Increasing Cadence, Improving Balance, and Reducing Impact

Audio Transcript

Hayley: Hey Runners Connect fans. Today’s question is, how do you train yourself on things such as increasing cadence, impact, and balance?

That’s a great question. A lot of runners make the mistake of just running. But working on these other aspects of fitness will help to make you a stronger more resilient runner. Let’s cover cadence and impact as they go hand in hand.

Cadence refers to your step rate when you’re running. That means how many steps you take per minute. Increasing this can reduce loading on your hip and knee joints, and may reduce the risk of running related injuries.

Recreational runners usually have stride rates of 150-170, that’s strides per minute and less than 160 indicates that you’re over striding.

Now that’s something you want to avoid. Over striding means that your foot contacts the ground way ahead of your hips. You’ll experience greater braking forces and impact on each stride, and that’s definitely something you want to avoid.

180 are thought to be optimal but you should get there gradually.

Increasing your cadence is the best way to reduce your impact but you don’t want to make big jumps with this.

It’s a good idea to get some kind of measurement before you start. It’s key because you know your starting point and where you’ve got to get to.

There are several ways to measure. Your running watch might be able to tell you this or a power meter, if you have one, can do this for you. This is one of the things that our sponsor Stryd can do.

You cannot calculate it yourself. If you count the number of times your left foot hits the ground whilst you’re running for 30 seconds, say you get 45, then double it to give you the number for 60 seconds.

Double it again to give you both feet, that’s 180, and that would be optimal.

But if it’s less than that, you’ll want to have a go at increasing it.

When you first start to think about increasing it, you want to do this for a small amount of time to start with. A 5% increase to start with is about right.

You’ll want to try and change it for short periods of time so include short distances within a run where you try to increase by that 5%.

Once you can comfortably run around 5 K without really thinking about it at that new stride rate, you can increase by another 5% and keep doing that until you’re in the optimal range.

You might find it helpful to use a metronome which you can get from Amazon or download as an app on your phone, to help you to know when to step.

You might also find it useful to use a treadmill to start with, so you can keep the terrain and speed constant while you’re experimenting with increasing your stride rate.

Persevere as this can take some time but its associated with significantly reduced injury rates and more efficient running.

Impact. Like I said, increasing your cadence is the best way to reduce the impact. There are a few other things you can do to help.

You can try running with an upright posture and a slight forward lean, again reducing braking forces. Strike the ground below your hips, not in front of them, again to prevent that over striding which increases the braking forces and the impact. Focus on landing lightly and softly. Remind yourself to do this during easy runs.

They’ll soon become second nature.

Things like incorporating strides and drills into your run can also help with this. Whilst you’re doing them, focus on being light on your feet and moving your feet quickly.

The third thing you asked about is balance. Balance [also in its appropriate inception 05:00] is something that can reduce your risk of injury especially ankle sprains. Several studies have shown that ankle injuries are reduced in those who practice balance training.

Ankle sprains can be a nightmare for runners, particularly those who run off road. Balance training doesn’t take much time or equipment. A little goes a long way so it really is worth including in small doses and it’s really simple.

You can start by balancing on one leg whilst you’re cooking, washing up, whilst you’re reading a book, anything really.

When that gets easy, you’ll just increase the difficulty.

There are so many different progressions you can do. You can close your eyes. You can throw and catch a ball with a training partner while standing on one leg.

I’ve heard that one elite runner brushes her teeth while standing on one leg. I think I tried that for a little bit. It was quite tricky.

I think I tried closing my eyes as well. I’ve never had a serious ankle sprain though.

Balance training takes little time and equipment, but it does make sense to include it, especially if you go off road when you’re running. So there’s three things: cadence, impact, and balance.

By improving them, you add to your resilience as a runner and you become more efficient, faster.

That’s a really good question and hopefully you can all learn a lot from that. Thanks for asking me.

For those of you listening that want to have your questions answered by one of the Runners Connect coaches, head over to runnersconnect.net/daily click the record button to send your question over

Finally, a shout out to our sponsor Stryd.

Stryd is the first wearable power meter for runners. So what is a power meter? It’s a measure of how much work you’re doing, and how fast you’re doing it. Pretty cool, huh? Power has been used in cycling for decades and is finally available for runners.

Your pace is affected by hills and weather but power isn’t. So you can use your power to keep your level of effort consistent, you can take advantage of the conditions keep your effort level the same regardless of terrain.

Stryd finds a real time objective gauge of your effort levels so you can keep the easy days easy and the hard days hard regardless of pace or conditions. There are loads more to love about Stryd but if you’re all ready to get your own, go to stryd.com and use coupon code RC20 to get $20 off of your order.

Hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you haven’t already, consider heading over to iTunes or your favorite podcast directory and subscribing or leaving a review. It would really help us reach more runners like you.