I recently got a treadmill for my pain cave and I have been loving it. I have been doing almost all of my weekday runs on it while keeping my long runs outside. I am currently training for AC 70.3 as well as my first full IM in Arizona in November. I have training on a level 2 80/20 plan as well. All of my FTP tests are done on a track, but when I run on my new treadmill it is extremely hard for me to hit my numbers. I find myself having to run extra hard- with significant incline, to hit my interval power numbers. For instance, todays workout was 45 min run with 4x 2.5 mins at 300-330 watts. I could barely finish these intervals on the treadmill, and I come out of these treadmill workouts feeling very tired.Is there a significant discrepancy between using a foot pod outside and using one on the tread (btw I use a Stryd pod)
Thanks!
Most folks have the same experience. My stryd will show me going significantly slower than the treadmill setting (even a calibrated one using a runn sensor).
Stryd claims that running on a ‘mill is actually harder than outside, and that their reading is right and the ‘mill is wrong due to it speeding up during the float phase of your stride.
Personally from reading their explanation it feels like they start with the assumption that their pod is correct then try to explain the discrepancies. IMO they just need to have a treadmill mode that is calibrated differently. Regardless, the reality is that stryds read different power on a treadmill than outdoors for the same pace, so you probably want different targets.
At this point, I no longer look at Stryd Power on the treadmill and just go off of feel and heart rate. I would recommend doing this unless you are using the same treadmill and shoes for every run. In that case figuring out the discrepancy between outside and inside (with same shoes and same incline on treadmill.)
The Stryd is a great device when all variables are accounted for, but if they are not then the utility goes out the window
my experience with the Stryd pod echo’s the posters before me. Treadmill is slower and more effort then outside, and on the treadmill that I run on it is usually 0.3 kph slower then what the belt is set at.
So I take that into consideration for my intervals. I did also recently noticed that I can play with my pace while maintaining the same belt speed. Basically higher cadence equals higher speed, so I can reduce the deficit to the belt speed to only 0.1 Kph when I increase my cadence.
This is the exact reason why running power is still not an accurate way of determining intensity.
This indirect measurement has it’s uses (like hill running) but is still not as accurate as measuring pace…which is easier to do.
Until there is a direct measurement, my stryd is just a good footpod.
It has been frustrating for me trying to start using a treadmill for structured workouts versus just running outside. I have resorted to just using my Garmin watch that is somewhat calibrated to the treadmill but that is often significantly different than what the treadmill reports depending on paces. I tried to disable the Stryd for speed on the treadmill and just get the power data for comparison but the watch refused to cooperate and didn’t give any speed.
There are so many articles from Stryd pointing to them being correct (link below) but when I use it on the Technogym Skill at my gym I’m basically sprinting to get the same power as outside at an aerobic pace. Same shoes, the only difference is the belt and being indoors 🤷â€â™‚ï¸.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/strydcommunity/posts/2595630357401679/
Personally from reading their explanation it feels like they start with the assumption that their pod is correct then try to explain the discrepancies.
Yup - that’s their MO.
What I’ve never been able to understand is that why:
a) Stryd supposedly works perfectly out of the box and you should never need to calibrate it, but
b) if you do decide to calibrate it, then you can only do so following an extremely precise plan involving running some exact distance from the inside of a track, and in that case you have to calibrate it for each pair of shoes.
There’s a fundamental inconsistency there, I think. And it goes back to the assumption that their pod is correct and everything else is wrong.
I can say that their pod has been better than my garmin footpod for speed on the treadmill and on the road.
I normally leave the calibration enabled on my watch so it calibrates while i run outside. That calibration is pretty dang close to what my hand tach w/ wheel read on the treadmill.
The fact that it’s Bluetooth capable makes it even more valuable.