Increasing Stride Length and Cadence Without Overstriding

Audio Transcript

Michael: Hey Runners Connect fans. Welcome to another episode of the Run to the Top Xtra kick podcast. I’ll be answering a question about increasing stride length from Jay.

Jay asks, “How can I train to increase stride length?”

First off, the most important thing to begin with, is to make sure that you increase your stride length. If you just think you do, that’s very different from actually knowing it.

A great test to see if you actually need to increase your stride length is to test your cadence. What you do is you go out on a run, you time one minute, maybe in the middle of the run when you’ve kind of warmed up a little bit.

Not too late in the run when maybe your form is breaking down a little bit, but at least 10 or 20 minutes into the run when you’re kind of warmed up and at your normal pace.

This is just an easy run; a nice, easy, paced run. Time one minute, count your steps either on one foot or both.

If you do on one just double it, but if you count both feet, basically what you’re going to be looking for is the ideal cadence and again this is, I’ll talk about it in a second here, this is not really a scientific measurement.

The “ideal cadence” is about 180 steps per minute. What that means is, if you’re below 170 or so, you’re probably over striding. That’s clearly to the point where you’re just not taking enough steps, you’re probably over striding.

If you’re above 185, I usually don’t see a lot of people way above 180, but if you’re above 185, you might be under striding, and that’s kind of a different problem, and we won’t talk about that much today and it’s also very rare. We’ll mostly talk about over striding, because that’s much more common.

Back to the fact that the 180 number it’s really not scientific.

All it is is an average of some elite athletes. Somebody probably just watched a video of elite runners and basically found that there was a right around average of 180 for their cadence, so again it’s not a scientific measure.

It’s just a good gauge for you to determine how far off you are. If you’re really far off, then there might be a problem. I’m not saying there is a problem, but there might be.

If you do the cadence test and you find you are indeed over striding, then there are a couple ways to help your stride, help improve your stride for a more efficient running form.

Number one is actually manipulating your cadence.

This is what most people talk about when they talk about cadence and stride efficiency, stride length. They talk about manipulating your cadence.

As we mentioned earlier on those easy runs, you’re timing that minute trying to see what you’re cadence is, go on an easy run, time one minute early into the run, 10 or 20 minutes or so into the run, and run as normally as possible.

I know that’s easier said than done, but don’t really think about it. Just press the split button on your watch and keep running.

Time that minute, count your steps and see what you’re at. Later on in the run, what you’re going to want to do is, time another minute and try to get a little bit closer to 180.

Let’s assume that you’re about 170 on the first one, what you’re going to want to do later in the run is time another minute, at least 10 minutes or so after, you don’t want to do it right after because you just don’t want to go crazy with this in a run, you want to do it gradually.

Later on in the run time, another minute and see if you can get a little closer to 180. That’s not that many steps if you think about it for a minute; that’s 10 more steps that includes both feet in one minute.

That’s not that huge of a difference, so a lot of people will overshoot this, so don’t feel like you need to go crazy.

If you are at 170, 172, 174, it’s really not that huge of a difference to get to 180, especially if you’re up 175, 176. It’s not that huge of a difference to get to 180, so don’t overshoot it, don’t shorten your stride and make it choppy.

This is going to be done over several weeks. You don’t want to do this too fast especially if you’re severely over striding.

If you’re at 160 steps per minute, this is usually a lot of times going to affect taller people.

There’s a lot of different factors into it, but if you’re at 160, 180 steps per minute, that actually is going to be a big change. It’s going to be a very big change for your body.

You don’t want to do this very quickly. You want to give it some time, and you want this to happen over several weeks, over a pretty good stretch of time so that your body has time to adapt and change its running form gradually.

Now, the second big way – and this is honestly the better way in general, so we’re going to talk a little bit more about this is, form drills.

This is the better long-term solution.

Form drills are designed to mimic the specific characteristics of good running form, and it’s in short compartmentalized sections, so it’s not necessarily like the cadence where you’re just trying to manipulate one thing.

With drills, you’re working on several different aspects of your running form within each drill and combining them.

This works on your muscle memory as well. This is usually going to be better than thinking about good form because when you talk about good form, you can talk about, okay you just used to think about it.

You know what a good form is and you just consciously think about it.

The problem with that is that typically, once you forget about it, five, 10 minutes later into the run, you kind of forget about it and your form goes back to what it usually is.

Form drills are going to help to really drill in that muscle memory and make it a more permanent thing rather than just something that you do when you think about it.

With form drills, we’re going to work on your upright posture, your hip extension, your arm carriage, which is very important.

I know we don’t really talk about that a whole lot because it seems so secondary to everything else, but it definitely is important, so definitely something to look at.

In addition, you want to look at your balance.

Your balance is definitely important and I know that sounds a little bit weird, but balance is definitely important, and it’s something that we need to make sure that you’re on top, when you’re talking about your running form.

Before I list the running drills, a few tips you want to do is to start slow; that’s number one. You don’t want to launch into these doing 100 meters per drill at first.

