Last week we explained to brand new owners how to use their Stryd running power meter. The article is well received. It’s been read a lot. We ended up with Stryd’s intelligent workouts schedules. Schedules that change automatically if you improve through workout because they are linked to your personal critical power and personal power duration curve.
You can load these schedules into your Garmin watch with the help of the Stryd Workout IQ app. We explain how that works in this article. The Stryd schemes also fully integrated with Apple watch.
Coros watches are specially developed for use with Stryd, including the power schemes.
If you have a Polar or a Suunto, you will get the data of the Stryd on your data screen while running, but you will have to remember what the program was for your workout. In practice, of course, that also works.
By the way, you are not stuck with the new membership of Stryd to train with running power schemes. You can convert to power yourself and there are various platforms – such as workoutPeaks and Final Surge – that are Stryd compatible. You will then have enough to use the “data-only” account with frequently used functions of Stryd.
At the end of this article we give the tip to use your Stryd for speed and distance. That’s many times more accurate than the GPS on your watch, unless you forget to turn off automatic calibration on your watch. Then your watch always calibrates the Stryd to the GPS data. And of course you don’t want that….
Stryd Workout IQ app for Garmin
The advantage of the Stryd Workout App is that you automatically load advanced workout sessions into your watch. With beeps and vibrations, you will be alerted to the transition to the next block of the workout along the way. It is not complicated to use. In this article, we will show you how things work using some images. You can install this IQ app in your Garmin watch in the usual way.
Stryd offers a range of workouts schedules, for different distances and the number of days you can train per week. That’s what we described in the previous article. You can select a workouts schedule from the Stryd app on your mobile phone or in PowerCenter. Until mid-June Ron trains on the basis of a 10 km schedule to build up some speed again. After that, the focus is on the Berlin Marathon on September 26, 2021. Hopefully this event will not be cancelled this time.
You start by tapping ‘Stryd workout Plans’ on the opening screen (Summary) of the Stryd app on your mobile phone. Then you are asked what you want to train for. You can choose from 5K, 10K, half marathon or marathon. In this example, we choose the half marathon. The next question is when’s that race? The question after that is also not illogical: when do you want to start workout for that half?
The screens also follow logically with questions about how many days you want to train in the week and how many hours per week that may be? Not to mention the question on which day you usually have time for a long workout?
If all that is answered, 2 workout plans have been proposed in this case. One with a limited size (Low Volume) of 4 days a week with an average of 4 hours of workout per week and a more intensive (High Volume) for 6 days with an average of 7 hours per week.
Once the choice has been made, the Stryd calendar fills up with workout sessions until the race day.
Where is the Stryd Workout App on your Garmin?
After you install it, you can get the Stryd Workout App by long pressing the button at the top right of your Garmin. You will then see the well-known menu in which you normally choose ‘Running’. For the Stryd Workout App, scroll further down until you see ‘Stryd Workout App’ appear in the dark background area. Click. You will be in the Stryd Workout App.
In the Stryd Workout App you can adjust the data screens, via ’Settings’ and ‘Data fields’. If you choose ‘3s Power’ or ’10s Power’, the number value on your screen is a little less variable and easier to focus on. Cyclists with a power meter will recognize this.
The first workout
Make sure your Garmin is ready with your phone with the Stryd app.
In the Stryd Workout App on your Garmin, you can get the workouts by first using the button at the top right of your Garmin to click on the ‘Workouts’ screen and then ‘Fetch Workouts’. The workout sessions for the coming days will then be in your Garmin.
This is not possible if you are already outside with your watch and your phone with the Stryd app is still indoors.
Then, go to the ‘x Workouts’ field on your Garmin. Here you can see the x workouts received neatly on day and date. If the workout for Tuesday, for example, does not suit you, you can choose the workout on another day. In PowerCenter, that will eventually work out.
Just like in the paid version of workoutPeaks, you can drag the workout from one day to the other in the Stryd app and in PowerCenter, if this fits you better.
