180 strides a minute

Maybe I can clear a few thing up in this stride-rate and stride length discussion. First I need to emphasize the fact that what I have written relative to stride rate among elite runners (we tested 49 men and 30 women at the 84 Olympics) is that they almost all used a 180 OR GREATER stride rate. It was not meant to mean that 180 is THE proper rate. For women the rate was about 5% faster than for men, with women’s AVERAGES ranging from about 195 to 202 and for the men, from about 186 to 194. There were certainly individual differences, with men and women going over 200 in the 800 and some in the 1500 also. Over the range of running speeds observed (800 for men and women, to 10k for men and marathon for women), stride rate varied for both men and women by about 3-4% and stride length varied by 26% for men and 38% for women (having marathon pace involved for women and not men, skews these data some, but women did not race 5k or 10k in 1984, and we didn’t get men’s marathon). Still, no question that speed is changed much more as a result of changes in stride length than in stride rate.

Of interest may be that another study we did, in which the same group of runners repeated the same speeds of running on a treadmill and on a track, both at altitude and at sea level, showed that there were no statistical differences in rate or length WHEN RUNNING AT THE SAME SPEED– whether on a treadmill or track, at sea level or at altitude.

"Daniels is a joke who has he coached"

Feel free to email

jack.daniels@nau.edu

to get some insight into "whom" he has coached

jtupper wrote:

Maybe I can clear a few thing up in this stride-rate and stride length discussion...

Thanks for your input on that Jtupper. What is your experience with competitive runners with slower cadence speeding up their stride rate? Does just concentrating on having a higher cadence help lower race times? Or is it necessary to improve form to speed up cadence and lower race timers? Or can form really be improved in a way that positively effects race times?

I guess the crux of my question is should someone like myself who is pretty fit, but has a slowish ground contact time work on form and/or cadence or just concentrate on getting fitter?

And since I've bought both editions of your JD's Running Formula I think I deserve an anwser ;)

My feeling is that turnover is pretty much under the runner's individual control, but stride length is a matter of getting fitter/stronger. I have had several runners join my college teams with pretty slow turnover, learn to increase stride rate and improve performance. But that is not necessarily proof; maybe they just got better, and would have even if they didn't increase stride rate. At least I can say I never had one turn over slower and run faster as a result.

the universe has now returned to its normal order, after all its recent turbulence. thank you coach daniels for your topic-oriented response, coupled with the post of the year for those of us who become weary on this site reading the overabundance of vitriol spewing from the fingertips of those who get in the way of a beneficial exchange of information.

now if we could only get all the other reputable coaches and athletes who are ridiculed on this site to log on and put people in their place, maybe we could just go back to talking about running, the science behind it, and other related topics.

"As for the comment in a previous post that the runners of yesteryear didn't worry about turnover rate: I don't think elite runners ever need to worry about stride rate, they run naturally with a high stride rate thanks to good natural form."

Have you ever watched video of Mal whitfield? No high stride rate there and he was the best of his time.

ooooops my bad meant to say John Woodruff

Woodruffs stride length reportedly was between 9 and ten feet, i think he was somewhere around 150spm in the 36 olympics when he won the 800...

Coach Daniels,

I have been a fairly steadily improving runner over the years and have never seemed to get that stride rate up to that 180 number - naturally just have a loping stride I guess. Can you suggest or do you even recommend working specifically on the stride rate or just keep running and as fitness improves it should fall into place.

Thanks,

Thanks for the later replies

and to jtupper for clearly explaining which i misinterpreted originaly, yes i did think of it as a magic number silly me. I do understand it more now.

Check rate when doing some repeat 200s or 400s, and see how much different the rate is when doing a tempo run for example. Maybe it is a matter or a little shorter stride at the slower paces, to stick a little cloeer to the pace used in faster running. Maybe you are a different case and things will just come to you with training. Check rate during uphill runs also.

Biomechanic is probably correct. Basically our legs act as pendulums as we run. Every pendulum has a natural swing time.Short pendulum rapid swing,long pendulum slow. Shorter runners need a quicker turnover or a more explosive push off to go the same speed as a tall runner.The shorter runner however has naturally a more rapid turnover.

At the Boston Indoor Games, we had actually been talking about the 3 strides per second "elite level" turnover before the races began. In our counting, Mottram ran at 180, Alan Webb was a lot faster, maybe closer to 200.

Keep in mind though that you have to factor in the distance of the race, and the runner. Watch a taller guy like Paul Tergat run next to a smaller guy (dos Santos in NYC '05 for example) and you'd see they weren't running equal turnover.

Regardless, just shut up and run your own pace. Yes faster turnover will create a faster run for you, but you can't keep that up without proper training and speed work. You can try to run the same pace with higher turnover and shorter strides but all that will probably do is just tire you out. Turnover will increase as the intensity of your workouts increases.

Jtupper, great insights thank you.

Question: Does it matter where you land as you run? In other words, if I land in front of my body, as opposed to directly under it, how would this affect both stride length and frequency?

thanks again.

A whole different issue and it would probably just start unnecessary discussion to go into what we have found in this regard. jack.daniels@nau.edu

I as a coach also have thought about this,

my view is that each runner has an unique curve: nr of strides per minute, versus speed.

This curve is specific to the runner, and is his 'natural cadence'.

This also means that for any runner, you can calculate his/her speed from the nr of strides per minute. If you run in the forest and don't know how fast you're going: just count your stride frequency and look up (in your head, a nice mental exercise) the corresponding speed, voilá.

Paul

I'm interested to hear that Mottram has a stride rate of 180. I'm a bit taller than Craig and when I counted my stride rate last year after getting a femoral stress fracture I found that my spm was a little under 150. Needless to say, my coach wanted me to improve it, so I started working on shortening my stride and getting the rate up. Now, 6 months later, my spm is around 175, although it drops when I get tired. My strides are certainly shorter, but I'm assuming they will lengthen out again as I get into better and better shape. Last week, during my first race back since my injury, I noticed that after about 4k my strides started getting extremely long as I pushed to keep up the pace. I would bet they lengthened out by a couple of feet, although I was still running the exact same pace. I would imagine I ran the first couple miles of the race at 180, but dropped to at least 160 for the last two miles.

What I'm wondering is if I should expect to keep the stride rate at 180 throughout my races as I get into better shape. All I know is that my form is terrible at the end of the race, while all the elite guys keep it together the whole way.

gosh wrote:

Do what comes naturally. That is a long loping 160-170 for some, or a short fast 200-210 for others.

180 is not a magic number

If running with your feet underneath you isn't magical, then why don't you try jumping from one stride to the next, reaching as far as you can get with each stride and let us know how fast that is for you.

oldhalfmileguy wrote:

Woodruffs stride length reportedly was between 9 and ten feet, i think he was somewhere around 150spm in the 36 olympics when he won the 800...

Thanks for bringing Woodruff up, I had never heard of him. A couple of points on this though, he ran 1:52ish to win, fast for the time, but slow by todays standards. Also I think he's turning over faster than 150 spm when he gets going around the curve in the '36 Olympics.