Logical Discussion on Stride Length and Cadence

It gets a bit technical. Since you can go many speeds at the same cadence. For example you can run in place at the same cadence as whatever your best time is at the same cadence.

You can work with fancy metronomes. and increase your cadences by the tinyest of fractions, but... kind of need to do it on some sort of fancy grid. Related to a speed ladder. To keep your variables dialed in.

Don't think about it, just do it.

You're not going to get faster by thinking about it.

Just go out there and run.

And before you say anything more about this, why don't you go do your homework and read up. Your question will become obsolete and you won't need to clog up the board.

If someone is going to close to race pace at somewhere around 7:30/mile, they're probably taking at 180 to 200 steps depending on the height of the person. Anything faster than that pace, you have to increase your stride length. We can only optimally take 180 to 200 steps per minute. It's nearly impossible to take more steps. When I do distance runs of around 7:50 pace. My stride length is about a meter. I am taking about 175spm. Kipchoge's stride length is long as 2 meters when he is racing. I am guessing 2 meters is for his 5K pace. He runs 4:15 pace. So the math works out perfectly. He is not taking more steps. He simply has twice the stride length of mine. He can do that because his aerobic capacity can handle that kind of energy use. For the normal folks, it's all out sprinting.

Moo G wrote:

Kipchoge's stride length is long as 2 meters when he is racing. I am guessing 2 meters is for his 5K pace. He runs 4:15 pace. So the math works out perfectly. He is not taking more steps. He simply has twice the stride length of mine. He can do that because his aerobic capacity can handle that kind of energy use. For the normal folks, it's all out sprinting.

It's not his 'aerobic capacity' that makes his stride much longer than yours. Think about it logically and try again.

Moo G wrote:

If someone is going to close to race pace at somewhere around 7:30/mile, they're probably taking at 180 to 200 steps depending on the height of the person. Anything faster than that pace, you have to increase your stride length. We can only optimally take 180 to 200 steps per minute. It's nearly impossible to take more steps. When I do distance runs of around 7:50 pace. My stride length is about a meter.

I'm short, and when I walk my stride is nearly 1 m ! You would be virtually shuffling at that cadence, with little 'air time' (both feet off ground).

Speed is a function of both cadence and stride. Quit obsessing about magic numbers like 180. That comes from Daniels' observation of elite runners , and recommending it for all--derrr (directed at Daniels)

Bolt in 100m about 245

Bekele in 5km WR about 215

30min 10km runner...about 180

What makes the 3:15 marathoner (approx 7:30 pace), think they should also do 180 to 200?

Moo G wrote:

If someone is going to close to race pace at somewhere around 7:30/mile, they're probably taking at 180 to 200 steps depending on the height of the person. Anything faster than that pace, you have to increase your stride length. We can only optimally take 180 to 200 steps per minute. It's nearly impossible to take more steps…

That’s not true. Sprinters regularly have cadences of well above 200. Even Rudisha had an average cadence of around ~205 in his 800. You could say that it’s unusual to have a cadence of much over 200 over longer distance events, but there is no wall at or around 200 for human running.

Mine is just one opinion/approach so take it as such.

As a high school coach I had decent success by emphasizing cadence. I did this by working with each kid until they understood what I was looking for which was rapid turnover at the expense of stride length. I taught an almost scooting motion with minimal back kick and tried to get them to feel like a rope was attached to their hips pulling, forcing them to lead with the hips and scooting to keep from getting pulled on their nose. Another big part of this was a midfoot strike -- no heel striking. Before every run and during workouts they heard "short quick strides, midfoot strike - get off your heels, like a rope is pulling your hips, quick off the ground like it is hot....:" They heard these so often that they joked about it.

Some picked it up quick and some took over a year, and of course a few never got it. But most did.

During this entire process we emphasized strengthening the legs and hips. A lot of hills, up and down with knee lift and midfoot strike. Weights three times a week with big push on legs/hips (cleans, squats, lunges, weighted jumps, etc.). We were blessed with a community full of steps, some in major numbers, so we would sprint steps with knee lift, then at the top when wobbly go right into pace emphasizing our scooting form.

The goal and it worked for the majority was for their strides to lengthen naturally in response to the strengthening. Once they had the length back to normal or better combined with the increased cadence which did not diminish, they were much improved and tough.

