Is running 180 strides/minute during easy runs appropriate for TALL guys?

screw the damn studies!

run how you feel naturally

your body wants to run efficiently, the more you try to force your stride to change the worse off you'll be....running at certain paces is bad enough, but running to hit a stride rate is so irrelevant

My understanding of the 180 strides/minute ideal is that it helps avoid injury as well. Think about how much more pressure you are putting on your joints and bones per stride if you are landing only 160 times per minute. I think it is significant when you extrapolate that over several thousand strides a day, seven days a week.

I am not incredibly tall, but not short either at 6-1, and I have very nearly 180 stride cadence. Two of my taller teammates (6-3ish probably) stride many fewer times per minute and one is currently rehabilitating from his third stress fracture and the other has chronic shin splints.

I don't think there is a performance advantage to 180 versus whatever feels most comfortable for you, but unless your bones are made of steel I would make an effort to increase your stride rate. Try running with someone who strides 180/min and matching them every other minute, eventually building up to matching them all the time.

you got too much time on your hands worrying about something ridiculous like this.

Being 6'3", I can speak from my experience. Consider you leg length. I am long waisted, so, my turnover is going to be faster than a 6'3" guy like Mottram. Nonetheless, speed is strictly a function of stride length times stride rate. Two semi-elite runners who train at 6:00 pace, one with a 6 foot stride and another with a 5 foot stride, will obviously have different turnover rates. The 6' strider will turnover 146 spm while the 5' guy will hit 176 a minute. Similarly, two 6' striders, one who trains at 7' pace and another who trains at 6' pace will hit 125 and 146 steps per minute. I know the figures are exaggerated (most people don't hit 6' strides unless in a very fast middle distance race), but, the exaggeration illustrates the point quite well. Plus, consider that the 180 figure is based on observations of elites if you're using Daniels' remarks. Adjust the principle for your situation.

Im 6' 2" and run with a stride at 180 per minute. I havent been injured in 2 years. I have gotten faster since starting to care about this. At first I chopped my stride a little to hit the rate but then after a while your stride length matches what it used to and you just simply run faster as a result. As long as you do impliment this while doing absolutely no speed work, you should be fine. Strides after runs are fine as far as speed work on this issue is considered. The reason you dont want to get away from speed is because then you arent lengthening your stride ever and then you are stuck in the awkward transition phase.

Thanks so far. Anyone else?

180 is a 'mean' not a 'mode'. Just because Daniels found the average cadence was 180spm, doesn't mean you should be running 180spm. The range could have been (and I have heard that it is) 170-190 spm in elite athletes. If you're in that range (168 is fine), then don't change anything. If you're under that, then you're almost certainly overstriding. Land on your midfoot and the right cadence will happen naturally.

bruncle wrote:

180 is a 'mean' not a 'mode'. Just because Daniels found the average cadence was 180spm, doesn't mean you should be running 180spm. The range could have been (and I have heard that it is) 170-190 spm in elite athletes. If you're in that range (168 is fine), then don't change anything. If you're under that, then you're almost certainly overstriding. Land on your midfoot and the right cadence will happen naturally.

Agreed. Along with the above advice:

Barefoot running on natural surfaces will tend to produce your most efficient stride length. I realize that finding safe/soft natural surfaces is difficult, but it can be worth the effort. Not too many people slam on their heels or overstride if running barefoot--pain can be a great motivator for change!

Also, I agree that 180 is not writ in stone. Think about it. The "second" is a rather arbitrary segment of time (one 86,400th of a day?). Doesn't it seem just a little too neat that the ideal-for-everybody-no-exceptions best running tempo would be precisely three steps per second, and that that would somehow correspond to something in human physiology? The 180/minute tempo is a convenient coincidence.

Many runners, perhaps most, would benefit from a quicker tempo, regardless of speed. But it's not true that everybody would benefit optimally from 180 steps per minute.

The second is an arbitrary value that humans came up with but it is used to measure actual phenomena and if it turns out that 180 strides in 60 secs or faster is the stride rate that most elite athletes use for distance races, then that is the way it is. We have to have some value to measure time and a second is what is used. It is purely coincidence that 180 is the number. Would it better if it it were 177 or 183? Would you have more faith in the value because isn't evenly divisible by 60? Your argument makes no sense.

As to the original question. There has to be some truth to it if almost all elites have a stride rate close to 180. I don't think Pfitz called it the mean or the median, he just stated that nearly all elite runners have a stride rate of close to 180. (I think he may have even given a percentage of elites that he measured) Elites vary greatly in height but they all hit nearly same stride rate, I don't think that is coincidence.

Wait, is the 180 for RACES mainly? I exceed that in my races. Has anyone measured the stride rate of elites going 7:30pace or so? (There are some who still go that slow or slower on easy days).As to those of you who say going 180 or so on easy days will lessen injury chance because it forces you to shorten your stride, I think that's true. But, I have shortened my stride even to hit my lame 160-168. This has helped alot in lessening the "beat up" feeling that I get after a longer, slower run.

schnakees wrote:

180 strides in 60 secs or faster is the stride rate that most elite athletes use for distance races.

Next time you're out for a training run with your team, count strides on some of the "perennially injured" guys and on the guys who seem to never get injured. It's pretty easy to see that the pounders (160-165 spm) tend to be the ones getting injured more often.

Also, take a gander at a recreational jogger. Some of them can be 140 or under.

Conversely, if you have a metronome, set it to 180 and look up "5000m" or "olympic 10k" on youtube. It's nearly dead-on.

180 isn't a magic number, but much BELOW 180 and you're flirting with trouble.

If you're a low-cadence guy, try counting strides while running barefoot on grass. That will be a lot closer to what you should be at.

Yeah honestly, the more the better. Under by 10 isnt too bad. Over is great too. Webb was studied in his races and had a stride as fast as 212 in his 800 and like 206 in his AR mile.

Ive wondered the same thing. Im 6-4 and generally don't exceed 165 strides per minute. Ive only counted during recovery runs, say 6:00 to 6:45 pace. I would imagine turnover gets higher when running fast but I've never counted except during easy run.

Counting your strides is absurd.

Sounds goofy until you read that Daniels recommends it and then you try it and suddenly 90mile weeks don't make you limp and your tempo runs miraculously drop 10-15s per mile.

That was my experience. I literally went from 6:20s for a long tempo to 6:00 over the course of a few weeks. I guess I was overstriding a bit. I was habitually injured in college but managed to run some decent times anyway. Either it is the more efficient cadence or it's that I can crank up my mileage without getting injured and my fitness is improving. Knock if you want... but you might want to count your cadence when no one is looking.

Within normal height ranges, stride length while running is independent of height.

Okay, here's the deal. I'm 6'8", and about 180 pounds. I just timed one minute running up and down the street at about 7:00 pace and got 145 strides. I did it a couple more times really trying to jack up my strides per minute, and got all the way up to a whopping 156. I'm young, and though I've never had any real serious injuries like a stress fracture, I'm banged up fairly frequently. As I look to jack up my mileage after high school, is this something I should really pay attention too? Are there any studies anyone can link me to? Thanks a lot, now I'm off to google.

Wow, you are even taller than me (I'm 6'5"). The other guy who responded at 6'4" also had more trouble getting stride rate up on easy days.

So, I really do think us really tall guys have a harder time getting to 180 spm on easy days. That might be one reason why tall runners get injured more often (supposedly).

I wonder what Wheatings stride rate is on his long or easy runs.

i used to count strides in my sleep.

now i count sheep.