Another thread about 180 spm cadence. But this one is different...

I have always been in the camp of "our bodies know where they want to be" and figured that while my cadence was in that same 160-164 range on easy runs, I would leave well enough alone. I mean, before I switched to an upgraded watch 3 or so years ago, I had no idea what my cadence even was.

My injury history has not been terrible, and I think many of the injuries I have had relate more to some unusual structural issues than they do to my running form. But in my last two marathons, I suffered calf cramping in training and in the races, so I figured I would look into my stride more to see if there might be something that was resulting in lots of lower leg stress.

The University of Florida has a great sports performance lab, and that lab offers high end gait analysis using high speed cameras, a pressure plate treadmill, and body sensors; so I went to have a gait analysis done there. They test you, then they compare you to others in your demographic group who have run without an unusual incidence of injury, and compare your data to their data.

The biggest concern about a relatively low cadence is that it often suggests that a runner is over-striding. If that is the case, then you are being inefficient because there is a breaking effect with each stride as your land ahead of your center of gravity.

For me, that was not an issue. Despite a low cadence and a very long stride, I was landing pretty much below my center of gravity. But what they did find was that I had a lot of vertical oscillation in my stride - that I was "bouncy." And the result of my long stride and bounciness was that I was landing with much more force per stride than the average for my peer group - in fact, I was in the 100th percentile for impact force. That, combined with my atypical body structure (flat feet, slightly bowed legs, wide set hips) resulted in a lot of pressure on my lower legs.

So the proposed solution was to shorten my stride in an attempt to reduce the bounce and the impact on my body with each stride. It has been about a month since I had the analysis done, and I have had middling success with making changes. I went from about a 162-164 average cadence to about 168-170 or so, and from a stride length of about 1.4m to about 1.3m. It took two weeks for it to not feel weird while running, and my body is still adjusting some. I also tend to default to a lower cadence as I tire.

I will say that I am only 5' 8", but my leg length is comparable to a normally-proportioned 6' 1" person, and I am atypical in my running performances as compared to other 46 year olds, so I have some doubts as to the validity of the comparison against the control group in their database, but I figured that it was worth experimenting, and now was a good time to do it since I was coming off of a layoff after an injury and getting ready for a marathon that would require a lot of volume over the summer.

Lots of background in there, but I thought it might be interesting to hear since you are considering some changes. The bottom line is that I suspect that 6' 1" runners tend towards a 180 cadence on easy runs as much as runners of other heights. But if you don't have any significant injury issues and are not over-striding, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I'm also 6'1" with about the same easy run pace and my cadence is also 160-164. When I first started running about a year ago, I was around 155, then I read about the whole 180 thing and tried to speed mine up. I really couldn't comfortably get it much higher than that 160-164 range and still feel like I was running at a relaxed, easy pace. Considering I haven't had any injuries, I'm not too worried about it really.

Never even heard of any of this science cadence babble. I'm sure the Kenyans and Ethiopians are up all night worrying about their frigg'n cadence.

I wonder if I would have had more sub 30 10K's if I had known all about this cadence mumbo jumbo?

How is this thread "different"? It's the same old hobbyjogger mumbo jumpo.

Quit worrying about cadence or else take it to RunnersWorld, Reddit, or Facebook.

Just run.

Lydiard Cerutty wrote:

Just run.

The problem with this advice is some people just run in a silly way. I had the most ridiculous running form since I was young. I ran around mega heel striking ahead of me and basically bounding probably because as a kid, I thought I had a powerful stride and was flying or some crap like that.

Then in my 20s when I went out for the first run in years and ran in a similar way, I came back with lower back pain and knee pain after half an hour. That's when I got into technique "mumbo jumbo". Really sorted it out. Upped my cadence, improved my posture, softened my landing. And have now had two years of happy PR filled running. Technique is huge. Ask any music teacher. Some people open their mouths and sing in a terrible way. You can't say "just sing". Some people, with no training, open their mouths and can sing with brilliant placement, resonance, air pressure, balance and can sing up high and do technical things without tension. I reckon most people don't run properly like most people don't sing properly. But both things we do from the age of a toddler.

I also don't want to spend all those hours getting in mileage over the next 10 years of my life and not getting the best out of it because I was lazy and sloppy with my form when I could be engraining far better running technique by spending some time optimising it forever.

What pace is that at? And is it on a flat, hard surface? Yea mine was probably way below 160 before I started working on it so maybe where it's at is good. When I get down to 7:30 pace it tends to be above 170 and anything faster than about 7:00 mile pace is pretty close to 180 or higher.

