Sorry, I was thinking in the developing male college runner rut. My main point is that TO usually increses w/ pace and that races tend to be with higher than 180 cadence and that if you race at 200 then aerobic runs with 180 would probably be about right as long as you do strides or intervals regularly with 200+.
Coach Daniels,
Great info, as always. I can only hope the guy asking whom you've coached was joking. That doesn't always come through online, however.
Please pardon the question if you feel it is beyond the scope of the discussion at hand, but do you have any specific recommendations for improving stride length? Is it simply a function of (functional) leg strength? Might you recommend a few leg strengthening exercises that will help increase stride length? In addition to hill running, what else should one consider? Thanks.
We purposely counted rate in runners who dropped off the back of the pack in the 10k, and their slower pace was always result of slower turnover and also some shortening of stride -- in other words they got tired and couldn't maintain any longer. Turnover definitely slowed when they dropped off. Also, we looked at the final "kick" of many runners and almost all increased rate and stride length. One Gold Medalist actually slowed turnover in her final kick in winning the 3k
Bedellympian wrote:
Sorry, I was thinking in the developing male college runner rut. My main point is that TO usually increses w/ pace and that races tend to be with higher than 180 cadence and that if you race at 200 then aerobic runs with 180 would probably be about right as long as you do strides or intervals regularly with 200+.
I agree and I think the numbers vary with each individual runners build, strength and flexibility.
I have physically measured and logged my stride rate (along with calculated length) for a year now. My stride rate at various paces is posted earlier in this thread.
Over time, as I have become more fit and stronger, my times have dropped at similar stride rates with an increase in stride length. But I have never had a long powerful stride and flexibility is hard to come by as I age ;)
iwanttobefaster,
My recommendation would be to lift your foot/ankle from the ground with your hamstring rather than lifting your upper thigh and knee with hip flexors. 180 strides is preferable due to the bodies ability to utilize mucsle elasticity at 180+ stride frequency per minute. Only lift with enough intensity from hamstring to break contact with the ground, then release the tension from the now airborne leg and repeat the cycle. Good luck!
Jeremy Huffman
Thanks for that. Not sure what i lift with, until i guess i go ahead and do it. Never thought about it really, just put one foot in front of the other
Though a recent visit to physio said my quads were tight getting better now, thought left hamstring also quite tight as i discovered when i went for a sports massage the other day
PASTA, PASTA, PASTA!!!!
To what extent do muscle fiber type (ST/FT), leg proportions (e.g. long femur), and muscle balance determine optimal cadence? Thanks.
has anyone answered whether or not this stride rate is appropriate at ALL paces????
iwanttobefaster wrote:
In his book Jack Daniels mentions stride rate and 180 strides a minute (90 left, 90 right) seems to be the perfect rate)
I personally think you should take 95 with the right, and 85 with the left.
Woodruff reminds me of Rudisha. I wasn't able to get a long enough segment to accurately gauge Woodruff, but for Rudisha, I have him at 184 s/m in the finishing straight of his first WR:
marke wrote:
has anyone answered whether or not this stride rate is appropriate at ALL paces????
It's only appropriate at paces where, by pure coincidence, your stride rate happens to be 180 per minute.
It will be much higher when you are sprintining. And may be much less at slower paces. You can also see runners doing less than 180 at sub 5 minute miling or even sub 4.30
This is an interesting analysis on stride rate & length of the top 3 finishers in the '07 World Championship 10K (Bekele, Sihine and Mathathi).
http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2010/11/speed-stride-length-x-stride-frequency.html
It has been years since I have read Daniels' book however I do not think he was saying that everybody should run 180 strides per minute, it just so happened that the best runners in the world ran 180 strides per minute. This does not mean you should try to change your stride to match this meaningless number. Just do what is natural. Maybe as you get faster you will be closer to 180. The top distance runners in the world have a low body weight. If you were naturally a heavier runner would you do unhealthy things in order to match their weight? I would hope not.
I have been slowly bringing my cadence up to mid 170's and it seems that doing it gradual makes it not so bad. I haven't started racing again to see if itll carry over to positive race effects.
Same here. I have raised mine from 160 to 180. it really sucked at first but I don't get sore hamstrings like I used to and my easy runs have dropped to sub 7 pace from 730 pace with no additional effort. just all better form.
marke wrote:
I have been slowly bringing my cadence up to mid 170's and it seems that doing it gradual makes it not so bad. I haven't started racing again to see if itll carry over to positive race effects.
Concentrating on increasing your stride rate may act to decrease over-striding (if that is an issue for you as a runner), and serve to minimize related injuries. It also may act to reduce heal-striking, and bring the foot-strike underneath the center of gravity, thereby maximizing biomechanical efficiencies.
I say "may" because it is all based on where you are coming from in the first place, and if these are even problematic issues in your running endeavors.
Of course, we can all come up with someone who is an Olympic champion over-striding, heal-striker, so, again, who how it will affect you.
In my post I meant to say sore quads. I am sure they got sore because of over striding and "pulling" myself forward. So increasing my stride rate has corrected that and I have seen benefits. I have not raced and so I'm definitely excited to see if I improve.