Today we have the letter C of our ABC's of running and I decided that we would look at Cadence. For a runner, cadence is the number of steps taken per minute and it also known as stride rate.
But why is this important?
The thing about cadence is that a faster cadence generally means a shorter stride length which studies have shown that the faster you run the better you run, with your foot striking the ground for a shorter period of time and reducing the impact on your body. A lower cadence on the other hand has been shown to create a longer stride, with runners locking their knees and striking the ground with their heels.
The goal of increasing your cadence is not simply moving your legs faster but trying to change where you food lands, with the intent to have you feet land underneath your body with you feel landing on their mid foot instead of your feet landing in front of your hips on their heels.
If your looking for the optimal cadence, there is no one size fits all approach. It has been shown that world class athletes tend to run between 180 and 200 steps per minute. But you need to realise that your height, weight, running ability and the type of runs you are doing will affect your cadence.
An interesting test would be to try and track your running cadence with a watch or smartphone app, and then try to increase your cadence by only a small amount, say 6 steps per minute to see how it affects your speed, form and the feel of you run. By making some small tweaks and being conscious to your running, it could allow you to become faster and more efficient as a runner.
If you missed my earlier posts, you can see them at the following link:
@run.vince.run/the-abc-s-of-running-the-letter-a
@run.vince.run/running-abc-s-b-is-for-bq