Unpopular Opinion: Stride Length is More Important than Turnover

I don't make any attempt to alter either stride length or cadence but I will occasionally count while running on the treadmill. At 9:00 pace, my cadence was 172. At 7:00 pace, it was 180.

Doing a little simple math, at 9:00 pace my stride length was 3.41 feet. At 7:00 pace it was 4.19 feet.

If Mo Farah had a cadence of 195 while running a 4:30 mile, his stride length would be just over 6 feet.

If I were to try to keep my stride length of 4.19 feet while jogging at a 9:00 pace, my cadence would be 140.

If I were to try to keep my stride length of 3.41 feet while running at 7:00 pace, my cadence would be 221.

From these calculations, it is OBVIOUS that BOTH stride length and cadence increase when pace increases.

If Mo Farah had a cadence of 195 while running a 4:30 mile, his stride length would be just over 6 feet.

That's a big IF. I've never seen Mo Farah looking like he's turning over that fast. If anything, he's on the lower spectrum of stride rate for elite runners.

UltraDude wrote:

Longer stride length->more vertical motion=wasted energy.

Incorrect.

I always find these posts curious. Firstly, I think everyone realistically agrees stride length, cadence, speed are intertwined.

Some oddities though. Some people seem to think to increase stride length, you suddenly have to "reach" forward in the stride, and suddenly become an overstrider and hence heel striker. No half sensible runner would do this. Keep proper form, but have more power to the legs.

I'm also curious as to why so many runners, who have one thing to do in their game, i.e run, never seem to get that you can train certain aspects. "Hey, stride length is just a function of speed, so just run faster" brigade. Is that the sum of their training ?

A couple of people seem to be in the right direction, i.e suggestions like hill sprints (and also speed work). I'd also suggest oddly trying to slow your cadence down and run at the same pace the odd time. I'm not suggesting this as a permanent feature! Just purely for training strength in the legs sometimes, and also elastic recoil with larger forces etc. It's not just strength also, there are things like hip extension etc that can be improved.

jiggymeister wrote:

If Mo Farah had a cadence of 195 while running a 4:30 mile, his stride length would be just over 6 feet.

That's a big IF. I've never seen Mo Farah looking like he's turning over that fast. If anything, he's on the lower spectrum of stride rate for elite runners.

+1

Yes, his mid race cadence in a track 5k/10k is under 180, last 200m might be 195.

certainly right wrote:

Can't believe how many people are disagreeing with this. It is obviously correct in general that stride length is the determining factor, along with ground contact time (springiness).

Obviously the OP's son has great springs, enabling great propulsion and stride length. That's it. The stride length and speed is caused by the springiness. Simple. Don't try to change his inherent biomechanics. He is taking advantage of a "series resonance".

stride length and turn over are all integral to technique

vdot lover wrote:

Not an expert, but in my case better fitness come with a notable increase in cadence (from around 180 to 190 at HM pace) and I believe stride length too which I don't quantify.

For gains in stride length one should develop stronger muscles. One way to work on this, as suggested by Canova, is hill sprint work. You need quite a steep hill and make accent on longer stride (as opposed to grinding with high cadence).

And does that actually translate into a longer stride in a race? Does a 28:00 10k runner who runs those hills actually end up with a longer stride than the 28:00 10k runner who didn't? Or what we really want to know is does the 28:00 10k runner who does hill cut more off their PR than the 28:00 who spends that time doing a say a tempo run?

It isn't remotely clear to me that if you have a guy running a normal 190 strides/min at race pace that you would be better off either slowing him down (i.e. taking longer strides) or speeding him up (going for 200 strides/min and a shorter stride). There is some evidence that down at the lower end (sub 160) that speeding up the stride rate reduces impact forces and injury rates. But if you aren't overstriding, I am not sure I would be telling anyone to worry a whole lot about tempo either.

jiggymeister wrote:

If Mo Farah had a cadence of 195 while running a 4:30 mile, his stride length would be just over 6 feet.

That's a big IF. I've never seen Mo Farah looking like he's turning over that fast. If anything, he's on the lower spectrum of stride rate for elite runners.

Mo was at the slower end of elites turnover wise. But those guys with high turnover are up at 205. There was an IAAF paper about a WC 10k. Mo was cruising along with a 185-190 (depending on the lap. The kick was up at 200) and a slightly more than 2m stride while the other guys were running 200s with just under 2m strides.

Assuming a runner takes 180 steps per minute I figured out what the stride length needs to be to run certain mile times.

