Benefits of strides

what you are doing is not strides but sprint (lactic sprints if you do it with short rests).

Strides are 15-30sec effort at 800/mile/3k pace.

Not 400m pace like you are doing.

Sprinting also has a purpose and can be useful for distance runners but it is a different thing.

When I do sprints, I do them ath 100%speed, very short : 5-10 sec with full rest :2-3'.

I like to do it uphill. I find it more efficient.

Strides are for leg turnover, easy speed work for distance runner or easy specific work for middle distance runner. The purpose is that the body get used to higher speed and leg turnover than in easy runs and aerobic workouts.

They improve running form, speed, running economy and also improve recovery between workouts by stretching muscles and make to heart rate higher while being easy effort which result in cleansing body thanks to higher blood flow.

Sprints are for improving running form, recruiting fast twich fibers, max speed, muscle power.

I agree with the previous post. OP is running too fast and not long enough for strides.

The pace should be closer to 800m-1mi. pace, and they should last 20-30 seconds.

The benefit is that you get to run for 20-30 seconds at a faster pace with good form. Since the reps are so short, you should be able to maintain good form and stay relaxed. You don’t need to strain to hit a target pace or time because it’s just a little exercise to stay in touch with speed and move your legs. You also don’t need to do very many of them. 4-6 should suffice. These runs should be easy overall even including the strides.

I jog easy for a minute between strides instead of walking. You can ramp up from the easy jog during the first 5-10 seconds hit your top pace for a few seconds and ramp down during the final 5 seconds. Some days they’re faster and some days they’re slower, but they’re never hard efforts. Get up to pace, get down, and move on with recovery.

Strides should be 80-120 meters, not 20-30 seconds. 20 seconds is on the high end. You're not doing 200s. You want a quick burst at about mile pace that doesn't fatigue you after a set.

easy stride at 3k pace can last 30sec. It's hardly more than 150m for most at 3k pace which is easy.

But not 30" at 800 pace obviously. Rather ~15" (~100m).

around 20" at mile pace is good.But you can always do shorter if you felle tired or longer if you feel good and want to make it a little more stressful. huh

The point of stride outs is not to see HOW fast you can do them. The goal is to run quick while maintaining ideal mechanics. They promote running with good form when you’re tired and get you prepared to run with good form for workouts. I think it’s important to start your strides slowly and build up to ‘top speed’ for lack of a better word.

I agree with the idea that the idea behind strides is to instill proper mechanics, but hardly every do I work up to full speed. Typically on days before harder sessions, I'll do 6-8 15-20 sec strides that mirror what my current race pace will be. In the fall, strides will be a bit slower than the spring.

DII athlete for reference.

Kvothe wrote:

Strides should be 80-120 meters, not 20-30 seconds. 20 seconds is on the high end. You're not doing 200s. You want a quick burst at about mile pace that doesn't fatigue you after a set.

I'm in agreement with this.

Actually JackD 3rd other day and he said 10-20 secs and not an all-out sprint.

The aim is to maintain a bit of leg speed but keep them short enough to use the Sprinters energy system (Alactic Anaerobic / CP-PCr*) so that you don't introduce any by-products (lactic acid/lactate*)

* name as you like

impala31 what is your 800m pr ?

processmyrun wrote:

I'm trying to be as relaxed as possible and let my feet go as high as possible and rotating the hips in order to increase the stride length.

Honestly wut??

booschexnayderchela wrote:

impala31 what is your 800m pr ?

1:59 when I was 16, 13 years ago :).

I hope I will improve this a lot next summer :)

Strides are for form and to just put a little speed in your legs. They are not sprints. I do 20 second strides starting slow and working up to around 5k pace before winding down again. Concentrate more on keeping your form smooth and correct rather than the pace.

I do them after easy runs and before workouts so that the first rep isn't a shock to the system

wow. a lot of opinionated people about strides.

here's the deal, strides can serve multiple purposes and depending on what you are training for and where you are in training will determine what may be best

1. can introduce some speed at 3k/mile/800 pace while in base phase to maintain some of this

2. can help for focusing on form. run them relaxed and you can start to hone in on pace for your race

3. can be small speed sprints. strides can be used late season to help develop a little top end speed for an 800/miler if you fancy

4. hill strides. on a gradual up or downhill strides can also help develop your knee drive or turnover

they can be anywhere from ~80m up to the 200m strides. the shorter ones would generally be faster, say you run and accelerate up to top end speed, hold for 5 seconds then ease off and this may only end up being 50m, maybe 80. or you can do them at the 150-200 length and be more like 3k pace to develop early season speed. or you can do 150 long strides where you run them as float 50/run hard for 50/float 50

for general distance training doing 6 x 100 where you run first 2 @ 3k effort, then 2 @ mile effort, then 2 @ 800 effort. or all 6 are builds throughout each one individual one

the other posters have already covered the benefits of strides, but I have seen some athletes at a local school do a set of pushups/crunches between strides. It makes sense- if you're doing 4x100m strides with 25 pushups after each, that's a decent core/upper body workout for the day. After an aerobic workout or easy run, this helps touch on speed, as well as working muscles underutilized during the run to work on overall athleticism. If possible, try and run strides barefoot on grass or turf to help with mechanics.

+1

you should never walk between strides. They are supposed to be comfortable and fun

processmyrun wrote:

I'm not sure I perfectly understand the benefits or modality of strides.

You are not alone. As with other aspects of training, I doubt anyone perfectly understands it and we should be skeptical of "scientists" who claim to have it all figured out.

Personally, I view strides as fun, painless speed training. Any fast pace or time/distance is fine as long as it remains fun and painless. It's low risk, medium reward, in contrast to a killer workout of hard 400s or long VO2 repeats.

Been doing 8x100m strides in 9.56-9.57 twice each week for a few years now. Saw big improvement in my mile times after incorporating them.

Its mostly about muscle memory. So you should be running these at mile pace and focus on relaxed, efficient strides.

It is hard to explain. Basically, when I try to go fast, I typically get the leg back forward as fast as possible to increase the cadence, instead of letting the leg follow a more natural and free pattern behind me. To stop this, I'm now trying to "let it go"

I'm the OP.

Thanks all for your answers. I think you are all saying I should run them more slowly (in my case 18/19kph max).

I tried to summarise all of that in my blog, quoting some of you - hoping you don't mind:

https://processmyrun.com/blog/strides