My question is about a power imbalance of, to my right and left legs.
How much of an imbalance is significant for a significant imbalance?
What are the best ways to correct it?
So he says the answer may have come to me already.
When at the end of a recent ride, a voice came to me sounding a lot, like Chad
saying the single leg exercise dummy.
But no, I.
Don't think that David's probably not the safest thing to be doing
a single leg drills when you're not on the trainer as well.
So, um, so don't worry about that.
But he says I'm new to training and have been using a smart trainer
tax, Neo T2, and a power meter.
And he mentioned that the , which are a pretty cool accessible power air set
of power meter pills, which is cool.
And he said, he's only been doing that for a few months.
According to the data they send to my Garmin app, the left
light usually generates 54 to 55% of the power and the right.
45 to 46%.
This is both indoors and outdoors.
So he says that eight to 10 watt significant or different
seems significant to me.
So I'm not going to share any names here, David, but before we go any further, I
know of an Olympian that has a much more substantial leg imbalanced in than you do.
Uh, and that athlete.
As tried to correct it whenever they try to correct it, they
get injured and they get slower.
And when they don't worry about it, they're fine.
So it's just kind of the way that they're built.
So first of all, we should probably reduce the stigma around that, that people feel
they need to be 50, 50 all the time, uh, that that does not need to happen.
Your body isn't symmetrical.
It doesn't
matter.
Yeah.
That's actually one of the reasons too, why we don't show it because
it's, it's a metric that we don't want you to try to optimize.
50 50.
You're not, it's not a goal.
It's more like, Hey, that's interesting.
Uh, it's like your hair color.
I talked to somebody, uh, one of the top people at one of the powered meter
companies and they were saying that they thought they had some, uh, this
was, I don't know if they had data.
It was a hypothesis.
I think there was data on it, but people that aren't symmetrical the actually
do better at the end of a race for a.
Um, hard efforts is like the other leg ends up compensating at the really
hard stuff at the end of the race.
And it's like having something in reserve.
So they're going in their bodies, like how's this, and then they
can do some like heart attack.
And it was actually seen as maybe a benefit for some people.
If you naturally do this, the thing is though you can't, you can't like just
try to be 50, 50 all the whole time.
So don't worry about that.
The one thing is, if you do have a.
What, what can happen for some people is based on the change, the
percentage of 50 50, or what it is, will change at different wattage's or
how tired you are inside of a race.
Um, for workouts, it's not usually a huge difference and not enough to like, impact
your training, but, uh, uh, left right.
Will be.
If you, if you really care about the details, you'll have a better, uh,
understanding of your entire fitness versus just a left sided power meter.
But again, it's not enough where you're like, well, I can't train
with left side of power meter.
I, I have access to a.
Lots of power meters and some bikes.
I just have a left side of power meter and I, if y'all know me, I'm cool with it.
So if I'm cool, then you're probably cool with it too.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Great excavation.
He mentioned that during one of his, uh, active recovery weeks, since
joining trainer road, he reached a 50, 50 power output achievement unlocked.
Um, he says, which tells me that the disparity occurs in, I am peddling hard.
This is actually like a great misnomer right here is that it doesn't just
happen when you're peddling hard.
It happens.
It's probably changes across a whole spectrum of intensity.
Also based on the mobility that you've been doing prior to that
thereafter strength training, you know, once again, it shouldn't be 50.
You don't have to worry about that.
Uh, it says the data too.
Yes exactly.
If it is, it is, if it's not, it's not.
Um, but that doesn't mean that you're a better or worse athlete as a result of it.
Um, he also then goes into talking about how, like he was looking at where
exactly it phased in and out of power or Murray had a dead spot and you can get
really analytical with all this stuff.
And this is a great example of focusing on what matters most and what moves the
needle in terms of your fruit performance.
Um, he says, I speculate the power difference occurs, um, with his legs, he
says, due to better having better cycling dynamics with one leg over another.
You also mentioned that his left leg is the one that's the stronger one, but
that's the one that gets that he cramps with his left adductor when he rides.
So.
Uh, this is a great example, Dave, of you digging into the details and
getting a lot of insights, but those insights may not necessarily drive
performance that said, uh, so I never looked at my left right balance.
