Great video! Thanks! I've been using an Apple Watch and Stryd for a while now. I find myself using both power and HR to guide my workouts. I find HR makes sense for easy runs, to ensure I work in the right aerobic zone. I like power for intervals due to fast feedback. I find this is the best of both worlds!
I pace my easy runs using heart rate, but monitor power (from Stryd) for most workouts, especially intervals. When I am looking for a time in a race I primarily track pace, but keep an eye on power if the course is hilly.
This is a great discussion as always. Some of the new watches have the gyro-meters (right word?) built in, so they provide power+cadence from your wrist. There is no need for the footpod. How do these techs compare? can I assume a similar set of advantages/disadvantages? I 100% agree that the majority of these tools and resulting stats should be tracked over the long term of training but not to be focused on during the race.
my experience with wrist based cadence (Garmin Fenix 6 pro) is that the value drops when you look at it because you have to stop moving your arm. A footpod or other non-wrist pod (such as the Garmin running pod) doesn't have this problem.
There is valuable new studies and data comparing the power from watched vs foot pod. Watch power will be calculated much higher that a foot pod power meter. They are using a far different algorithm. Also note that a watch will not have the wind factored into power numbers like the Stryd pod will. Check out the new book on running with power. They link to a huge number of studies that have been performed on power and running.
Currently, Stryd is the only reliable power foot monitor. The power numbers on watches are derived differently and usually are over stating power numbers. Also, watch power cannot factor in wind resistance.
Heart rate is a "false god". There are dozens of things unrelated to fitness or current performance that affect HR, including but not limited to mental stress (or peacefulness), physical pain, bladder fullness, music, OTC and prescription medications, ambient temperature and humidity, direct skin sun exposure, sleep adequacy, hydration, joint and soft tissue inflammation, altitude...just to name a few. How do I know this? Medical school. Any physician (and in particular, a cardiologist) knows that HR poorly reflects minute-to-minute and day-to-day "fitness" and exertion. Interestingly, the more elite and experienced an endurance athlete, the less reliant they are on HR as they typically workout by RPE, power, and particularly pace. They have learned through experience what medical doctors learn through practice: HR is actually a low to moderate tool at best, and a poor tool at worst, for quantifying endurance workouts and fitness. Just another perspective (obviously, the smartwatch makers are not going to market the gross limitations of HR)..
My friend, is it not a fact that your heart rate will go higher as you run faster, walk faster, exercise harder? Is it also not a fact that you can keep track of your average resting heart rate? So i aint no medical school person, but logic would then say, i can easily used heart rate based on the above.. each person would be different depending on each persons condition..you mentioned many conditions, so if i am 1 of those people, would obviously have different zones to understand if im running easy, moderate, hard etc.. anything based on variables will never be exact, but that does not mean it cannot be a useful tool.. cheers
Well said. HR is affected by so many outside variables that it cannot be valid from day to day, hour to hour. I tend to use mine anecdotally over a period of time for trending but never during workouts or easy runs. Easy is far better measured by RPE, not HR.
@@dilochetty9332 My friend, an individual human being is not a static object...your body changes minute to minute based on many variables unrelated to exercise and work. The dynamic variables mentioned (please re-read) change minute to minute for an individual, making the use of heart rate over time in that single individual erratic and unreliable. Another way to look at it: If a person wishes to simply establish a "zone" based on their HR (eg "easy run" zone) and took into account the dozens of variables that affect HR, the zone would be wide and there would be little need to continue to monitor HR as it is so imprecise and create such a wide zone that RPE would be plenty sufficient to know one was working out in the zone. :-)
@@dilochetty9332 Never said your using it is a "problem". Simply educating those who wish to learn. For you, it'll be a "smart grenade"...someday, when you are experiencing a moment of logical clarity, it'll sink in. 🧠✨
