So how does the power meter itself actually work? How do you know the output is accurate? How much power is lost from the measurement due to dampening? How do you know it will hold up to cycling in such an aggressive environment? That's kind of the interesting thing here, but there's no mention of it in the article.
I could see this being used for fitness tests for cross country skiers. A very common exercise is med-ball slams. These aren’t a perfect analog to double poling but definitely close.
Being able to track your one rep max force you can generate could be an interesting metric especially for sprinters
100% agree. And the issue with med-ball slams is they also can just be dropped in a testing setting, and the only power needed to be generated is on the "up" cycle. I wouldn't even trust my own med-ball slam benchmarks from one month to the next, as I'm not confident I slammed them with the same intensity.
I'm curious though, wouldn't a Concept2 ski-erg be the best machine for that job?
>track your one rep max force [...] especially for sprinters
Yeaaah that's the ticket =) One level of abstraction higher: you can think of that 1RM as the leftmost point on the max power curve, i.e. max force you've historically generated, from 5secs all the way to e.g. 60 mins [1].
Both are needed, but for an athlete watts is by far the more useful feedback for training, and following the intended stimulus of workouts.
As a workout, "bike 30 km" is vague and meaningless. "bike 30km in 1h" is better, but not specific to the athlete: some have better cardio than others. Most serious cardio workouts are given in zones: "bike 1h at 60-65% of your functional threshold power" [1] – this particular workout would also be known as "zone 2 training session".
I believe there are already various, martial arts related, striking meters - to show how hard you are punching/kicking. Isn't this rather similar (but I guess not mounted vertically and calibrated for harder hits)?
I'd think that electronic drum heads would provide a good prototype. I really know nothing about it, so I could easily be wrong, but the basics are all there... They are percussive, and the sound varies by how hard they are hit, so there has to be something like a power meter going on.
This is pretty cool! Your note about cycling power meters changing the way you perceive effort matches my experience as well. One other bit from my experience: I'm a runner and a cyclist, and I've always lusted after having cycling style data and prescribed workouts for my running. When Stryd launched I was all in, but... all it gave me was power numbers. It didn't have the tribal knowledge that came with my cycling power meter. Eg - lots of online content about zones, free and paid workouts / plans to target different goals (eg sprinting vs long endurance). It almost seems like any discussion of serious training on a bike comes back to watts.
But with the Stryd, all I got was power numbers, and the option to signup for a monthly paid subscription with some training plans that were pretty bare bones. It seems like running power meters just haven't been adopted widely enough for that critical mass of information to emerge. My realization from this is the data is useless without the tribal knowledge of how to use it. So my Stryd sits in a drawer somewhere, and I'm back to running by heart rate.
The equivalent in running is pace, at least on flat ground. I don't know that power would really be useful in running, the biomechanics of running hills is sufficiently different that I question the ability to make an equivalence comparison the same way you do in cycling.
Author here: funny you should mention that! Same idea has been on my mind for years at this point.
To me, the holy grail of sports training is to have simple but powerful enough models to estimate power data from dozens of movements, and fit various power curves that match real-world training.
So much promise there.
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As for Stryd: That's so interesting. I'd imagine a lot of the same parallels to cycling to apply? Once you have your running CP/FTP, I'd imagine you could follow the same cycling training plans (relative to your FTP) for the same intended stimulus.
I'm curious though, can you see the Watts/zone/W'bal/etc. values on a watch or something when you're running?
I didn't look into or find any myself, but "power meter enabled" sports like cycling, rowing, etc. have a way to measure the strain/fatigue of efforts relative to the athlete's fitness (FTP). Same would apply here.
There are various methods to measure that strain, e.g. Strava, intervals.icu, TrainerPeak all have their slightly tweaked implementations.
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[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 34.7 ms ] threadI think 4-8 weeks to recharge and reset would be helpful. What's the research say?
> a paid month off
that's not a sabbatical anyway, is it? i thought this was 6-12 months, not one?
https://intensity.systems/ is currently unstyled.
Post also has some LLM sniffs, so I'm unsure how much of the content is true.
Bleak.. Only a month after five years.
What you need is a small weight or something that rises up a pole depending on how hard you hit it, a great visualisation.
You could even have a bell at the top, so if this small weight hits it with enough voom it could making a resounding ding sound, so life affirming.
Perhaps you could charge a 'apenny a go, and give a prize for those that can do it. Saying Roll up Roll up to passers by in a local fair.
"High Striker": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_striker
https://shovelglove.com
Being able to track your one rep max force you can generate could be an interesting metric especially for sprinters
I'm curious though, wouldn't a Concept2 ski-erg be the best machine for that job?
>track your one rep max force [...] especially for sprinters
Yeaaah that's the ticket =) One level of abstraction higher: you can think of that 1RM as the leftmost point on the max power curve, i.e. max force you've historically generated, from 5secs all the way to e.g. 60 mins [1].
(1) https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/4-key-uses-for-the-power-...
TFW you want to seem intellectual
Please pardon the AI-generated placeholder images and some of the text at https://intensity.systems, I'm still very actively working on that.
It seems like joules would make more sense, right?
As a workout, "bike 30 km" is vague and meaningless. "bike 30km in 1h" is better, but not specific to the athlete: some have better cardio than others. Most serious cardio workouts are given in zones: "bike 1h at 60-65% of your functional threshold power" [1] – this particular workout would also be known as "zone 2 training session".
(1) https://www.trainerroad.com/blog/what-ftp-really-means-to-cy...
Maybe someone else knows more?
But with the Stryd, all I got was power numbers, and the option to signup for a monthly paid subscription with some training plans that were pretty bare bones. It seems like running power meters just haven't been adopted widely enough for that critical mass of information to emerge. My realization from this is the data is useless without the tribal knowledge of how to use it. So my Stryd sits in a drawer somewhere, and I'm back to running by heart rate.
To me, the holy grail of sports training is to have simple but powerful enough models to estimate power data from dozens of movements, and fit various power curves that match real-world training.
So much promise there.
---
As for Stryd: That's so interesting. I'd imagine a lot of the same parallels to cycling to apply? Once you have your running CP/FTP, I'd imagine you could follow the same cycling training plans (relative to your FTP) for the same intended stimulus.
I'm curious though, can you see the Watts/zone/W'bal/etc. values on a watch or something when you're running?
There are various methods to measure that strain, e.g. Strava, intervals.icu, TrainerPeak all have their slightly tweaked implementations.