Uh I've when I have seen it, just because I'm looking at other things
usually, but I haven't seen it.
It will fluctuate anywhere between like plus or minus 4% on either
side and I, you know, whatever it is, and it might be more, might be
less and changes throughout a ride.
But the one thing that I would say is if you've had like some sort of like
a traumatic leg injury, like you've broken your leg and you're coming
back from something and you're really easing your way into training, I
could see this being helpful, right.
Because you don't.
Probably wanting to be 50 50 when you start out with a leg that
really needs to be worked on.
Um, but at the same time I've made this mistake.
Don't make this mistake.
Don't think that because you have a leg imbalanced and
quantified by your left, right.
Balanced it.
It's like.
My legs are messed up and I need to do PT.
I need to change everything about what I'm doing.
Um, they don't correlate like that.
Um, so it does just make sure that you don't don't do that.
That that could be bad.
This is what if in order for us to like, put this in the product and try
to drive people to improve this, I'd want to see something where either
anecdotal or a study where maybe let's say you took there's pro riders.
And they said, if they do that, the best providers in the world are 50 50, and then
the less you are balanced, the worst rider you are, that'd be some data or we'd say,
okay, this study that took people, they were 50 50 with no training interventions
they just got, or they weren't 50 50 making them 50 50, then increase
their water, shut the performance by.
A significant amount.
Those kinds of things would be like, Hey, then they should be 50, 50, as
far as I know, there's none of that.
There might be anecdotal that someone's age, but I worked on this and at the
same time this happened that's the end equals one, which we do a lot on
the podcast anyways, but not enough to then change the whole product.
Uh, but if you said, for instance, if.
Uh, I don't know, Chris Froome he just goes, Oh, I've been 46, you know, 52 or
50, whatever the math is this whole time.
That's why I've been losing the tour.
He changed it and then he just smoked everybody.
Um, that would still be an end equals one, but that would maybe be a little more,
uh, that, that one would be enough either.
Uh, we need a lot, a lot of data and a lot of people in order
to do this, but it seems right.
It seems like you go, Hey, I have to be symmetrical.
I need to work on this.
Uh, not, not the case.
Can we fucking go ahead.
I would add, I mean, it's, I do agree that like, we shouldn't, you know, hyper-focus
on being 50 50, but if there's pain associated with like what you perceive to
be your weak side, or you have like lower back pain or neck pain or some sort of
imbalance that you think could be causing that, like, apart from performance, like.
Seek medical advice, you know, like you could have like a strain or an imbalance
or something off center that's causing the imbalance that you should be looking
at and getting, you know, seeking advice and help on apart from just a performance
standpoint.
Yeah.
Chances are you're.
Oh yeah.
I was going to say, chances are you're left.
Right?
Power balanced data is not going to be the thing that's
really going to be showing that.
And you getting the PT, isn't going to fix that.
What Ivy said is if you're experiencing pain and discomfort,
then you should, right.
Not if you see a 54.
Uh, uh, 46 split math is hard.
Yeah.
Sorry.
That's it.
I think that, I just want to mention on this, uh let's let's um, that
left addicts or during rides, I don't know about anybody else.
That's usually the first thing to cramp for me when I'm in a race
is my adductors, like the, yeah.
Right.
And it's a painful one because it's really long.
So like you get like the cramp for a whole long ways up your leg, uh, that I've
noticed a reduction in my left adductor, or sorry, not left out or just adductor
strains and cramps, that sort of stuff.
Direct correlation to strength training.
Um, and the strength training that I do usually has me doing.
It's more like, you know, all these squatting with like a kettlebell,
but you could do the squatting without any weight as well.
And you'll absolutely get the benefit, but it's like lateral side squats.
Um, it's going to be squats that are going to be like split leg squats, different
things like that, that are working in my legs and different planes of motion.
And when I'm doing that and I'm staying up on my strength
training, I get zero strains.
Cramps, anything else like that?
And this is probably in this case, David, I know that you're looking at this data.
I'm wondering if you have an imbalanced, but you should just do
strength training if we don't already, uh that's uh, especially if you can
find like a strength training coach that really helps you with cycling
in particular, that would be awesome.
And if you do that, Oh, you'll notice a huge improvement, um,
across how you feel on the bike.
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