Forums >General Running>Cadence Training
I'm interested in this concept purely because I noticed a totally stupid trait during today's abismal training effort. When I felt the need to slow my pace (this doesn't happen often as I am pretty darn slow but today was a mood issue) I noticed that I simply started taking smaller steps rather than taking slower strides! All that means is that I was running a lot longer to cover the same distance and my pace appears to drop - but really my feet are hitting the floor many more times to cover the same distance. I am running at the same cadence rate (always nice to have a new word to bore the non-runners that surround me in the real world so thanks for that) but achieving less. I am a little confused about the cadence thing. It seems to me that the technique I described above is a stupid mistake on my part, or am I wrong? Logic would tell me that I should slow my cadence rate rather than keeping it the same and covering a shorter distance? I can understand that if elite runners are all having a cadence rate of appox 180 than that is obviously the right place to be. I think though that there might be a danger in someone new to running distances like myself, focusing on this particular factor in their performance. Thanks though. It's given me food for thoguht. I'm not feeling very bright today and I may have misunderstood the entire thread!
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I think the fact that most elite runners tend to have a stride rate of around 180 is a result of being fit, not the other way around. I think most runners, including elites, will eventually find that a cadence in this range is most efficient. I'm not convinced that intentionally trying to increase you cadence is the best approach. I do think that trying to focus on not overstriding can help, and will probably result in a faster cadence for someone who is an overstrider to begin with.
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Just to throw my two cents in--sometimes I monitor my stride rate on runs and notice that when I'm tired, the first thing that starts to go is cadence. If I can be conscious of this and think "increase cadence" instead of "speed up" I find that I often relax and feel much better.
Newton told us a long time ago that it takes no more energy for an object to travel at a higher velocity than a lower velocity on a level surface The moral of this is that once we get up to speed what costs energy in running is not moving fast, (if we disregard the effects of wind which seem to me to be fairly minimal) it is all the extra motion we have to make to move fast.
Finally--is the 180 stride rate a result of being fit? I have also experimented with various levels of fitness , and find that my stride rate doesn't change much. I also know a lot of people who workout more than I do and must be fitter but can't run as fast--just like when I jump in the pool and get dropped by out of shape swimmers. I think that runners tend to overemphasize the correlation between fitness and fastness and underemphasize the mechanics of running, maybe because the mechanics can't be changed so easily. I don't think, though, that increasing fitness automatically will give you the right stride rate. It will probably just make you stronger and skinnier.
What extra motion is there in running faster? Aren't we just making the same motion but pushing off with more force? When we are running on the surface of the earth, through air, we are definitely being acted upon by several unbalanced forces. So moving faster does cost more energy, doesn't it? I don't think you can disregard air resistence as much as you think. Then again I'm no physicist.
I think that's my real question......Why work on upping your cadence, with no regard to other parts of the system (other than general miles)?
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Why work on upping your cadence, with no regard to other parts of the system (other than general miles)?
I have seen no plan that specifically addresses it (other than that you should work on it), and nothing that has a day on the schedule where you're specifically counting your cadence with the emphasis to up your stride count.
I personally feel that you CAN increase cadence, and efficiency, but you don't do it by just trying to run at 180 steps per minute. That has been my argument (maybe I wasn't quite so clear at the beginning, but this whole issue has been in my head for a while, and I was trying to seek fresh perspective).
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