Trying to understand Wattbike plot

Alex_Simmons/RST

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19721956#p19721956]rumbataz[/url] wrote:

Whilst the overall power output is aggregated between left and right legs, when viewing the Polar view (which is the graph/plot that is supposed to be a peanut shape) you do get percentage power/effort for left and right legs also shown.

Let's be clear - this is not showing you individual contributions from your left and right leg. What it is showing you are the net forces from both legs when either of the left or right crank arm is forward of the bottom bracket. That's quite a different thing to showing you what your individual left and right leg contributions are, which is why it's been dubbed "pseudo power balance", rather than power balance.

It's entirely possible for such a pseudo power balance measurement to report you as being right side dominant, while true power balance shows that you are in fact left side dominant. As I've been saying, you need to be very careful when interpreting this data - it's not what it suggests it is.