
Heart rate lags in training, suffers a constant drift, and can be subject to variability based on how much sleep you got, the temperature, your caffeine consumption, or hydration status.
Based on my personal experience running with and coaching, Power in running offers a more consistent and portable metric that leaves you not guessing about training targets and more importantly power targets come race day. The feeling of knowing exactly how to execute on the starting line because you’ve trained to a specific number you know you can hold over any terrain and in any condition is quite the opposite of a gimmick.
Always happy to answer any follow up questions people have, but to me personally questions like these are super exciting to discuss!
Did I just read an AD?
TooCloseToHome wrote:
Did I just read an AD?
Nope! Just my answer to the question about if power in running is a gimmick!
forcerunner wrote:
TooCloseToHome wrote:
Did I just read an AD?
Nope! Just my answer to the question about if power in running is a gimmick!
If the answer is from the company you work for then yes it's an ad.
To the op, ignore power and go by pace.
I don’t understand the argument that pace isn’t portable. If I’m running on a hot day or other poor conditions, I can just go 10-15 seconds slower per mile than expected. Similar with hills, I just know my pace is going to be slower if I’m running over them. I also think, if power was such a useful metric, then wouldn’t we see elite runners using it? I have not heard of any that do, maybe tinmen (most are hardly elite) and they only seem to do so because of sponsorships, you can see they don’t even take these things seriously in their videos. But if power was actually useful, wouldn’t the likes of Galen and/or BTC be using it? They do anything to gain a slight edge. I mean he’s using bands to restrict his blood flow, after all.
its good for wind and hills. its crazy how much a massive headwind can increase your work effort during an interval or on easy run. ive seen 5-9% wind resistance over the course of a mile before which is very significant if you are targeting pace.
Stryd is an approximation meter not power meter. Th closest things are $2000 insoles that last 10 times. Still not accurate, as there are too many data points to collect. Leg swing, arm swing, etc
forcerunner wrote:
Disclaimer: I work at Stryd. But I’ve been training with Power while running for the past three years.
When talking about Power as a metric in running it’s important to understand what is actually being calculated as opposed to cycling. In cycling you’ll typically have a power meter measure force via a strain gauge and the Power you see is “mechanical power”. The ability to measure actual force production in running is much more complicated.
Some watch brands will display their version of power on the run based on your speed via GPS and the elevation profile. From the Stryd perspective, there’s a lot more factors taken into account like the motion of your foot through 3D space, air resistance you’re running through, high sampling frequency.
A more complete definition of how Stryd calculates running power can be found here:
https://blog.stryd.com/2020/12/17/running-power-definition-utility-article/When it comes to answering the question of if it’s a gimmick or not, I really don’t think so. Training by pace is fine, but you lose any and all portability if you’re not running the exact same terrain or if you switch any environmental conditions like heat, humidity, altitude, or wind.
Heart rate lags in training, suffers a constant drift, and can be subject to variability based on how much sleep you got, the temperature, your caffeine consumption, or hydration status.
Based on my personal experience running with and coaching, Power in running offers a more consistent and portable metric that leaves you not guessing about training targets and more importantly power targets come race day. The feeling of knowing exactly how to execute on the starting line because you’ve trained to a specific number you know you can hold over any terrain and in any condition is quite the opposite of a gimmick.
Always happy to answer any follow up questions people have, but to me personally questions like these are super exciting to discuss!
Agree with an excellent post.
In theory I would like to use power since this is what the muscles actually do. All other numbers, like HR, lactate, VO2, pace are results of the force and power the muscles perform. They just indicate the work done, power IS the work done.
the problem with power is that in running it is estimated and in cycling it can be measured directly. I tried power estimated on a Garmin watch based on the chest strap accelerometres and watch GPS and altimetre. The GPS is too inaccurate and the altimeter also way to inaccurate. Power fluctuates all to much to be useful. It can work well on flat road in great GPS conditions, but then I can use pace anyway.
You shouldn't 100% rely on techonology when running. Both GPS watches and power meters can show false values because they are influenced by a lot of different factors. Honestly It's better to leaen to listen to your own body and how it responds to a certain intensity. In workouts i think you'll manage by using pace or time (track).
The best runners in the world are extremely good at listening to their body, and i think alot of them rarely checks their watches. Knowing when you run a certain pace, instead of relying on a watch is a very good advantage.
I've been using Stryd since late last year, and it's the method I'm using to train for London.
Personally, I've reacted really well to training with Stryd. There are probably a few reasons for this:
1) The Stryd device and ecosystem facilitate solid, reliable training which is particularly engaging to progress through, what with all of the data/time trials etc. Historically I've trained badly, and you could absolutely argue that my improvements relate to nothing more than simply following a plan to the letter, but my personal experience is that Stryd makes me WANT to run a plan....pretty much all the time.
2) I live in a particularly hilly area, and Stryd has had me realise how much energy I used to expend going up hills, and it has taught me how to keep that in check (particularly during slow, or long runs).
3) Whilst racing, following a power target really works for me. It completely removes any psychological issues related to keeping up with, dipping below the prescribed pace. I would sometimes worry that I was going too fast (or indeed too slow). Provided you've done the required sessions, and as such your power limits are accurate, the race time projections are extremely accurate, which provides great confidence going into a race, where you simply need to follow the target in order to achieve your goal.
