Improving Run Cadence

I'll have to wait for Scout7 to chime in, but there are a lot of varied opinions on running cadence beliefs ...

What he usually points out that the best way to improve/lengthen your stride is to run uphill and the best way to improve your cadence is to run downhill .......

Strides help, too. Run at under top speed for 30-60 seconds, with lots of recovery between strides. You should feel fluid and smooth, not like you're trying hard to drive the legs, or increase your stride. This is neuro-muscular training. Helps the legs get used to turning over faster. You can also do sets where the time is 60-90 seconds, but the effect is different. Combining both is effective.

No, there is no way to run these with a HRM. You're gonna have to go by feel (I know, scary thought for many out there...don't worry, you get used to it). If anything, use the HRM to make sure that you recover properly between each one. The purpose is not to strain yourself. It's to get the mind and the legs working together better.

 Regarding the hills THIS SITE discusses how to use hill training.

I had shin splints and am convinced that switching to a higher cadence allowed me to run less injured, thus getting more volume and consistency and losing the shin splints.

It's hard at first, and you will pay a HR penalty while you are adjusting to it.  What helped me initially is finding msic or a metronome at 90 per, and running to that to get the "feel."  Eventually you won't need that stimulus.

as it stands, I still have to work on my cadence but find that something less than 90 and more than 80 is about right for me now.

Scout I certainly defer to you but I'm using Strides in  a different manner as I'm in an IM Build phase. But aprrox. once a week I'm doing 4 x 250 Strides on 5 minute intervals (basically 3:30 run/1:30 recovery) trying to keep my HR in Z2.  Same premise (working to increase cadence) but w/ keeping HR under control for longer periods. Actually, as you point out I am primarily using the HRM to keep my HR in check during the recovery.

How fast do you run the Stride at?

The longer you go, you're more likely to be working a different system.  Keeping them under a minute means they are short enough that you won't really be doing much anaerobic work, which would work a whole different system.  Short strides are designed so that you can do them as a way to get the legs turning faster without creating the same stresses that a more standard interval would.  Plus, you run them at a pretty high pace (something around mile or faster pace).

"Stride(r)" is just a name given to a workout, really.

Good question Prolly close to a 7:15-m 7:30 mile pace which is fast for me.  Don't have the luxury of using a track right now so distance is approx. I focus on the 250 strides and keeping the HR in the zone (which is a challenge). 

I'm still a ways from true speed work.

Yeah, from what I've always seen, running strides isn't really a "speed" work out.  In fact, I know many people who incorporate the short burst style in the middle of a long run.  Breaks up the monotony.

A good description of what I was describing is in the book "Run Strong".  They also talk about NMT in "Running With The Buffaloes" (a very good book, easy to read). 

Thanks for those references. I'm guilty of focusing some much energy on swim technique that I often overlook ways to improve my running... besides running lots.

Thanks for the replies.  I figured the treadmill is a bad place for that reason (fixed pace).  I will try it on my OUTDOORS tempo run tommorrow.  It's supposed to get into the 30's - heat wave!

Also, I just recently incorporated Fartlek/strides into my longer runs - for this specific reason.  Last weekend, I did 11X20sec (supposed to be 10X but lost count) with 60sec recoveries at about my mile pace/effort.  I didn't think to count footstrikes on those fast efforts, but will next time.

I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but I somehow knew it would...

There is no real reason you need to count your footsteps.  There is no "magic" number.  What works for one person will NOT work for everyone.  You can improve your stride rate and length, and it is something to consider.  But do not worry about trying to get it to a given level.  Everyone's ideal number is different.  If you work on improving your stride rate and length, you will see it by running faster, which is ultimately the metric that matters.  There is variation among elite runners, and the vast majority of people out there already run within 10% of that "magical" average of 180. 

Back to Rollinbones...I have a question:

When you are running strides, are you focused more on the time, or on the distance?  You said you were trying to keep them around 250 (I assume meters, but I could be wrong), and the time was 3:30.  To make my math easy, 3:30 is around 700 meters at 8:00/mile pace.  250 is closer to a minute.  So the distance is more in line with what I was discussing (maybe a little long), but the time was throwing me off.

Back 2-3 years ago I checked my run cadence and it was just under 80. Fall of 2006 I worked on new run technique as I was heal striker but didn't know it at the time. Changing to mid foot landing runner for me picked up my cadence.

Recently I checked my run cadence on a few different runs always 96. Interesting as my sweet spot for bike cadence is 97.  

Run at under top speed for 30-60 seconds, with lots of recovery between strides. You should feel fluid and smooth, not like you're trying hard to drive the legs, or increase your stride. This is neuro-muscular training. Helps the legs get used to turning over faster. You can also do sets where the time is 60-90 seconds, but the effect is different. Combining both is effective.

No, there is no way to run these with a HRM. You're gonna have to go by feel (I know, scary thought for many out there...don't worry, you get used to it). If anything, use the HRM to make sure that you recover properly between each one. The purpose is not to strain yourself. It's to get the mind and the legs working together better.

This description is in line with workouts described in "Run Strong" and similar to what is used by the CU cross country team in the book "Running With The Buffaloes". 

This article describes other forms of stride workouts. 

Hey, I'm at 84 right there with 'ya and it hasn't slowed me down    I posted this in my mentor thread a few weeks ago:

Daniels has a good section on running cadence in the first edition of his book.  He studied video footage of a lot of elite distance runners and found that many of them had a cadence right around 90 per minute (meaning your right foot strikes the ground 90 times each min).  He found that beginners tend to have much lower cadences - around 80 per minute. 

Daniels' feels that the main problem with low cadence is that "the slower you take steps, the longer the time you spend in the air, and the more time you are in the air, the higher you displace your body mass and the harder you hit the ground on landing.  When you consider that many running injuries are the result of landing shock, it is not surprising that experienced runners tend to turn over faster than do individuals who are new to the sport."   Note that he doesn't say here that slower cadences makes you a slower runner...he is focusing on the injury aspect with regard to inexperienced runners.

He goes on to say that several studies have been conducted on the energy demands of different stride cadences.  Those studies found that experienced runners are most efficient at their chosen rate of turnover, whether it be faster or slower cadence.  When it comes to inexperienced runners, running economy can often be improved by getting low cadence runners to increase their cadence.

I was a runner for 28 years and NEVER, EVER had a clue what my cadence was - didn't care either.  I started reading some triathlon articles 2 summers ago that said that if you strive to race your Ironman bike at 90 rpm, you should strive to achieve a run cadence around 90/min.  So, I measure my cadence on a few runs and always came up with about 84.  Did I decide to change it?  NOPE.  I'm happy where I'm at and I think I've done pretty well with a lower cadence. 

If you are a newcomer to running it is possible that there is room for improving your running efficiency.  Perhaps increasing your cadence can help out, maybe not.  You are an experiment with sample size of 1     

The high knees/kicking your butt are other drills.

They could be likened to intervals.  However, the duration is very short, at most about 90 seconds.  Also, you could incorporate shorter sets into other runs. 

sorry, gone for a while. Damn training gets in the way

Actually, niether.  250 is the NUMBER OF STRIDES ( e.g. two steps = 1 stride). Rather than focus on timed intervals I actually count foot strikes (or more accuratley, right foot strikes). May sound funny but it actually passes time quickly. 

No worries, I didn't think about it until late last night, anyway, and didn't get a chance to ask until this morning.

Yeah, that's a new one to me; I have never seen that discussed as a method of tracking it.  I'm not saying it's right or wrong or better or worse, I've just never seen that before.  Hey, if it works for you, then right on.  I know I would never be able to pull that off, though.  I can't focus like that.