Should i increase my extremely low cadence?

That seems like a reasonable cadence for someone who’s 6’4”. Cadence is pretty innate anyway — your body knows how to move in the most efficient way — so I wouldn’t mess with it.

Bekele, who’s like 5’6”, averaged 186 spm in a WC 10000 at 4:20 pace. So your cadence at various paces isn’t actually that unusual given your height.

runnersworld.com

The Great Cadence Debate

Stride rate is important to note and improve but only part of the equation

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Do you get many injuries?

I'd imagine a long bounding stride would put more force through your body, however, if it isn't causing you any problems, then there's probably no need to change it.

Don't try and increase your cadence. That's a recipe for disaster. Instead work on making your current cadence more efficient through hill sprints and strides.

The reason im thinking of increasing it is because ive been having a lot of knee and foot injuries

Also, I’ve noticed that when im running on the treadmill i have a higher cadence than when im running on flat ground. Does this mean i should do more treadmill running?

This is because the treadmill (and soft surface) alters running mechanics. I don't recommend the treadmill.

What you need is hills. Hilly runs, hill workouts and hill sprints. Focus on good knee lift and a powerful drive. Don't overdo it, just start incorporating more hilly routes, hills sprints once a week and a full hill workout once every two weeks. A low cadence can actually be pretty beneficial because you can easily cover ground. If you are at 5 min pace at 160 cadence, imagine how fast you can go at 180.

When i do hill sprints, i usually do shorter hills (around 15 seconds) and end up taking very large and powerful strides to get up the hill. Should i do longer hill reps around a minute instead? I feel like this would force me to slow the pace down and turn my legs over quicker to stop them from dying.

Run stairs, but don’t skip any

Shorten it to 10 seconds. Really get moving. Cadence shouldn't increase with fatigue or speed. You may be bounding a little too much. Honestly there is probably nothing wrong with your cadence. The injuries may come from weaknesses in other areas.

Yes, increase your cadence. Also, improve your leg strength (do lunges and split squats). Dorsiflect. At slow speeds you should try to land heel to toe (per Dan pfaff) to help absorb impact. Practice switching drills. Good luck.

Short answer: Mostly no.

Longer answer: Are you injured often? If not, then again, no.

Much longer answer: The body defaults to the most efficient cadence for your fitness. It feels inefficient to increase cadence because it IS inefficient. It's not just your muscles, the CNS has to fire the muscles faster so to run at a higher cadence, you need do cadence drills to train the Central Nervous System to fire faster without tiring out.

Short, fast hill reps will help with faster turnover. Here are two drills that I do.

3 sets of 3x200m. Over the last 50-70m of the 200m rep, I will swing my arms faster, but not speed up. This results in a choppy stride. I typically run with a partner so I can be sure that I'm not speeding up. On the last rep of each set, I increase cadence AND speed up. This last rep is tiring so you might need to add a couple of minutes to the rest between sets.

The second drill is to run with a metronome app set at slightly higher than your current cadence. Since your normal cadence for 800m is 170 that's a good cadence to use as a starting point. Set your metronome for a cadence for 175. Don't try to run the entire rep at that cadence, just run for 5-10 seconds and revert to normal cadence until you recover.

After three weeks or so, you'll find it easier to hold that 175 cadence. You can either increase the cadence to 180 or increase the distance (time) run at 175. REMEMBER, these are drills do don't be concerned about whether you are faster or slower. BTW, 175 is just an arbitrary number on a few beats higher. You might try 174, 178, 180, etc.

After some experimentation, you'll find a "sweet spot". Going faster cadence than that will tire you out quickly.

Even if you determine, after experimentation, that your ideal 800m cadence is exactly what you're running now, practicing these faster turnover drills should improve your kick at the end of a race.

Anyway, that's what helps me. Best of luck!

If you are over striding, yes. You would likely benefit from a running assessment.

I am also 6’4” and addressed over striding and cadence about 1 year ago, as I was experiencing some knee pain. At that time, i was hitting around 158spm on slow runs and around 165-167 on faster runs.

I am now averaging about 166spm on slow runs and 176spm on faster efforts. I feel noticeably mor efficient and my knee pain is essentially gone.

Im 6'3" and my cadence is about 170 on easy runs and low 180s for speed work.

Sounds like you are dealing with injuries, in which case overstriding may be an issue.

The thing is, im not overstriding. I just bounce a lot in the air. And when i try running with less bounce my cadence is higher but i feel like im shuffling and its uncomfortable. When i first started distance running about a year ago i was moving up from the 400/800, and my cadence then was closer to 145.

Well if you are running that low of a cadence and you aren't overstriding, then your gait is just inefficient. Using your energy to generate height is just taking energy away from generating speed.

I'm also 6'4 and my easy runs are around 170 but i had to work on it. Going slower really hurt my knees

Similar boat and been running a while. Figure for me it's not worth changing. I'm 5'11" and float around 160 most runs but only get up to mid 160s for 5k race and 170-ish for mile. Tried to consciously pick up cadence on few runs and workouts but was counterproductive. As others said, drills + hills will help with overall form and make running more economically, not just cadence but overall. For me, just accepted now I'm kind of bouncy, low cadence runner high up on toes. Personally, all injuries have had nothing to do with cadence and fixing issues did not change cadence.

MoVB

This will read funny but it works :)

I increased my cadenance from 160 to 180 for my Easy pace runs after reading in Daniels book that 180 was optimal.

It was beneficial as it reduced injuries and allowed to run more milage.

It took my only one week.

I downloaded a bunch of 180bpm techno music and ran every day for one hour at Daniel's Easy pace to that music.

After one week I got rid of the horrible music but my stride stayed at 180 at Easy pace.

The other clue you can use is to focus on your arm swing, if your cadence slows down towards the end of the race, move your arms faster...