Ultimately using Stryd has provided me with months of unbroken, injury free training, allowing me to smash my previously stagnating pbs over all distances (though I tell you in October if it gets me a marathon pb!).
57372625 wrote:
You shouldn't 100% rely on techonology when running. Both GPS watches and power meters can show false values because they are influenced by a lot of different factors. Honestly It's better to leaen to listen to your own body and how it responds to a certain intensity. In workouts i think you'll manage by using pace or time (track).
The best runners in the world are extremely good at listening to their body, and i think alot of them rarely checks their watches. Knowing when you run a certain pace, instead of relying on a watch is a very good advantage.
I do agree that feel is a very good indicator to follow during training, but that feel needs to be developed. Without feedback from pace or HR I suspect feel cannot be that well developed?
The best triathletes (read, the Norwegian team) or the Ingebrigtsens are NOT training by feel. They train with pace and lactate to have detailed monitoring of intensity and load. I still think feel can have its place here, especially during downs, when things are heavy and the load should be lowered to recover, and ups, when everything goes easy and intensity can go out of hand
People who does 2-3 hard workouts per week shouldn't copy pro athletes. They use lactate/hr/pace to control the intensity because if they didn't there's a huge risk their big training volume will lead to injuries. Most people train significantly less, and therefore such strict control Isn't neccessary.
I bought a Stryd a year ago I don’t find it all that useful as some have posted it’s good for understanding effort on hills and understanding the impact of wind, I tried to use it to regulate my effort but the numbers jump around so much that it was more of a distraction then a help. After fighting with the Stryd app and Garmin SW I have finally figured out how to get lap power visible on the Garmin hoping that will help me calibrate effort better. I like numbers so it’s fun to see metrics like LSS and try to correlate it to other metrics, but in truth it really hasn’t helped me at all.
I don't know about Stryd but I use a Polar watch (I don't work for Polar) and Polar does some power estimation based on the movement of your wrist. It obviously doesn't work well for cycling but for running, the intensity of the movements of your wrist are correlated with the intensity of the movement of your legs. In a quick search I found this:
I'm a little late to the game, but I agree with most posters here. Gimmick. I bought one a few months ago and while it's initially useful to get you to slow down on hills and into wind, it still has way too many problems to be useful for training or racing. It's a shame, because it does have potential but it's just too inconsistent and the software is a crapshoot.
Do some searching around and you'll find plenty of people who have found that the pace (before even considering power) is inaccurate without calibration, despite Stryd's claims of being accurate out of the box. You'll need to calibrate for each and every pair of shoes you use it on. Even after calibrating the the power numbers may be nonsense. Mine are. As a result everything that relies on power will be off as well. That means training paces and race pace. Even manually adjusting my critical power results in nonsensical paces. It's just - broken.
Stryd tries to keep these issues under wraps through a few different methods (I could write a whole post on my experience with this), but just save yourself some money and pass on this for now. If you've been running for any amount of time, pace and feel are fine.
Take a look at this blog post for a taste of how the company operates:
https://seven07.org/2021/04/21/stryd-wind-disappointed-customer/
I've been using both the first and the second version of the Stryd. I completely agree that technology is not perfect: power jumps so you need to use 3-5s averaging, wind feature is mostly useless and in my case it underestimates the distance.
Nonetheless, I like it as it's much more consistent than the GPS; as other said power is good for the hilly terrain and especially racing on the undulating terrain; almost immediate response to the speed change so it's good for stride type of effort monitoring. Finally, it's a good way to monitor running stress.
grant mf fisher wrote:
Is Power Metric a Gimmick in Running?
YES
DCRAINMAKER wrote:
"It’s probably a bit harsh to label this section ‘The Bad’. But ultimately, that’s sorta what it is. But if you’re skimming, don’t mistake this section as saying ‘Garmin is bad, Stryd & RunScribe is good’, as that’d be a flawed takeaway. Instead, it’s me saying “The whole situation is….squishy.’
And by ‘situation’, I’m referring to whether or not these numbers are accurate. But it’s not just Garmin, rather, everyone. See, the first thing to understand about running power is that with the exception of Arion, all these companies are using accelerometers and gyros to calculate running power. Arion is using pressure sensors in your insoles (shoes) to more directly measure it, but even that has caveats around shear forces.
(Side note: I’m not using Arion running power data here because at present it’s too messy to collect, normalize, and graph. Until they roll out some planned features in that area, I’ll be holding off a bit.)
So anytime we hear the word ‘calculate’, we have to understand that not all calculations are equal. Just like when different watches produce different calorie calculations, the same is true here. Different companies all have equally smart people, and those people sometimes disagree on what’s truly correct. No different than employee disagreements at your workplace, or between your company and your competitors.
And in this case, it’s not just the companies disagreeing – but also scientists too. Depending on which study you use as the basis for your device, you’ll get different results. All of which temporarily ignores those in the science community that disagree with running power as a concept at all."
- DCRAINMAKER
From: Garmin Running Power App: The good, the bad, and the ugly (Dec 2017)
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