Stryd Adds Incline Functionality to Treadmill Workouts—But Automation Still Lags Behind

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Stryd, the US-based company best known for its footpod power meter for runners, has expanded the functionality of its PowerCenter platform to include support for treadmill incline targets. Now available to Stryd Membership users, the update allows athletes to design structured indoor workouts with power and incline segments. The move reflects a growing focus on enhancing the indoor training experience.

The update is being positioned as a tool to improve training specificity and race preparation, particularly for runners targeting hilly events or working through winter conditions. Runners can program treadmill sessions in PowerCenter, defining power targets and incline levels for each interval. Workouts sync to compatible Garmin watches via the excellent Stryd Zones data field or to the Stryd mobile app, offering runners real-time prompts for when to adjust the incline manually.

However, while this development represents progress, it also underscores a key limitation in Stryd’s treadmill ecosystem: the inability to automate incline control. Unlike high-end platforms that integrate directly with select treadmills to adjust elevation dynamically during workouts, Stryd’s system relies entirely on the user to manually make these changes, introducing friction into an otherwise guided experience.

This manual intervention may not be a concern for the highly engaged user base Stryd typically attracts. Still, it could limit broader appeal, particularly among less technically inclined runners or those seeking a more seamless experience. No native treadmill integrations exist for platforms like iFit, Peloton, or Zwift, which offer more comprehensive indoor control.

Bridging the Indoor-Outdoor Divide

Nonetheless, introducing incline targets strengthens Stryd’s broader ambition to treat treadmill training with the same physiological precision it applies to outdoor running. Power-based metrics remain central to Stryd’s value proposition, and the ability to simulate elevation indoors adds a new layer of specificity.

Athletes can now tailor sessions that replicate race-day terrain—the rolling undulations of Boston or the sustained climbs of a trail ultramarathon—and track post-session performance using Stryd’s Running Stress Score, Critical Power, and Power Duration Curve metrics.

The PowerCenter editor also enables runners to store, duplicate, and refine their workouts, building a reusable personal training library. For coaches and advanced users, this offers meaningful long-term time savings.

Next Steps for Stryd

Looking ahead, Stryd faces a clear set of development opportunities. Automation of treadmill incline, integration with third-party treadmill ecosystems, and a more cohesive experience across devices remain pressing user requests. There is also scope for improving feedback during treadmill workouts—for example, by incorporating incline-based pacing recommendations or dynamically adjusting power targets in response to incline changes. Those would be impressive changes, but is there a sufficient demand for them?

For now, the new incline functionality is a welcome step forward, particularly for Stryd’s core demographic of performance-minded runners. But its full potential will only be realised when incline control becomes as effortless as the metrics that power Stryd’s ecosystem.