Power Up and Attack the Downhill!

Think back to the last time you took advantage of a downhill section of your run. The rush of freedom and speed you felt when opening up your stride and blasting away felt limitless. The magic of downhill running comes with a reprieve from the battle with gravity we fight as runners. How we understand and make use of this “free” energy is important to us, and extreme accuracy in a power meter to capture it is paramount.

Stryd has been recognized for its ability to provide an objective performance number to guide running effort for both downhill and uphill segments. Braking becomes especially influential in downhill efforts. We recently fired up our in-house metabolic cart to investigate the extent the braking impact of downhill running contributes to a runner's energy demands, offset by leveraging the effect of gravity to fly down hills.

This work culminated in a new and improved downhill power model. This model is now available in the most recent firmware release, version 1.1.2. The results in terms of error compared with VO2 of the new model compared with the older one are shown in the figure above. Version 1.1.2 better accounts for the eccentric loading induced energy demands of downhill running and agrees better with VO2 (r^2 = 0.89 across all runners). These downhill running changes in version 1.1.2 will make your Stryd work better for pacing on varying terrain.

Read the Release Notes for Firmware version 1.1.2

Thank you Stryders for your continued support and feedback throughout this process. You have made this journey of bringing power to running fun and worth every watt of our energy. Please continue to share your experience using Stryd with us and let us know what we can do to help you reach your goals. We love hearing from all of you.

Remember, attack the downhill with power!

Best,
The Stryd Team