Just one approach.

logical reasoning runner wrote:

I was thinking about this in the car earlier today, and I just wanted to share it with y'all.

If a runner increases his or her cadence, that increases the steps or strides per minute that the runner takes. If a runner has a longer stride length, that increases the distance each stride or step covers. So then is the key to running faster increasing both cadence and stride length rather than just one?Obviously this is easier said than done, but are workouts and training conducted in order to better these two measures? If not, what if they were? Would there be a greater increase in running potential?

Answer is Yes, and most runners do typically tend to increase both when speeding up, however the increase in cadence for most well trained runners tends to be much smaller than the increase in stride length. The increase in either is not something that is easily willfully controlled, and runners are unlikely to gain performance by trying to run unnaturally, so there’s no gold mine here waiting to be unearthed. What studies do show is that with any combination of cadence and stride length, their product is what primarily determines energy consumption, so there’s no free lunch to be bad by tweaking one or the other, and running economy is optimized at the specific combination towards which the runner innately gravitates.

+1

As a runner speeds up they increase both cadence and stride length. A slow runner can become fast by doing this over a distance of 200m, and run for example 3 minute km pace for 200m. But can they run a 30 minute 10k by holding the increased cadence/stride length for 30 minutes? No. They are limited by poor aerobic conditioning and genetics .

It all starts with the running technique.

When you touch the ground with your feet try to do it right under your body.

This way you cannot control the stride length or cadence.

Then depending on your fitness level and speed, the cadence will adjust automatically.

George Ilie wrote:

It all starts with the running technique.

When you touch the ground with your feet try to do it right under your body.

This way you cannot control the stride length or cadence.

Then depending on your fitness level and speed, the cadence will adjust automatically.

Man, where do these people come out from ?

Of course you can control your stride length and cadence. Whether any choice at that moment is efficient or not for you is a different matter.

The earlier post about cadence being harder to "improve" more, is correct, and maybe not even desirable, maybe it is, who knows. If you had a really low cadence at average speeds for oneself, maybe I'd suggest asking a trainer. Sure, if you run faster as you are, your cadence will increase, but this isn't what we are talking about. We're talking about what's best to train and examine to improve your running.

So really, it's all about increasing stride length "on the whole". I'm generalising. So then there's a couple of angles, how to increase it (if necessary), and how to sustain it. Some people need to work on "explosiveness" of their lower body, some already have that and need to work out how to sustain that long stride length over time. Maybe it's both.

Typically, most training sessions will work on those in a round about way, which is fine. E.g hill work, strides, faster reps, will work the explosiveness. Then your other training will work on the sustainability of that and what you already have.

I have checked this with other runners from their Garmin output. IF you're going pretty hard to run 7:30 pace, most likely you're taking at least 180spm. People doing the same at like 10 min pace or greater, their spm is not even remotely close to 180. They're slower because not only because of their short stride length but they also can't even take enough steps. Let's say someone racing at 5 min pace, they can run 7:30 pace at much less than 180spm because their stride length is bigger. It's an easy jog for them. What I am saying is there is limit to how many steps you can take. After you reach a certain point, you have to take greater steps. When I watching races on TV, I am always looking to see things like manholes on the ground to see how much bigger their steps are compared to mine. I come a little bit short of taking a manhole in one step when I am doing training runs. The elite marathoners will easily jump over one. That is what makes them run faster.

Thank you for starting a thread related to running.

Why does david make this thread every week? Its not that interesting of a topic

Maybe...... wrote:

George Ilie wrote:

It all starts with the running technique.

When you touch the ground with your feet try to do it right under your body.

This way you cannot control the stride length or cadence.

Then depending on your fitness level and speed, the cadence will adjust automatically.

...

Of course you can control your stride length and cadence. Whether any choice at that moment is efficient or not for you is a different matter.

...

You are missing the point.

I was saying that the cadence should not be controlled by changing the length of strides, but by types of exercises plus running technique.

Muscle plasticity and elasticity will be different if you do plyometrics or only strength exercises. If your muscles are more elastic, then expect to have a higher cadence.

As for the running technique, if you land right under your body you will have to pull quickly the leg left behind, to keep your balance. And that doesn't give much room to change the stride length.