I've come to the conclusion that high cadence becomes more and more critical for master's racing success

Moran alert wrote:

It's a fact that muscle mass and raw power declines as we age. If we gradually lose our higher "gears" as we age, we must compensate by stressing turnover.

Why?

Could this possibly also be due to the relation between increased cadence and shorter leg length? Smaller people have a tendency to age better, given that the decreased mass has a much smaller long-term effect on bone density and connective tissue. I'm curious if we were to cross-tab data that supports your hypothesis with overall height and body mass of the competitors being observed and possibly be able to isolate whether or not the cadence is the actual metric affecting competitive success.

Moran alert wrote:

It's a fact that muscle mass and raw power declines as we age. If we gradually lose our higher "gears" as we age, we must compensate by stressing turnover.

What also declines is vo2. Maybe you need slower turnover to compensate for that.

Only in theory. You're already at high cadence as it is. It's actually better to strength your muscles so you can more leap on each stop.

Muscle mass and raw power should be the last thing to go if you still hit the gym.

Joints wearing down limits stride length.

I did a heavy leg workout yesterday then went out to do some flying 50s. According to my Garmin I'm still hitting a 249 cadence.

Unfortunately I have near zero mobility in my right hip which puts a cap on stride length.

agent orange. wrote:

Moran alert wrote:

It's a fact that muscle mass and raw power declines as we age. If we gradually lose our higher "gears" as we age, we must compensate by stressing turnover.

What also declines is vo2. Maybe you need slower turnover to compensate for that.

This. Former 13:1x 5k runner (I ran under 13:20 a handful of times in my early/mid 20’s).

I am 49. At 40 I raced in the mid 180’s and trained around 175-180. At 49, I train around 160-165 and race around 175. My times are no different at 49 than at 40, with the exception that my 400m time (time trial, not race) dropped a second.

That said, I will say that I have noticed optimal cadences dropping a bit in my athletes, due to the super shoes.

Moran alert wrote:

It's a fact that muscle mass and raw power declines as we age. If we gradually lose our higher "gears" as we age, we must compensate by stressing turnover.

Part of aging is reduced ability to move quickly, and that includes cadence aka moving your limbs more quickly.

The older one gets, the easier it is to bread down, so that is why it is important to do routine strength training and take the proper amino acids to enhance strength and repair.

Breakfast In Bed wrote:

Moran alert wrote:

It's a fact that muscle mass and raw power declines as we age. If we gradually lose our higher "gears" as we age, we must compensate by stressing turnover.

Part of aging is reduced ability to move quickly, and that includes cadence aka moving your limbs more quickly.

Paying the price for moving quickly is the issue. Strength improves tolerance. Focusing on just one thing will not work for most , I suppose. Keep adaptations to drills for quickness tolerance. High knees butt kicks, modest box jumps, If you can still do this you can do workouts, Not talking balls to the wall repeats , just salvaging what we can as a priority.

Anyway, I prefer this to slogging so much with the energy and recovery capacity that I have to the I can tolerate a little acceleration here and there. I don't even compete, Other than for healthy exercise, I run to try to hits memorable physical states from running in my youth and to enjoy nature, Being deep into a steady state run, enjoying the perfect balance of the pleasure pain syndrome is some beautiful place , and sometimes feeling free. That's what I aim for.....and being able to walk when I am old.

Coevett wrote:

Muscle mass and raw power should be the last thing to go if you still hit the gym.

Joints wearing down limits stride length.

I did a heavy leg workout yesterday then went out to do some flying 50s. According to my Garmin I'm still hitting a 249 cadence.

Unfortunately I have near zero mobility in my right hip which puts a cap on stride length.

Do you have a self destrucive personality?

55 here. Cycling for decades, too, in addition to running.

My stride is SHOT. Running 6:30 pace is a sprint, literally. Box-jumping to a bench is an effort. Zero 'explosiveness.'

But lots and lots of biomechanical issues, and being mobile when even older is more important to me than sprinting fast now. What to do?

Zero powerman wrote:

55 here. Cycling for decades, too, in addition to running.

My stride is SHOT. Running 6:30 pace is a sprint, literally. Box-jumping to a bench is an effort. Zero 'explosiveness.'

But lots and lots of biomechanical issues, and being mobile when even older is more important to me than sprinting fast now. What to do?

This is long and I am not going to edit , so good luck if you want to read it.

I have always been a stretcher , doesn't do much for me now, unless it is long hold type that Joan Benoit encourages.

Dynamic stretches is the warm up , a little random stretching here and there to feel good, But yoga like stretching routines to move significantly better . Even before a long fishing trip, one of these long yoga like sessions the day before, or the morning before is a game changer. gotta do it at least a couple times a week on places that need it for it to matter. It isn't a two hour whole body routine for me, nothing of the sort. Also the drills , do start of with 3 sets of 100 butt kicks , high knees or bounding. small numbers of sets of 5 or 12 monitoring joints and tendons during progression, progress not a return to youthful loads. Jog into and out of the drill a few yards don't do it on tired legs.