You want to start very slow and you want to focus on your technique.

Technique is number one. You don’t want to get through each drill fast, that doesn’t really matter, what matters is your technique.

Over time you’ll be able to get to the point where you do the drills a little bit quicker, but again you’re not trying to move forward fast, you’re just trying to do the actual drill quickly.

At first you focus on technique even if that means you have to go slow; that’s totally fine.

You’re going to want to do this about two or three times per week, ideally after your easy runs or even after a long run.

After a long run can be a really great time to do these, because that’s when your body is typically at its most exhausted point.

If you’re drilling in this good form and all these great habits, that’s a good time to do it because it’s doing it when your body is tired, which is when we all need to focus on our form. It’s when you’re getting tired and your body breaks down.

Then yet again, start with about 20 or 30 metres per drill at most. You don’t need to start with much and then you can kind of gradually work up as you get a little bit more comfortable with each one.

The drills, these are all detailed on our website. Just visit runnersconnect.net/form-and-running-drills.

You’ll see all these detailed and it will be much easier to follow, but I will list them and give you the idea of what they’re going to help you with.

First one’s the A skip. This is usually the one that a lot of people are familiar with. This is going to work on your knee lift and your upright posture. This is probably going to be the easiest one to do. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it will at least be the quickest one to get down and also very important.

Then there’s the B skip, which is basically just a modified A skip, as you’ll see on the website.

This is going to work on your hamstring flexibility and your balance and coordination. Then we have the straight leg bound.

This is going to work on generating power from your hips, your hamstrings and your glutes. This is very, very important for runners because too often, when you’re a long distance runner, you’re kind of, I’m not saying you’re running slow, but when you think about it compared to a sprint, whatever you’re training at, you are running slow relative to your sprinting pace.

What happens in that case is a lot of times your glutes, your hamstrings, your hips can become a little inactive, especially glutes. Long distance runners are notoriously dormant and just not really activated as they should be, so straight leg bound is going to help activate those muscle groups, and then help you generate power from them as well.

Then there’s the last one is called the G drill.

This is definitely going to work on your balance and coordination and then in addition, it helps improve your cadence and stride frequency as well, which is important to what we’re talking about here.

Now again, these are not exhaustive, and that doesn’t necessarily cover every good running drill, but adding those four drills in two or three times a week, will make a huge difference over time if you really focus on the form and doing them right.

A couple of other things to focus on.

You want to make sure you have a good forward lean when you’re running. For some people, this can be a pretty simple solution to their issue. If you’re leaning back when you run or even you’re like totally upright, if you’re just completely perpendicular to the ground, that’s not really what you want either.

You want to be a very slight, forward lean.

A good way to test this out and like practice it is doing something called falling strides. Now, I wouldn’t recommend doing this if you’re unsure at all about your balance or your coordination, but what you can do is you essentially stand up straight, your feet together, and you basically let yourself fall forward.

But then, at the very last second, you let your body catch itself and you lunge your knee forward and you start running.

Maybe two or three or four steps after you catch yourself and you can go right into a stride after that, after you’ve caught yourself on the fall.

Three or four steps or so after that, you’re going to be right about your optimal forward lean and then it’s usually a few meters later that most of us tend to lean back a little too far, and that’s where we start over striding. That can be good.

It’s not as important as the running drills. I would say those are much more important, but one good idea would be to set up a video camera, set up your phone somewhere to where you can just film yourself running really quick, and if you just film yourself doing a stride or running easy, because that tends to be where we all run with poor form, watch yourself run.

If you see that you’re really upright and not having any sort of forward lean or even leaning slightly backwards, you might need to work on your forward lean.

The other thing to mention is your foot strike. This is obviously important and we always talk about that mid foot strike. You know ideally not striking at the heel, which is what most people who over stride tend to do.

You don’t necessarily want to manipulate this yourself; you don’t just want to say, if you’re heel striking, you don’t just want to say, “Okay, I’m just going to start striking at the mid foot.”

That’s a very difficult thing to do and often times, it’s going to alter your running form potentially in ways that are negative, so it’s better to focus on the cadence and over time if you have the right cadence, your foot strike will take care of itself.

To conclude, when done consistently over time, a combination of drills and focusing on cadence can lead to improved running form and stride rate.

Runners Connect fans, that’s it for today. Don’t forget to submit your questions and have a great run today.

Finally, today’s episode is brought to you by Runners Beans. Their new product Daily Tonic, is a one shot solution covering all of the micronutrient needs of a long distance runner.

With Runners Beans, you don’t think you’re feeling properly, you know you’re giving your body exactly what it needs to perform at its best.

Liquid design leads to a crazy high absorption rate. That way you’re not spending money on something you’re not sure your body can even take in.

It will live you feeling stronger, healthier and more resilient in recovering from strenuous exercise.

To learn more and see some amazing deals, check out runnersconnect.net/runnersbeans. You’ll get a 10% discount using the code EXTRAKICK at the checkout.