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Running with Power Meters 101 | with Steve Palladino

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Running with Power Meters has exploded in popularity in the last few years. Taking the baton from their cycling counterparts, elite runners have begun to embrace “power” as a key metric to guide their training.

As the cost of running power meters comes down, it’s time for recreational runners to get in on the act. Many runners are noticing that “watts” is already displayed on their Garmin or Apple watch. Others have invested in foot pods from Stryd. Now the question is, how do we use power to improve our training.

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Running with Power Meters

Training with power metrics is a hot topic in the athletic world, and for good reason. While heart rate training has been a go-to for athletes for years, power training offers a new and highly accurate way to measure effort and manage training.

In this podcast episode, we explore the benefits of training with power metrics and how it compares to heart rate training.

Running Power vs Heart Rate

One of the biggest benefits of power training is that power output reflects changes in pace immediately. Heart rate, on the other hand, lags behind changes in effort. This lag can be problematic in interval training during high-intensity workouts, where it takes time for the heart rate to catch up and reach the target heart rate.

It can also impact longer runs, where heart rate continues to climb higher due to external factors like hydration, temperature, and dehydration. In both cases, power is a better metric to execute interval training, as it’s instant and doesn’t have heart rate lag.

How to use Running Power Meters

Another advantage of power training is its ease of use. Power is becoming more mainstream with devices such as watches and pods on feet being used to measure it. This allows athletes to have highly accurate and instantaneous feedback on their effort during workouts.

Muscle oxygenation and other ways can also be used to manage effort, but power is one of the primary ones. Athletes who use power in their training typically use critical power or functional threshold power. Critical power is used to distinguish between the heavy and severe training domains or zones two and three in a three-zone system. Once an athlete knows their critical power, they can use it as an anchor point for their training targets and zones.

Running Power vs Pace

Many coaches also prefer using power for workouts because it remains consistent regardless of external factors like wind or incline. Pace, on the other hand, is affected by those factors and may not accurately reflect the athlete’s effort level.

Additionally, power output gives a more direct reflection of what is happening in the muscles, as they contract as hard and fast as they can to produce movement.

Types of Running Power Meters

Wrist-based power typically uses GPS as the source for speed and acceleration. This can be problematic in big cities, forests, or when running on a treadmill. Stryd has been found to be superior to Garmin power, Polar, and Run Scribe in terms of reliability and consistency. It has also been shown to have a higher correlation with Vo2 compared to other power trackers.

In conclusion, power training is a highly accurate and instantaneous way to measure effort during workouts. It’s becoming more popular with the availability of devices to measure power output. While heart rate training has been a go-to method for athletes for years, power training offers a new and highly accurate way to measure effort and manage training.

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