That is fine.

Most people are unbalanced. In fact out of the 100's to 1000's of L/R power files I have I can not recall a 50/50 split. It seems as people do intervals their balance becomes closer to 50/50.

On the scale of things to worry about that will make you faster this is in the < .0001 of things to worry about

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

That is the same as me. I am right handed but 52%L/48%R power balance. I don't think there is a normal, but if there is an abnormal, it is probably a lot bigger than 2%.

Is there a tendency for left vs right?

Two examples in this thread + all my non-50/50s are L>R

What powermeter source?

I ask as my quarq (and years ago polar chain power meter) both gave L:R balance that was highly counter intuitive given that I was 60:40 with the power in favour of the leg that I had just got out of a cast after 2 months (separate incidents, I'm a slow learner of my own inabilities...).

But what I worked out pretty quickly is that in both cases the L:R balance comes from an algorithm that measures power at each point in the revolution and then assigns a proportion to left / right. So what was throwing the calc out was that in my case the quads were pretty even, and so the downstrokes were both even-ish, but the dodgy leg wasn't doing anything on the 'back scrape' and was relying on the other leg down to push back up (no calf muscle at all). So that was making it appear that the good leg was doing less (some resistance from the bad one) and over stating the bad leg (the scrape / pull component from the pedaling in circles) from the good leg.

Oh, and as said above, 48:52 is pretty much within the margin of error.

Here is food for thought. Most power meters are accurate to 1-2% error. So if one pedal is -1% and the other +1%, there is your 48/52 power “difference”

I don’t put much stock in small differences.

I had a knee niggle a while back and it was interesting to note that at higher powers my differential spiked to like 45/55. I didn’t really “feel” the difference but it was clear in the data. Just emphasized there was a problem brewing so gave myself some a few days of lighter riding/running to heal.

Bam. This. Have an upvote. I see this way too often.

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Shane Miller - GPLama
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Whilst not wishing to disagree, I will anyway ;-)

As above, above, someone mentioned that in thousands of data files they'd never seen 50:50. Logically, unless there is a systematic manufacturing issue across all power meters, including the ones that don't have separate left / right guages, then you'd expect some to be bang on, as in both 'pedals' are low by the same or high by the same. Should happen as often as them being off in opposite directions?

More likely is that we all naturally have fractional differences. No reason to suspect we don't when we naturally will kick a ball better with one foot than another. Or if we close our eyes and swim for 100 strokes then most of us would veer one way or another.

Sure, there is a measurement error here, but that's not to say there isn't a power production error. And don't forget that the 48:52 reported could well be a 46:54 in reality with the error bringing it back to even - that's as likely as an even power being measured off to one side. I have a lot more faith in the gadgets accuracy than my own body on this occasion!

Further on what I see is two different readings from the same side, at the same time. Which really shouldn't happen. If I'm pressing 150W on the left and 160W on the right, I expect both left and right meters on the bike to agree (somewhat) with that wonkyness. If not in watts, then in the L/R ratio. Which isn't the case a lot of the time.

My setup is usually a combination of Assioma DUO / P1 / P2 / Vector 3 vs Stages LR, Pioneer LR, Giant PowerPro (LR)..... The cranksets I have issues with are all Shimano based. Aside from the Shimano power meter itself, but that's another issue.

It's not just swinging a leg to kick a ball. It's the ability of the system to deal with all kinds of other variables such as the acceleration/deceleration points of that leg kicking the ball into the point of contact. The foot might hit the ball with the same force both times. What's measured and computed could be two different results.

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Shane Miller - GPLama
YouTube | Web | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Strava

It's too bad measurement uncertainty doesn't work that way. 2% would be an extreme case and on the edge of the standard deviation used.

As others have said, don't worry about it. FWIW I typically see a L:R balance of 48:52 and I'm left footed and handed. Maybe a counterintuitive trend that dominant legs are weaker, more likely just a coincidence!

I do see 49:51 and occasionally even 50:50 balance during high power intervals when I'm fresh. But also see it going as far as 46:54 when I get tired. I do single leg exercises including lunges, squats, deadlifts, think it's good for overall conditioning and core but doesn't seem to make any difference to power balance so I've quit worrying about it.

I'm also left handed+footed and consistently have a 48/52 L/R split. So one more data point around dominant leg being slightly weaker. This has been across three different pairs of P1 pedals, so doubtful it's a margin of error issue.

Have not worried about the small imbalance.

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