It has been widely observed that elite runners across most distances up from the sprints have a stride frequency in races of very close to 90 strides/minute. Does this mean that your average midpacker, who generally has a stride rate closer to 80/minute, should train specifically to increase stride frequency, regardless of pace? Do elite runners maintain their high frequency when they are jogging 8:00 min. miles?
marky wrote:
It has been widely observed that elite runners across most distances up from the sprints have a stride frequency in races of very close to 90 strides/minute. Does this mean that your average midpacker, who generally has a stride rate closer to 80/minute, should train specifically to increase stride frequency, regardless of pace? Do elite runners maintain their high frequency when they are jogging 8:00 min. miles?
Worthy of discussion, often wondered this myself.
I am by no means elite but i have a stride rate of about 90, it usually stays constant no matter the pace. Actually it might increase as the pace nears sprinting
anything at tempo pace or faster, i'm riding on four foot-plants per second.
I actually read about this in Jack Daniel's running formula when I first started running again after college. (took about 2 years off due to injuries / laziness)
I noticed that at first my stride rate was around 80-85 per minute, and worked consciously for 6-8 months to bring my turnover up, even on my easy runs. I would do a few 60-second "checks/counts" every run until I was consistently in the 90-95 range and after that still checked occasionally. In the last 5 years I've brought my times down from 18:40 5K / 31:30 8K / 86 min HM / 3:10 marathon down to 16:00 5K / 73 min HM / 2:42 full. Although that probably also has something to do with losing about 10-15 pounds and slowly increasing my mileage from 30-40 mpw to 70-90 mpw.
You can play around with your stride all you want unless you have the fitness to back it up it will make little or no difference
Re: your last ? About elites at 8:00 pace--think Daniels says they arre same stride rate as at any pace.