Forums >Running 101>Pace vs stride
They say 180 steps/min pace is the magic goal number to do well. 2 days I go I ran intervals and kept a 8:55-9:30 pace. Each step was only about 3 feet though.
What are some drills I can do to get longer steps?
Which is more important when training; less steps to hit a longer stride, or keeping my 180 tempo intact?
Look for stretches that will loosen your hips. One of the things I like to do is walking lunges. These strengthen my glutes and quads as well as loosening up my hips. Sometimes when working on my stride length I'll slow my rate and work on lengthening my stride. I'll even do "intervals" where I'll way over stride. I'll focus on slowing my turnover rate but really increase the length of my stride. Do that a few times a week and it seems to help loosen up the hips and you then have a longer stride.
I don't think at this stage (intervals at 9:00-9:30 pace) you need to work on stride lengthening, just work on overall strengthening (lunges/squats/core etc), static and dynamic stretching and running more and you'll see a longer stride and faster pace automatically. And 180steps is a coincidence and probably a median number, nothing magical about it. Shorter folk like me will have 180-190 stride rate, while taller folks may have 165-175 while both running at the same effort and pace.
an amazing likeness
Not so fast... Running fast involves longer strides and faster strides. So if you already are blessed with long strides, why try to shorten them? When a runner seems to "bound", most people would react to it by trying to shortern the strides; the actual fact is, you should try to improve your stride frequency. Even if your stride length is very short, if you try to slow down your stride frequency, you'll start to bounce up and down. Before you quickly conclude that you are over-striding, you should check your stride frequency. Most of good runners would take somewhere around 170~190 steps per minute. If your stride frequency is less than 160, your bouncing action is most likely caused by lack of leg turn-over. You should work on quick turn-over by (1) doing some quick step drills, high-knee, butt-kick, quick step drills (like some football practice), etc. Then, to make sure, you may want to measure your stride length as well. If, say, your strides are something like over 6-foot when you're only 5'7", then, yeah, you're most likely over-striding. But if you're over 6-foot tall and your stride length is only 5 foot, then I wouldn't necessarily call it "over-striding" (unless your torso is very very long and your legs are very very short). Don't jump to conclusing that your strides are too long. Do your homework first and get some facts straight before you start doing anything specific particularly seemingly hurting your strength which could be to your advantage in the future.
Not so fast... Running fast involves longer strides and faster strides. So if you already are blessed with long strides, why try to shorten them? When a runner seems to "bound", most people would react to it by trying to shortern the strides; the actual fact is, you should try to improve your stride frequency.
Even if your stride length is very short, if you try to slow down your stride frequency, you'll start to bounce up and down. Before you quickly conclude that you are over-striding, you should check your stride frequency. Most of good runners would take somewhere around 170~190 steps per minute. If your stride frequency is less than 160, your bouncing action is most likely caused by lack of leg turn-over. You should work on quick turn-over by (1) doing some quick step drills, high-knee, butt-kick, quick step drills (like some football practice), etc.
Then, to make sure, you may want to measure your stride length as well. If, say, your strides are something like over 6-foot when you're only 5'7", then, yeah, you're most likely over-striding. But if you're over 6-foot tall and your stride length is only 5 foot, then I wouldn't necessarily call it "over-striding" (unless your torso is very very long and your legs are very very short).
Don't jump to conclusing that your strides are too long. Do your homework first and get some facts straight before you start doing anything specific particularly seemingly hurting your strength which could be to your advantage in the future.
Want to see more where that came from? Here's the link.
Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.
A great read. I really like MikeyMike's post in that thread.
it's very inefficient to run with bad cadence . Keep cadence as close as possible to 180 or event higher. Stride length will come with a time
RunByFeel.net
...Stride length will come with a time
..and fade with age.
Quote from BimBamBooh on 9/6/2016 at 1:11 PM:
Amen. The last two years have been a constant battle to keep my stride length from shortening too much and remaining fluid.
Walk-Jogger
I have to disagree with you. There's nothing magical about 180 strides per minute. Although it just happens to be close to my "default" rate. And beyond a point, stride length will not keep increasing without working on it.