I cured bad tendinitis in both elbows recently in a matter of days when I finally dedicated some time to long hold stretches of my arm muscles. Foam rolling can be this if you do it a certain way , holding it long on the fatter parts of the quads. It's hard to do so stretching long matters.

With drills, box jumps this is in conjunction with working on strength in a muscle balancing way, the VMO gets week , quads get tight, butt kicks won't work. Think about this all around your joints from the feet up and learn to make them strong. Imagine tuning something up along the way, not bashing out exercises. start with very small sets, check out the response tune build, back off. Back of running to work on motion seesaw. Patience. Enjoy a great run , doesn't mean your body owes you one tomorrow....don't take what it won't give without paying a price higher than is worth paying.

At 55-56 I got up to box jumping like about 30 inches all day long(with a warmup), there were months earlier when I wouldn't have touched it. Started on a 6" landscaping block. and I had a pretty good dead lift for a giraffe. a little jump rope. I can't do it now because I have been fishing and building things with my free time and energy for the last two years almost exclusively

Contrary to saying I don't compete , I am tempted to take the challenge of running a six minute mile at 60, next year. I am a big guy, that giraffe, so this is a good effort when we are talking like we are here about pain! Not sure I want to lose weight again though. I am at a great weight for muscle mass and cardio fitness and lifestyle balance. We will see.

Coevett wrote:

Muscle mass and raw power should be the last thing to go if you still hit the gym.

Joints wearing down limits stride length.

I did a heavy leg workout yesterday then went out to do some flying 50s. According to my Garmin I'm still hitting a 249 cadence.

Unfortunately I have near zero mobility in my right hip which puts a cap on stride length.

I'm in a similar boat to Coevett. I have always trained at about 175-180 cadence and raced about 180-182. I'm now 71 and did a 5k XC race this morning with average cadence at 182, and max at 226 in my finishing kick. 30 years ago that got me mid-5 minute pace. Now it barely gets me under 7:00 pace. The difference is all reduced stride length. I think that loss of tendon elasticity, strength and joint wear all slowly but inexorably reduce stride length. The neuro-muscular pathways to spin the legs quickly can be trained and maintained far more easily than preserving tendon elasticity, strength and joints.

Use the right amino acid supplements and you are good.

Breakfast In Bed wrote:

Moran alert wrote:

It's a fact that muscle mass and raw power declines as we age. If we gradually lose our higher "gears" as we age, we must compensate by stressing turnover.

Part of aging is reduced ability to move quickly, and that includes cadence aka moving your limbs more quickly.

Tell that to this guy:

Supralapsarian wrote:

agent orange. wrote:

What also declines is vo2. Maybe you need slower turnover to compensate for that.

This. Former 13:1x 5k runner (I ran under 13:20 a handful of times in my early/mid 20’s).

I am 49. At 40 I raced in the mid 180’s and trained around 175-180. At 49, I train around 160-165 and race around 175. My times are no different at 49 than at 40, with the exception that my 400m time (time trial, not race) dropped a second.

That said, I will say that I have noticed optimal cadences dropping a bit in my athletes, due to the super shoes.

This makes you perhaps the fastest runner ever to post here! Not that you necessarily want to go public, but there's only one runner I could find with a several times in the 13:10s and non faster who is 49 right now and ran those races in his early 20s. Whether or not you're him, great career with those times!

Lots of things get affected as we age. Everyone's body is different. The running factor that diminishes the most for me, may not be the one that diminishes the most for you. With that disclaimer, the biggest diminishing factor for me has been recovery from explosive work. I turn 60 in 11 days. And I am actually one of those older athletes who has stayed focused on maintaining power over the last 20 years. So I can't lay it on the doorstep of "use it or lose it".

They say "once a man twice a child." I really do believe it's very important for older athletes to do

more training volume like when one was in HS or younger as one ages. We have to leave those days of trying to do workouts when we are still a little sore. Recovery is the key. With the muscles recovered, we can still work on explosiveness and achieve much.

Which ones do you recommend any why?

long time XC racer wrote:

I'm in a similar boat to Coevett. I have always trained at about 175-180 cadence and raced about 180-182. I'm now 71 and did a 5k XC race this morning with average cadence at 182, and max at 226 in my finishing kick. 30 years ago that got me mid-5 minute pace. Now it barely gets me under 7:00 pace. The difference is all reduced stride length. I think that loss of tendon elasticity, strength and joint wear all slowly but inexorably reduce stride length. The neuro-muscular pathways to spin the legs quickly can be trained and maintained far more easily than preserving tendon elasticity, strength and joints.

A few years ago i went to an expert physiologist and he told me that with aging the lost of flexibility goes down much more than the lost of muscle strength.

So this is the bottleneck after 40y.