How to improve sprint cadence for masters runners?

I always warm up doing short quick steps down the hallway and back.

How do you measure the cadence? Counting 6 times a second would be challenging.

I use Shokz Air headphones and a metronome app with a 4 beat.... click click click CLOCK sound pattern. I jog in place at the start to sync my left foot with the CLOCK and when I get the movement down, I start jogging. As long as my left foot is hitting on CLOCK I know that I'm on the right cadence.

I'm still trying to figure out what works. Today, I did 10m at 220 cadence, 10 at 230, 10 at 240, 10 at 260. Then, I did 2x50m at 240. These were all slow.... maybe 5 seconds for 10 meters and 20 seconds for the 50m. It's a drill so I don't care about speed... I just want to be moving forward a little and breathing. I've done this before, but today I focused on lifting my knees a bit more.

Then, I jogged a few seconds without much forward motion at 300 and 350 cadence. I tried 400, but I physically could not move my legs that fast, even jogging in place. Earl Fee writes in his book that he did 400 step/minute cadence drills at my age, but so far, it's beyond my ability.

Can you provide an athlete example of 300steps per minute? Michael Johnson was ~240 steps per minute, per this link:

Rather, ~251 steps/minute:

zigapskraba.com

Stride Length vs Stride Frequency in the 400 Metres

Žiga P. Škraba

An analysis of Wayde van Niekerk’s stride and a comparison with Michael Johnson, Kirani James and LaShawn Merritt.

Link:zigapskraba.com/2016/09/01/stride-leng...

Ladder training.

And from that link, Wayde van Niekerk’s is 227 steps/min.

First, I doubt any 400m runners are hitting 300 cadence, maybe close during those 10 flat backstretches, but that’s excessive for running 11 second 100s. The fastest speed I’ve ever personally recorded, 10.2 m/s yielded a cadence of 252 for someone who is 6’2 which I believe is pretty average height for upper level 400m guys. 50 flat 400m pace is usually 235-240 SPM for me.

Plyo and drills are what have really helped me with cadence. Also just focusing on it while running fast too. As a masters runner you’ve probably already figured this out, but our brains immediately want to take longer more powerful steps when we want to go faster, so you need to actively focus on telling yourself, “fast feet, fast arms”. It really makes a difference. A good way to work CNS is to teach your body cadence through the arms. Sitting down, looking in the mirror and trying to get a good hip to cheek arm swing at a fast cadence genuinely helps once it’s time for your whole body to pick up that pace. This is probably a helpful drill to do often for someone that may not be able to do plyometric drills 3-4 days a week.

The main thing you can do to train your CNS for faster leg cycle is actually sprinting. You could potentially add in a load of balance and coordination work, which is low cost in terms of energy expenditure, but gives your neural system less work to do so it can focus on the actual sprinting part of the job, but that's icing on the cake.

Remember there's no point just moving your legs fast for the sake of it if you aren't putting force into the ground - otherwise, tap dancers would make the best 100m runners.

Thanks. I stand corrected on the 300 SPM. I read it long ago. Maybe the source was wrong. Anyway...

Your suggestion of "fast feet, fast arms" is something I've used in the past. Thanks for the reminder! I'll add that to some of my reps.

Here is one I want to try, from our old friend Tony Holler:

I do a bit of cadence work on the side, but don't measure it per se. One thing I do consciously is timed sprint 100m on a slight (2-5%) decline packed dirt path in the context of my fartlek sprint sessions. I strive for a tall, relaxed stride with full front-side mechanics, i.e. higher knees with forward drive through the hips and no "lag" of the rear kinetic chain, i.e. "back kick".

It has been fun to follow the events in Torun. You would have done well in the 400.