As a first acquaintance, Ron chose the ‘Easy Run /w Strides’ on Thursday. On your watch you can see how this workout is structured. You can view this in more detail in the Stryd app on your phone. This first workout consists of 2 blocks of 22 minutes in zone 1 ‘Easy’. In between there are 4 intervals in zone 4 of 30 seconds after which 60 seconds rest low in zone 1.
The zone distribution is personal and linked to your Critical Power. Ron’s CP currently stands at 294 Watts. If the CP improves (or deteriorates) towards the race day during the course of the workout schedule, the system adjusts the wattages with which you have to run.
You always train at the right personal level, so you are not dependent on too high or too low a level of your workout group.
Stryd has a solution for runners for which no CP has yet been determined: the ‘Intro Plan‘. This is a 2-week workout schedule that asks you to run a variety of workouts. Based on the data obtained, the system derives a first indication for your personal workout guidelines. After these 2 weeks you can scale up to one of the other workout schedules offered by Stryd. The system then learns quickly. You will almost certainly see your critical power (CP) changes again and see your power duration curve build up.
On the road
The readers of our book ‘The Secret of Running‘ and our many articles know that you get the best result by keeping the wattage you run with constant. You do this by varying the pace or running speed. This is graphically illustrated in the image.
Uphill you run slower than average and downhill faster. Similarly with head wind and tail wind.
The Stryd Workout App screens on your Garmin help you maintain the right pace. The top field of the opening screen shows the current power you are running with. The color is green if you run within the range of the target power for the relevant workout block. If you go too fast, the color of this field becomes red. Blue is too slow.
In the middle field of the Garmin screen, a countdown is displayed in 2 ways. A clock goes back to zero. And the green bar of the middle field becomes shorter and shorter to the right until the block is done within the workout. At the beginning and at the end of such a block, screen-filling digits count down from 5 to 0. Beeps and vibrations support all this. Not to be missed. You can hardly do the workout wrong.
After the workout
At home you can take a good look at and evaluate your achievements. The results appear in Garmin Connect, in PowerCenter and, if you use it, also in workoutPeaks or other such tools.
Speed and distance
You can indicate from the menu of your Garmin watch that you want to use not GPS but the Stryd for speed and distance. It’s smart to choose this. The Stryd is much more accurate than GPS is.
You’ll notice that on the track. You will experience it too if you run under a wet foliage that interferes with GPS reception. You will notice it in the city if you run along high buildings with GPS shade. And for Stryd, it doesn’t matter if you run indoors or outdoors.
Ron’s Stryd indicated exactly 200 meters for the indoor track in the Apeldoorn Omnisport (the Netherlands). The smart instruments in the Stryd – they are inertial measurement units (IMU’s) – measure your movements exactly. You only need to use your watch’s GPS outside to see which route you have run.
To set the Stryd on your Garmin for speed and distance, go into your watch’s menu. You click through to ‘Sensors and accessories’. You look up ‘Foot Sensor’ and you set both ‘Distance’ and ‘Speed’ to ‘Always’. In the same menu you see ‘Cal. Factor’. In principle, it should be at 100.
If not, the GPS has already calibrated your Stryd, and in fact deteriorated. GPS is less accurate than the Stryd. If you’re on ‘Cal. Factor’ you see that you can disable ‘Automatic calibration’. Do it! A step further in the submenu, you can use ‘Set value’ to reset the calibration factor to 100.
Do the same in Foot Sensor Stryd.
The Stryd is calibrated from the box. You don’t have to do anything about it. If in doubt, you can of course always take the test on a route that you are sure the distance is correct. For example, the 400 meters of a track in runway 1. If you run 0.30 m from the inner edge in track 1 of the athletics track (with the Stryd on the laces of your left shoe), you will cover exactly 400 m in one lap.
In the exceptional case that the distance according to Stryd deviates, you can adjust the calibration factor in the manner indicated above, according to the formula 100*actual distance divided by the distance according to Stryd. Since you are not a machine yourself, you could run several laps at 0.30 meters from the inner edge to get it accurate
You can read all about running on power and the effect of all factors on your performance in our book ‘The Secret of Running’.
Our book ‘The Secret of Running’ is for sale in our webshop. Also available in German as ‘Das Geheimnis des Laufens’, and in Italian as ‘Manuale completo della corsa’