I’m still putting together my race report for the ITU World Duathlon Championships in Adelaide, Australia.  While I was away, however, UPS and the post man dropped off a ton of high-tech goodies.  Many of these were Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects from up to a year ago– they just all came to market at the same time.  This leaves me in a bit of data overload– but it should be awesome.  Here’s what I’ve got cooking.

• Stryd Running Power Meter.  First up is the Stryd running power meter.  This is super exciting.  Power meters have utterly revolutionized cycling.  Now it promises to do the same thing for running.  Here’s a tiny screenshot (click to enlarge) of my first run recently with the Stryd.
• RunScribe Running Biomechanics Monitor.  Next up is the RunScribe– a tiny pod that you put on one (or both) shoes.  The tiny little device measures stuff like ground impact, pronation excursion (how much one pronates), and pronation velocity (how fast one pronates).  All great data that can get ahead of injuries and that isn’t obvious even from looking at slow-motion video.  Here’s a tiny screenshot of one of my runs using RunScribe.  Who knew that I pronate much faster on the right side than the left?  It’s cool also because it can be switched between shoes and so I can see which shoes are really more stable and how they start to break down over time
• BSX Muscle Oxygenation Monitor.  I’ve talked about the BSX Insight before– a tiny pod that helps you assess your lactate threshold.  The v1 device had a few troubles with connectivity.  The new v2 model apparently completely gets rid of those issues and also gives realtime muscles oxygenation readings.  This is very exciting because a lot of physiologists and coaches are using muscle oxygenation measurements to assess recovery, discover the underlying limiters in an athlete’s performance and really fine tune coaching.  I don’t have the new v2– it comes on Wednesday and I can’t wait.
• Powerbreathe K5 IMT Trainer.  This isn’t a bleeding edge technology like muscle oxygenation but it’s still pretty advanced, so it’s still cutting edge.  There is a lot of research showing that inspiratory muscle training has a lot of performance benefits.  Despite my recent racing success, I know that I’m pretty weak in this department– particularly when I’m running (one of the reasons I look like I’m having a stroke when I’m running).  What’s even cooler about IMT training is that it has got to be the most bang-for-your-buck training, time-wise– training takes about five minutes a day and yields about a 5% improvement (likely even more if you’re weak-lunged like me).

It should be an exciting year– and stay tuned for my thoughts on each of these cool technologies in upcoming posts.  Thanks for reading and be sure to like the Athletic Time Machine Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @AthTimeMachine.  If you found this post useful, please reblog it on WordPress, share it on Facebook, or retweet it on Twitter to share it with your friends.