new Stryd Metrics - They're Good...but ! An Explainer

[caption id="attachment_77812" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] next Gen Stryd vs Stryd Wind[/caption] new Stryd Metrics Must Read: the detailed Stryd Review Stryd's next-gen running pod for 2022 is slightly better made than its predecessor and benefits from new internal components which give more frequently updated metrics. There are a couple of improvements here and there but for most people, it's only worth the upgrade if you own a much older (pre-Wind) pod. That said, one thing that might tempt you to upgrade is the new metrics - Impact Loading Rate & Lower Body Stress Score (LBSS). These complement the existing Running Stress Score (RSS) metric. RSS is a measure of the metabolic cost of running whereas the new LBSS metric considers mechanical stress resulting from certain types of running and you can use the insights into that to reduce the risk of overuse injuries. Impact Loading Rate (ILR) Definition: The rate at which load impacts the lower body. Variation: The rate increases when you run faster or more intensely. It will also tend to increase for heel strikers and when you run downhill. A lower value is better. ILR can be viewed in PowerCenter and on the Stryd app in the details of a run. You can plot it against other metrics from the same run but I doubt that many runners will find much use in the metric. If you have half an hour or so to spare to look at the conditions that cause you unusually high ILR then you will get an actionable insight but you have to do the analysis from scratch each time without knowing if you will discover anything meaningful. From a general insight into running, the info is interesting. These charts from Stryd indicate how the force, measured in multiples of body weight, is applied in two different kinds of footstrike. Again, it's interesting, but I'm not sure what you can do with the insight! Stryd cites other insights that can be gleaned by examining ILR at different stages of your runs. You might well find that ILR disproportionately increases when running downhill or at especially high intensities. The point is that once you understand the causes of injury risks you can mitigate their impacts in the future. Lower Body Stress Score (LBSS) Definition: A single number score for each run that represents the load 'suffered' by your legs. The number is created from ILR and based on the level associated with your critical power. Variation: The score increases when you run faster, more intensely and/or when you run downhill. It's further increased by heel striking. The progressive application of stress stimulates an adaptive response by your body thus a higher LBSS is good over the medium term provided your body can tolerate it but short-term exposure to high levels might correspond with injury risk. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Lower Body Stress In Power Center[/caption] Q: Who can see LBSS and ILR? A: The new metrics are only generated by the latest gen Stryd pod running firmware 2.1.29 or later. Thoughts? This seems like unfinished business to me. We have to take it on trust that Stryd has correctly modelled the new sensor data. Presumably, more frequent measurements from a more accurate sensor give a new level of insight into footstrike mechanics and their impact. I DO see that ILR can be used in real-time but doubt that more than a handful of runners or coaches will bother to do that without a specific motivation. I'm less sceptical about LBSS though. It seems like a great idea to be able to model the cumulative impact of our training from both a metabolic and mechanical standpoint. However, Stryd is NOT giving us that...yet. All we get is a pretty bar chart showing Lower Body Stress over time. I would imagine that cumulative measures of LBSS (moving averages like ATL and CTL) might generate more meaningful insights if those averages coincide with overuse injury events. ...or not.

new Stryd Metrics – They’re Good…but ! An Explainer

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