Stride length is pathetic. Help?

Sound like a fitness problem to me.

Shuffling and high stride rate works for some. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

As in, when I get faster it’ll improve? Currently an 18:50 5k which is slow for this site perhaps, but I’m not battling to finish in 30min either. Still feel like my stride is short for that kind of fitness

shorter the shorts faster the runner wrote:

Shuffling and high stride rate works for some. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Could be that too... I would be happy with average and feel like I’m well below.

Maths.... wrote:

Sound like a fitness problem to me.

This.

Running speed = cadence * stride length

Running speed is primarily determined by your fitness. If you get fitter, you will get faster.

Thinking you keep your cadence at 190 and just increase stride length won't work that easily without actually becoming fitter. You can adjust your cadence/stride length depending on what you want to stress (higher cadence = less stress on legs/muscles, more on heart/aerobic, and low cadence = more impact forces, but less stress on heart), but without actually becoming a fitter/better runner you are just shifting around and running the same race times.

If you want to get used to higher stride lengths, and also try to gain strength in the legs which could make you more efficient and therefore also faster, you should try doing plenty of strides and also hill sprints. Hill sprints can also be in "bounding" form, like Lydiard often had his runners do (long, slow steps, lots of force, not caring about how fast you go up the hill).

Running over hills (or also cycling over hills with a big gear) can also help you get stronger/more powerful and cover more ground with the steps.

GL!

Strengthening your legs should help lengthen your strides, or that's my guess. Some ideas:

- Strides after easy runs.

- Hill workouts. Hill strides, hill sprints, long hills. Steep hills, moderate hills. Mix it up.

- lunges, squats, leg ext, leg curl, calf raises.

- tons of running drills.

- sprint sessions. After a decent warmup including a few strides, something like 4-6 x flying 40m or 4-6 x 80m or 4-5 x 100m or 4-5 x 120m (using the full straight) or 4 x 150m or 3 x 200m. Full standing/walking recovery, say 3-5 min (sprinters would normally use longer rec).

- What my college coach used to call "speed strength" workouts. 4 x 300 was the main session. 6 x 200 as an alternative, or 3 x 400 when strong enough. Relative to 400m pace, run the 200s 1 sec slower, the 300s 2-3 sec slower, and the 400s 4-5 sec slower.

Do the splits in a sauna and massage your quads.

I think the cadence thing being 180 is overrated, especially for non-elite slower runners. Cadence is a function of running technique, stride length, pace and individual height. The higher pace, the more power from the legs, the quicker cadence and the longer stride length. The higher runners tend to have lower cadence.

It has been shown that increasing the cadence some is most often beneficial for a runner, but we say some and not huge amounts. I think that if you try to jump up and down you will end up in a natural rythm which feels most strong and with minimum effort. I think the same basically applies for running, but running is more complex than jumping up and down...

If you are not a short runner or not a very fast runner, the cadence seems on the high side. If you run fast by turning the feet over faster, maybe you sacrifice the power from the legs.

I would try to feel quick and strong, focus on good running form and develop from there doing for instance all the strengthening exercises as Sub-8 Mile suggests.

Changing too much over too short time may decrease your running economy, but the changes might increase the economy so there are no certain things.