Anybody do strides before the workout? Or after your warmup jog, general stretches and form drills?
If yes, how do you do them? I tend to do 3x100m where I accelerate a little and let the momentum carry me to the end. However, I heard that these strides should align to the speed of your workout. For example, the workout speed is 20s per 100m, you should probably be running 20s per 100m for the strides.
Should strides align to the speed of the workout? Will this benefit my workout?
help needed wrote:
Anybody do strides before the workout? Or after your warmup jog, general stretches and form drills?
If yes, how do you do them? I tend to do 3x100m where I accelerate a little and let the momentum carry me to the end. However, I heard that these strides should align to the speed of your workout. For example, the workout speed is 20s per 100m, you should probably be running 20s per 100m for the strides.
Should strides align to the speed of the workout? Will this benefit my workout?
I'm no expert here, but since no one else replied I'll chime in. From my understanding, the purpose of strides is to activate your fast twitch muscles/get your muscles ready for faster movements, and so the exact pace doesn't matter too much. You'll want to at least get it going at 5k pace or faster if you are doing anything faster than an LT workout. Several sets of 15-30s with sufficient rest (approximately double the moving time) is good. I'll often run the straightaways and then jog the curves on a track, but some people will do 150-200m.
The only time I really worry about trying to nail a specific pace with strides is either the day before a race or in the warm-up of a race. And this is mostly to work on gauging pace and getting comfortable with it. Otherwise, you're just getting the body ready to run fast.
I do strides everyday and before a workout I like to do the typical warm-up, stretching and drills. After that I do 2 progressive strides (starting not that fast and progressing until the end reaching like 80% of my max speed) and then I switch to the shoes that I am going to wear for the session and do more 2 or 4 strides. I don't do 100 meters, I do 80 meters or so, but the important part about strides is just getting your body prepared for the workout. Before a fast workout I tend to do the strides a little bit more fast but controlled and still progressive.
I'm no expert here