Masters runners: ways to keep stride length from shortening??

Increase your time in the air by increasing explosive strength.

What Coach Owl Birdo said.

I mostly use hills for this, especially short, steep ones. Sometimes I run them, sometimes I bound them, sometimes I high skip them. Unfortunately, it's often a losing battle, and the stride just gets shorter over time no matter what you do. If your cadence is slower than 180 strides per minute, sometimes the best thing you can do is embrace/accept the shortening stride and keep your cadence up in the 180 area.

again hills and skipping and mini boundsand if you aren't doing strength training you need to.

If you run barefoot (natural form), you typically run at about 180 steps per minute, so a shorter stride is more natural and probably better.

wulffgt wrote:

If you run barefoot (natural form), you typically run at about 180 steps per minute, so a shorter stride is more natural and probably better.

Depends on how fast you are running. On my longer runs (at 8:30-9:00 a mile) no way I'm running 180 steps...that would be horribly inefficient, like taking choppy steps. At closer to race pace (6:30-5:00) the cadence speeds up to 180ish, is likely closer to 195 at 400m pace. I don't think the 180 thing is universal all the time.

Ninetonite wrote:

wulffgt wrote:

If you run barefoot (natural form), you typically run at about 180 steps per minute, so a shorter stride is more natural and probably better.

Depends on how fast you are running. On my longer runs (at 8:30-9:00 a mile) no way I'm running 180 steps...that would be horribly inefficient, like taking choppy steps. At closer to race pace (6:30-5:00) the cadence speeds up to 180ish, is likely closer to 195 at 400m pace. I don't think the 180 thing is universal all the time.

I probably should've added this too hahaha thanks.

Coach Owl Birdo wrote:

Increase your time in the air by increasing explosive strength.

I'm a sprinter and have all the explosive strength in the world, and even I have noticed a shortening stride over, say, 5k.

The other variable is body mass--lose it. I'm easily 20 lbs heavier than I was in the day--in my case, due to bone density and muscle, great for sprinting and power stuff, horrible for distance stuff.

I can run a 19:30 5k, with lots of effort, while in sprinting/power training mode. A while ago I had a really bad stomach flu, lost something like 16 lbs IIRC, and shortly thereafter took a minute off my 5k time, just like that. When I put the weight back on, which took very little time, my 5k time at the same effort went back up again.

I'm sure it was due to my body permitting a lengthened stride due to the lower body weight.

So instead of just "explosive strength", which is really power, I suggest that you concentrate on power:weight ratio. Build power, but also lose weight.

If you're like me and you don't want to lose weight and are already very powerful, I think you will have to be satisfied with your current stride length.

find a very slight downhill to use for strides a couple times a week.

i have a park nearby that has a grass section with a very slight slope. i will alternate downhill / uphill strides and find that my form really benefits from the downhill efforts