In training I often intentionally slow my cadence down from 180 to 177 or even less and lengthen my stride precisely because it feels MORE efficient, ie "easier". It takes a bit less energy to lope along easy and relaxed with a long stride than to drive my legs faster. I'm 5'7" and my stride length ranges from about 1.10 meters at 173-ish strides per minute at my very slowest training paces, up to 1.39 meters and 180+ strides per minute average and up to 197 SPM at the finishing sprint when road racing. I do a lot of speed work in my training, and one of the reasons is to develop and maintain a long stride, often but not always at a fairly fast cadence. At age 61, the long stride is more important to me than the faster cadence.
Milktruck's link to Knobby's post on this whole subject was right on the money.
Retired & Loving It
Except that like most good Nobby posts it was some really good stuff mixed with a healthy dose of nonsense--such as stride length being related to height.
Trust that Mo Farah, all 5' 9" of him, has a longer stride length than any 6 foot tall runner on this thread and it's not because he's over striding. Stride length is the distance your center of mass travels between foot strikes--it has much more to do with power to weight ratio than anything. Most of your "stride" is spent airborne. Basically, stride length (like race times) is a result of fitness.
Runners run
Except that like most good Nobby posts it was some really good stuff mixed with a healthy dose of nonsense--such as stride length being related to height. Trust that Mo Farah, all 5' 9" of him, has a longer stride length than any 6 foot tall runner on this thread and it's not because he's over striding. Stride length is the distance your center of mass travels between foot strikes--it has much more to do with power to weight ratio than anything. Most of your "stride" is spent airborne. Basically, stride length (like race times) is a result of fitness.
Again, I agree with you. I'm 6'6" tall, and I do not think that makes me faster than shorter runners even if I can probably put a greater distance between my front foot and my back foot on the ground (standing still) than many of them. My lack of fitness is slowing me down, not my lack of hip flexibility. For some people it might be the case, but I would not make it into a general recommandation to become faster.
Along the line of my OP... It was brought to my attention that my aerobic base needs work. My 70% MHR is 127; 80% is 144. I can barely trot and break 150. So how to I run at a pace that's aerobic (127-144), but yet still running. Obviously I can't maintain 170-180 steps and stay in the aerobic range, even with a 6 inch stride.
...Running sure was easier when I'd get out and just run.
Along the line of my OP... It was brought to my attention that my aerobic base needs work. My 70% MHR is 127; 80% is 144. I can barely trot and break 150. So how to I run at a pace that's aerobic (127-144), but yet still running. Obviously I can't maintain 170-180 steps and stay in the aerobic range, even with a 6 inch stride. ...Running sure was easier when I'd get out and just run.
Disclaimer: I don't train by HRM. But based on a basic understanding of running physiology, something seems off here.
How do you know your 70% MHR is 127 and 80% is 144? If you're going by generic age-based formulas I suspect it's way off for you.
My .02? Get rid of the HRM and just run.
Even if one knew their Max HR, there is no easy way to say some percentage of it is aerobic and above it is anaerobic. Many with Max HR around 180-190 range can run a couple of hours at 150-160 HR (I am one of them). If that was anaerobic, no way I can maintain my pace and not feel like it was a race.
So yes just get out and run. You'll find your easy, moderate, tempo and race effort just by running at these various efforts maybe once every other week, with most of the runs at easy pace, and race effort about once a month.
What mikeymike said. Just run. I never ran with a HRM but unbeknownst to me a wrist HRM was built into my new garmin. At first I was going to turn it off but then I just left it on out of curiosity. I don't know if it's accurate but it seems fairly consistent. I know that my max heart rate might be way higher than I thought, like 190 or so according to the watch, and I can hardly get out the door without the heart rate being into the 140-150s, regularly into the 160s and if I push it into the 170s. If I went by the HRM, I basically would never be able to go out for a run based on the "guidelines" you are mentioning. Unless you have a medical indication for following those guidelines, I would ditch the the HRM or treat it as a novelty item there for your amusement.