World Records will get faster and faster either with or without drugs.

J.O. wrote:

Mr. Obvious wrote:

What are the systems that need to be more trained in order to increase stride length? Less ground contact time? More power? Faster nerve response/muscle firing?

Ground contact time comes from your pace, so the faster you go, the shorter it gets and this also increases stride rate.

To increase stride length, you have to practice a longer stride until you learn to do it without thinking.

Could it be more obvious?

How do you practice a longer stride? Are there particular muscles that are involved that can be strengthened?

What muscles aren't involved in running?

I do lots of what is now called core work.

How do you practice a longer stride?

From the intervals thread, I answered a question about the bounding sessions I do:

Yes, more of the bounding type stuff. It's easier to do this uphill, but it's important to do it also on the flat and downhill too (which requires a good warm up)

When you do the long bounding strides, you need to do it with a reasonably high level of efficiency, and get faster each time, which will happen naturally.

For example on Tuesday I did 6 x 140m (a nice new strip of tarmac on a quiet country lane near my house)

What I do is count the right foot strides, starting at zero. I did 38 37 35(2.0m) 34 34 and 33 with that last one actually feeling the best of the lot, as it should be, because the stride rate also gets faster and, as you said in your last post, the extra speed allows a longer stride to happen naturally.

This type of session lets you know that your potential for improvement is enormous.

What I didn't say was that I also did 3 miles of fartlek immediately after that session.

There are lots of ways to do this. When you do hard fast sessions, your stride will be long and fast, but I think it's also important to do long slow strides and progress to faster a gradually faster pace.

How does Bekele hold a 2 meter stride all the way through a 10000m race? Well that is the question I have been addressing for the last few months here.

J.O. wrote:

damn my eyes wrote:http://xkcd.com/703/

You can call it a tautology, but that would also be applicable to the drugs = faster times argument too wouldn't it.

However, it is rather obvious that faster times come from better training, and that this will continue for a very long time.

You could argue that every training concept is a tautology if you were so inclined.

At some point you might want to stop being such a know it all and actually learn something?

If you aren't trolling, then you are very stupid, as you think everything is "obvious". What are you, a cocky 14 year old? That's what it seems like. It's also rather obvious that, by now, training has plateaued, and so have WR times. Training can't improve indefinitely, and at some point, the world records will be harder to break. That, my friend is obvious, not what you are saying.

Training hasn't plateaued, and neither have times, you silly person.

The sport is still very young. Times will improve so far beyond your simplistic rationale that my predictions would make you spill your coffee.

Strides are getting longer and will continue to do so for a very long time.

according to my calculator the human limits are...

9.38 for 100m

18.7 for 200m

40.98 for 400m

1:38.78 for 800m

3:35.54 for Mile

This is of course with ideal conditions. Perfect pacing, wabbiting and weather.

ventolin ^3 wrote:

according to my calculator the human limits are...

9.38 for 100m

18.7 for 200m

40.98 for 400m

1:38.78 for 800m

3:35.54 for Mile

J.O. wrote:

Training hasn't plateaued, and neither have times, you silly person.

The sport is still very young. Times will improve so far beyond your simplistic rationale that my predictions would make you spill your coffee.

Strides are getting longer and will continue to do so for a very long time.

Do you have numbers for stride lengths for various elites over time? Like what Nurmi, or Zatopek, or Yifter, or Rono had for a stride length?

cum hoc ergo propter hoc

ventolin ^3 wrote:according to my calculator the human limits are...

9.38 for 100m

18.7 for 200m

40.98 for 400m

1:38.78 for 800m

3:35.54 for Mile

your calculator is f***ed up for the 400

& that mile time looks shit

Listen, Jerk Off, we will only improve with drugs.

hurdlethief wrote:

It's much harder to set the world record for "slowest" race than it is for the "fastest." Try doing a 10K in over 19 days with constant movement. Very slow and tedious work. Exhausting infact.

I know this seems like a reply to the wrong thread, but I think this quote right here answers the "heel strike debate" thread. How he said that it's harder to do a 10K in 19 days with constant movement, I think it's harder to run say an 8 minute mile midfoot/toe striking than it is heel striking, and that the change in footstrike comes with getting faster and/or running at faster paces.

Drugs don't simply replace training, you imbecile. You act like training is this new thing you just came up with. Well, hate to burst your bubble, but it's been around for quite a while. Drugs along with training produce better results than training alone. Unless you have some proven method for "increasing stride length" and have coached people to world records with said training plan, then you can't say shit. Even Salazar and the best coaches have a hard time coaching people to being even close to world class. What makes you so sure that stride length won't simply plateau at some point? What is your reasoning for assuming that it will keep improving? Your view doesn't make any sense.

Jon: Give us an example of a training programme that you would use or have used to increase stride length as part of weekly training. Personally, I would like to try it for 6 weeks and see if it makes a difference.

I think you misunderstand me. I don't think the concept is alien or controversial. I'm just wondering if it's superfluous.I finally understood what you meant by neuromuscular coordination. It wasn't obvious to me that you were reducing neuromuscular coordination to increased stride length (plus extra bonus in stride rate for free).Of course, times can only get faster if one or both of stride length and stride rate increase. To me that's so obvious, that it's hardly worth mentioning -- that's one main reason why no one expresses it more often.Why can't we speak of improving form and economy? These are also ideas older than me.Will changing my focus from improving form and economy, to increasing stride length, change how I train? This is my question.

J.O. wrote:

Why does it help to look at stride rates? For the same reason you look at training times. Is your training working?

Stride rates don't remain constant at faster paces. Where did you get that idea?

How will times get faster? You need to adress this issue instead of just blathering the same old same old.

This is not a new idea, it has been around even longer than you have. Why does it seem such an alien concept to you?

J.O. wrote:

I'm not trolling, that should be rather obvious. So by the same logic, you probably are trolling.

In that case, you don't seem to know enough to get the horse in front of the cart. Someone with a long stride, and without the cardiovascular system to sustain that stride, we call a sprinter.

A longer stride in an endurance race is the result of a larger engine, not the other way around. While the ability to produce more force in the stride (from sprints, hills, or plyos) can result in improved RE, people are not faster due to concentrating on longer strides: People have longer strides because they run faster over the length of the contest.

J.O. wrote:

Did Matt Yates get to you too, or are you Matt Yates?

I sense Brits here of a certain vintage, but have missed the reference. Can you enlighten me?

ventolin ^3 wrote:

This is of course with ideal conditions. Perfect pacing, wabbiting and weather.

Sadly, better spelling will bwing no further impwovement.

ventolin ^3 wrote:

according to my calculator the human limits are...

9.38 for 100m

18.7 for 200m

40.98 for 400m

1:38.78 for 800m

3:35.54 for Mile

Except for Jim Ryun. Ryun could have run the mile in 3:03.98.

google this wrote:

cum hoc ergo propter hoc

sine qua non