I find it interesting to think that height doesn't make a difference....aren't longer legs, longer pendulums which take longer to swing? I'm also aware that loads of the fast distance runners and short guys with a quick snappy turnover.

"Cadence" is a bunch of mumbo jumbo which was promoted in recent years to sell more pedometer gear to hobbyjoggers. Nobody ever taught Eliud Kipchoge what cadence to run at. Your body quickly figures out through trial and error what tradeoff of cadence and stride length is most efficient at a given pace.

Run up hills if you have form problems. Hills are the no b.s. solution to perfecting a persons form. Look at Herb Elliot form as a example. Also, a lot of this good form bs is a reverse causation. That is running fast makes a person have good form. Not good form makes person fast. Just have some person who claims to have bad form and have them do some 100m sprints barefoot on a grassy field. Than have them jog a 100m. What's that? The faster they run, more their form changes. And slower a person runs, the more it resembles walking.

I am about 6'2" and have a similar turnover. I've always heard cadence should be about the same no matter what, only stride length is adjusted at different speeds.

I have found an anomaly, at least for me. When running on a treadmill my cadence is higher for slower speeds. Not sure what to make of that. If doing speed work I am right at 180 there.

At any rate really nothing to fret over much. Concentrate on light footfall, sliding the road back under foot quickly during some of your speed work. Be as relaxed as possible.

Cherry Turnover wrote:

I've always heard cadence should be about the same no matter what, only stride length is adjusted at different speeds.

Another 100% wrong idea.

The low 160s with a 1.4 m tried was at my easy distance pace which typically ranged from 6:40 to 7:10.

As my speed increase as my speed increased, both my cadence and my stride length got longer. Four example, I ran a 5k at 5:02 pace and I was at 175/1.8m. I ran a 15K in a little under 5:20 pace and I was at 174/1.75m. At marathon pace 5:50), I was at 170.

Again, this is not something that I ever focused on and I always just relied upon my buddies inclination to end up in the right place. I think I will continue to do that if I was a 5000/10,000 m runner still because my body could handle stress of the little bit of bounce in my stride at the volume required to raise effectively at that distance. As a marathoner, I need to run much more volume, so I wanted to see if I can reduce the amount of stress on my body as a result of my bounding.

Cherry Turnover wrote:

I have found an anomaly, at least for me. When running on a treadmill my cadence is higher for slower speeds. Not sure what to make of that. If doing speed work I am right at 180 there.

I've found the same thing! Interesting.

Wow...low 160s for 6:40 mile pace. That's interesting. At that pace mine is easily in the 170s.

I guess the moral is at such a slow jog I shouldn't need to worry.

It got me wondering whether getting to the point where all my training is at a pace where it's comfortable to run at a cadence near race pace (excluding shorter distances), would have some added benefit. Like total hours spent training at a certain cadence encodes neuromuscular efficiency at that cadence whether one is running at 6:00 mile pace or 5:00 mile pace. Maybe it doesn't work like that. lol

I’ll throw in another data point. I’ve never had anything to track cadence in the past, but I recently got a GPS watch, so it’s been interesting to see some of the data.

I’m a little over 6’2”, and my cadence has consistently averaged between 170-172. I haven’t done anything very quick since I got my GPS watch, but most of my running has been between 6:30 and 7:30 pace and occasionally up to 30 seconds slower/faster. Doesn’t seem that my cadence has fluctuated much within that range.

I used to be really bad with overstriding, but that has changed for the better. I still probably overstride a tad, but I don’t think it’s by enough that would put me up to 180 spm if I were to shorten my stride a little bit.

I don’t put a lot of stock into cadence. I know that at any given pace, changing cadence/stride length while staying at the same speed will inversely affect the other, but it just makes more sense to me to focus on changing stride length rather than cadence. If you’re running at your easy pace and not overstriding, then I don’t think there is a problem with running at 160-164 spm.

The body takes the most effective cadence naturally (some studies about that). Working on form (drills, sprint, hills) may modify it as technique improves.

Blame Jack Daniels for the talk about cadence. :)

What is this rubbish? There is zero evidence that forcing a cadence of 180 bpm improves running speed. Show me one peer reviewed paper which proves this?

everybody itt is talking about speed and efficiency, but a higher cadence can reduce peak impact forces at the cost of decreased metabolic efficiency. may be worth considering depending on goals/injury issues.

I'm not as tall as you but I have found that my cadence stays around 172 until I start going going at 10k pace. It jumps to around 180 at 5k pace and to 190-200 in an all out mile. I would say don't worry about it unless you have very bad form.