5:00 mile = 900 steps @ 70 inches per stride. (1.778 meters)

4:40 mile = 840 steps @ 75 inches per stride. (1.905 meters)

4:00 mile = 720 steps @ 88 inches per stride. (2.2352 meters)

It's the downforce. This has been understood by sprint coaches and biomechanics people for ages. The more force you can apply to the planet in the brief time you are in contact, the less ground contact time there will be, and (by diverting a tiny proportion of that force backwards, as well as most of it down) and the further forwards you'll go with each jump/stride.

The thing you can actually influence is your posterior chain strength. So deadlifts, frequent sprints/strides, hill sprints and plyos will all develop your strength; and these in turn will lead to a 'longer stride' because you just happen to be going faster.

So why does it seem that training to increase stride length in distance runners is a taboo subject for alot of coaches?

For a 4 minute mile, if you know that you're stride rate is 180, wouldn't you like to know how far you need to travel each step?

Manbearpig15 wrote:

So why does it seem that training to increase stride length in distance runners is a taboo subject for alot of coaches?

because they don't know how to do it.

RyecorDone wrote:

The stride length and speed is caused by the springiness. Simple.

No. The stride length is caused by the speed. Even simpler.

Everyone with a cadence of 180 has exactly the same "springiness." Gravitational constant of the universe.

You have observed something obvious, but it has nothing to do with your point.

To resolve your supposed revaluation though: Specific cadence isn't very important, but if someone's stride length is very low (probably 165/minute or less) then they would benefit from intentionally increasing cadence a little bit to relieve impact forces (also to decrease "braking"). Low cadence is just never the most efficient, so when you see efficient runners, you'll notice that none of them have low cadence.

Increasing stride length is also simply referred to as "running faster." You can only increase cadence up to some naturally most efficient value for yourself. If you are always running around that cadence when racing, then the only remaining factor that determines speed is stride length. If you don't have the fitness to maintain high speed for the length of the race, then obviously you can't maintain the same stride length. It's not really worth it to think about training as increasing stride length though. You can just call it running faster.

Manbearpig15 wrote:

So why does it seem that training to increase stride length in distance runners is a taboo subject for alot of coaches?

For a 4 minute mile, if you know that you're stride rate is 180, wouldn't you like to know how far you need to travel each step?

The runners can't do it. That's why. Ask them to just increase stride length while maintaining that 180 spm and see what happens.

a. They end up sprinting and can't maintain the longer stride length at reasonable cadence very longer before their stride length naturally shortens. They slow down because they can't do it.

b. They maintain the longer stride but they need to drop the cadence significantly and slow down. In this case they will experience greater impact forces through their body. Not good.

Either way, they can't just go out and increase stride length for long distances. What you are referring to is sprinting. That's what short intervals and track season are for. It isn't taboo. Kids just can't do it for distance. It's a part of training, but it's not some magic training philosophy.

Manbearpig15 wrote:

So why does it seem that training to increase stride length in distance runners is a taboo subject for alot of coaches?

For a 4 minute mile, if you know that you're stride rate is 180, wouldn't you like to know how far you need to travel each step?

Not really. What on earth are you going to do with the info? It doesn't take a rocket science to figure out how fast you are running at some stride frequency and length. But when you get to the 4th lap of the mile, does knowing you need to increase your stride rate to 210 and length to 2.1 m really help you run faster?

adsfdasfasfsafadfa wrote:

Manbearpig15 wrote:

So why does it seem that training to increase stride length in distance runners is a taboo subject for alot of coaches?

For a 4 minute mile, if you know that you're stride rate is 180, wouldn't you like to know how far you need to travel each step?

Not really. What on earth are you going to do with the info? It doesn't take a rocket science to figure out how fast you are running at some stride frequency and length. But when you get to the 4th lap of the mile, does knowing you need to increase your stride rate to 210 and length to 2.1 m really help you run faster?

I absolutely can use that information. You train to race. I think simulating race conditions in training is critical to success.

Manbearpig15 wrote:

adsfdasfasfsafadfa wrote:

Not really. What on earth are you going to do with the info? It doesn't take a rocket science to figure out how fast you are running at some stride frequency and length. But when you get to the 4th lap of the mile, does knowing you need to increase your stride rate to 210 and length to 2.1 m really help you run faster?

I absolutely can use that information. You train to race. I think simulating race conditions in training is critical to success.

Ok so tell us how you have been using this info to perform better? How are you simulating your mile race better than just running intervals at race pace and practicing your kicking pace?