Hello Foot pod Gurus:
Please help me out by answering a few questions:
Is there a running foot pod power meter system that:
Currently no, there is not company doing a left and right foot pod for running power. There was a pod you attached to your shorts that would give you data on left/right balance. It looked much like the Garmin Running Dynamics Pod. It doesn’t seem to be around longer. The Garmin Dynamics Pod simply gives you the data you that normally comes from the heart strap that is not heart rate.
I think the best way for running to determine if you are/not balanced is to do some basic Yoga poses. Search Tree Pose and Airplane pose. If you do both of those equally strong on both legs you will most likely be running balanced. If however one side is noticeably shakier or weaker, you probably also run off balanced. You can also look at the wear of your running shoes. If the wear patterns are similar and the actual wear is the same you are running balanced. If you are tearing one shoe up and not the other, you are not balanced.
Edit: This was not meant to be a gotcha. I only found out about RunScribe since I posted the initial request.
What about RunScribe? They have a metric they call symmetry but I haven’t found any details yet. https://runscribe.com/
I think you’ll have to send them direct questions to gather more detail. You can also send Stryd a question. Maybe there is a way to buy two stryd sensors and match that up to a monitor that can give you live data on each leg. I’m speculating of course.
I’ve also wondered if Stryd will eventually release this as a capability (wearing a footpod on each foot to be able to measure L/R balance). That said, my Garmin Vector pedals show L/R power balance, and other than being mildly interesting I find that data to be not actionable in any meaningful way so I’m not sure I’d pay for a second Stryd footpod to see L/R balance even if it was an available feature.
Lumo Run - that’s the pod I was thinking of. Sits on your shorts and takes all kinds of measurements. Power is not one of them
My Garmin HRM tri combined with my Stryd gives me:
Pace
HR
Stride length
Cadence
Vertical oscillation
Vertical Ratio
Ground Contact time
Ground Contact time balance
Respiration Rate
Temperature
Power and the rest of the Stryd metrics
Is that enough metrics?
Does it give left-right balance for any of those? That’s my focus right now.
FWIW, my interest is in using a running foot pod system for clinical research, not as a training tool. I asked here because I know this is a techie group and figured some of you would know the capabilities of the various systems.
Cheers,
Jim
My Garmin HRM tri combined with my Stryd gives me:
Pace
HR
Stride length
Cadence
Vertical oscillation
Vertical Ratio
Ground Contact time
Ground Contact time balance
Respiration Rate
Temperature
Power and the rest of the Stryd metrics
Is that enough metrics?
It gives left/right for ground contact time balance
Honestly I don’t know how. I have a strong suspicion that it’s a combo from the watch and HRM cuz I didn’t have them before I got the HRM.
I think the watch is measuring my arm swing combined with the vertical info from the HRM, assumes which foot is down and estimates time based on that.
It gives the balance on the mobile app but not on my computer
Is there an option to get 2 foot pods and use 2 watches / devices to collect the data, one to each, then compare ?
Not a perfect way by far, and maybe needs a bit of post-processing / overlaying info from both to compare.
But in the absence of anything else existing, it must be possible to compare (as there may be data differences if not symetric…)
I’d think you’d want a known-uneven athlete as a guinea pig to test that out ??
Thanks Bob. That might be a good solution but I am looking for a way to provide real time feedback. Basically I want the same thing the Garmin head unit gives for left right balance with their vector pedals.
Cheers,
Jim
Is there an option to get 2 foot pods and use 2 watches / devices to collect the data, one to each, then compare ?
Not a perfect way by far, and maybe needs a bit of post-processing / overlaying info from both to compare.
But in the absence of anything else existing, it must be possible to compare (as there may be data differences if not symetric…)
I’d think you’d want a known-uneven athlete as a guinea pig to test that out ??
I think you can get that in real time. To be useful it would require to be monitored elsewhere than the wrist unit however. As watching it would stop the wrist oscillation and alter the metrics.
I believe Garmin has a team feature where a coach can read the metrics from players. I don’t know how this works or if it supports running dynamics or just basic metrics.
Clinical? That’s exactly what market Runscribe is catering to. I have done plenty of testing with Garmin power and am a current Stryd user and I can tell you neither of those platforms will do what you are asking about.
Stryd is awesome, but not your answer. The guy who runs Runscribe is responsive on the facebook page. Send him a shout and see if he can help. Last time I talked to him he was super busy rolling out his clinical package!
The answer is no because running power meters don’t measure force. What you need is a treadmills with force plates.
To keep a long story short all bike power meters measure force (with a strain gauge) and acceleration (via cadence) which can then be used to directly calculate power. Running power meters only measure acceleration meaning they can’t actually measure power. Running ‘power’ is a functionally defined concept by which I mean it is defined by an arbitrary mathematical equation. Basically foot pod acceleration data is combined with heart rate data and other secret sauce in an algorithim and you then get a ‘running power’ value. Companies differ in their definition of ‘running power’ but the big ones argue they are correct by comparing their results with the outputs of a force plate treadmill.
For research purposes the only legitimate way to get the data you want is a force plate treadmill.
My Garmin FR920XT shows R-L ground contact time in real time. It uses the HRM-Run chest strap, but I think that the same data is available from the foothold. There is a Garmin Connect IQ widget that reports running power, but only total, not R-L. Power is estimated from equations in a research paper that is referenced in the widget info I’ve found the running power to match my perceived exertion fairly well. You can see the power realtime, but I don’t think that it can be captured by Garmin Connect i.e. Not recorded in the fit file. So that maybe (another?) deal breaker.
Good point about altering mechanics by looking at a watch or head unit. In a simple approach I can imagine a head unit mounted on a treadmill. Or maybe somehow projecting the data onto a big screen at the end of the room.
Cheers,
Jim
I think you can get that in real time. To be useful it would require to be monitored elsewhere than the wrist unit however. As watching it would stop the wrist oscillation and alter the metrics.
I believe Garmin has a team feature where a coach can read the metrics from players. I don’t know how this works or if it supports running dynamics or just basic metrics.
Yes, RunScribe does look like it might be the answer. Initially I wasn’t sure what metrics they provided but I posted on their community discussion and it looks like they will give me what I’m looking for.
Cheers,
Jim
Clinical? That’s exactly what market Runscribe is catering to. I have done plenty of testing with Garmin power and am a current Stryd user and I can tell you neither of those platforms will do what you are asking about.
Stryd is awesome, but not your answer. The guy who runs Runscribe is responsive on the facebook page. Send him a shout and see if he can help. Last time I talked to him he was super busy rolling out his clinical package!
Thanks for that info. Yeah, we would need the data in the fit file; deal breaker.
Cheers,
Jim
My Garmin FR920XT shows R-L ground contact time in real time. It uses the HRM-Run chest strap, but I think that the same data is available from the foothold. There is a Garmin Connect IQ widget that reports running power, but only total, not R-L. Power is estimated from equations in a research paper that is referenced in the widget info I’ve found the running power to match my perceived exertion fairly well. You can see the power realtime, but I don’t think that it can be captured by Garmin Connect i.e. Not recorded in the fit file. So that maybe (another?) deal breaker.
Hmmm, probably still not useful, but for completeness…the CIQ widget I use says that they do write running power to the FIT file. Here’s the link. https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/530bd211-afd5-41a6-8204-9a2f7ac94541
Hi Bio_McGeek,
Angus from Stryd here.
If you are still looking for a solution, can you please email us at stryd@stryd.com?
We would be happy to look at your needs and see if we have something that could support you in any way.
Best,
Angus