I run with a steady 88-92 cadence, but am having trouble lengthening my stride. This obviously puts a cap on my top speed, and I struggle to get below 6 minute mile pace. Does anybody have any tips on how to improve/ increase stride length? Is this a leg strength thing?
You’re thinking about it backwards. The speed that you’re running will naturally dictate the relative length of your stride. It’s not the other way around.
If you wanna get faster (if you’re primarily interested in top speed), doing drills and fast strides regularly will help with the biomechanics of running fast. Doing 200-300 repeats at the appropriate race pace is also a good way to get comfortable running a certain speed w/o destroying yourself.
Unless you’re training for an event from the mile down, I think worrying about pure speed or speed-endurance is putting the horse before the cart. Your threshold and general aerobic endurance are much more important indicators of performance from the 5k up. The 3k is a pretty even blend of all three.
Longer stride length is a result of speed, not the cause, and has nothing to do with “stretching out your legs farther in front of/behind of center of mass”.
Longer stride length is a result of speed, not the cause, and has nothing to do with “stretching out your legs farther in front of/behind of center of mass”.
I think this might be only part of the story…Maybe his question should be…can you increase the distance you cover with each stride at a given pace?..ie…lower cadence vs. a higher cadence at the same pace…? Might it have something to do with ones ability to generate, transfer, and asorb force through a larger range of motion…???
Could this ability be a limiter to threshold speeds and not just top end speed?
I see this all the time in people who have developed the “marathon shuffle”
You made me think a bit:)
My limiter to going faster is my ability to pick my foot up off the ground fast enough. Picking it up too late causes the opposite reaction, which is landing in front too far. It does boil down to “strength” and technique. I focus on drills to reinforce getting my foot off the ground quicker…plyometrics: one footed jumps up stairs, box jumps. Focus is on picking feet up off the ground, not trying to push or bound.
Hope that is helpful.
You made me think a bit:)
My limiter to going faster is my ability to pick my foot up off the ground fast enough.
no its not.
Picking it up too late causes the opposite reaction, which is landing in front too far. It does boil down to “strength” and technique.
wrong again
Hope that is helpful.
not at all
You may want/wish to take a look at “Stride Angle” and “Over-Stride Angle” rather than pull a “Paulo” on this one SeasonsChange.
You made me think a bit:)
My limiter to going faster is my ability to pick my foot up off the ground fast enough. Picking it up too late causes the opposite reaction, which is landing in front too far. It does boil down to “strength” and technique. I focus on drills to reinforce getting my foot off the ground quicker…plyometrics: one footed jumps up stairs, box jumps. Focus is on picking feet up off the ground, not trying to push or bound.
Hope that is helpful.
Wouldn’t this imply that the fastest butt kicker (drill) would equal the fastest runner? :)…ok that was my smart ass answer…Really where I was going with my original questions were something along the lines of needing to identify each individuals limiters…There are a whole host of reasons for why someone “feels/looks” like they can’t run up to their potential…If we are just looking purely at the biomechanics and assume that OP has the physiology to run faster than his so called limit…then we would need to see him run…Yes, it is important to limit contact time, shorten your lever on the swing through, ect…
and plyometrics and running fast are great ways to increase your power/speed (and chances are power/strength is an issue here)…however I caution giving people advise to just run fast to run faster…because of the other factors these workouts will most likely just beat them up…Back to the whole marathon shuffle thing…I see runners out on the track all the time…just spinning there wheels (high cadence) and not really going anywhere…Do you really need 200 FS/minute to run 7:00 min pace? Their running has essentially went from Hard Landing weak push-off…to soft landing weaker push-off…
Anyways, I don’t think I helped the OP, but he should film himself running and post it and/or find a good runnning coach for a quick eval…and by the way Stride Angle is a good place to start…and then taking a look at what it take to increase that…probably along with dorsiflexion and shin angle
i would expect such a response from a chiropractor.
edit: found more of your garbage. wrong then, still wrong now.
.Back to the whole marathon shuffle thing…I see runners out on the track all the time…just spinning there wheels (high cadence) and not really going anywhere…Do you really need 200 FS/minute to run 7:00 min pace?
That would imply that in the scope of running, they are not running fast. If that is how they try to run fast, they need to change something.
The best way to run fast is to go run fast
.Back to the whole marathon shuffle thing…I see runners out on the track all the time…just spinning there wheels (high cadence) and not really going anywhere…Do you really need 200 FS/minute to run 7:00 min pace?
That would imply that in the scope of running, they are not running fast. If that is how they try to run fast, they need to change something.
The best way to run fast is to go run fast
I think we agree…as long as there is something else keeping them from actually running fast well
Interesting, I’ve tried a few things to go faster this winter:
Lengthing stride, increasing stride rate…It appears that what has helped me run the fastest is just practicing running faster and not thinking.
jaretj
Thanks. The universal response here seems to be that I should integrate more speed work into my workouts. I’ll try it. When I do sprint intervals my cadence shoots up to 105 though (this is where i max out) and it seems inconceivable that I should be running distance as such a high turnover rate.
My original thinking was that Speed = Cadence * Distance per Stride, so if my cadence seems about right then I need to increase my distance per stride to go faster.
Thanks. The universal response here seems to be that I should integrate more speed work into my workouts. I’ll try it. When I do sprint intervals my cadence shoots up to 105 though (this is where i max out) and it seems inconceivable that I should be running distance as such a high turnover rate.
My original thinking was that Speed = Cadence * Distance per Stride, so if my cadence seems about right then I need to increase my distance per stride to go faster.
yes, more speed work is the way to go. you might also find some slight downhill sections and do repeats.
Hope that is helpful.
not at all
Oh, the irony.
All my friends know me as being run speed challenged.
When I do my speedwork I’m normally at 92-95 (184-190), I have a gamin footpod so I can record it
When I run my easy run pace for short distances I’m 88-90 (176-180)
When I run my easy run pace for long distances I’m 85-87 (170-174)
I’m fairly short so I thought that lengthing my stride would help but that wound up with me reaching in front of my body with the stride.
When I concentrate on just running fast I appear to pull my leg through the stride which I think is the correct way to run.
Haile Gebreselassie is 5’5", and he doesn’t look like he’s ridiculously overstriding even when he was smashing world records at multiple distances.
I mentioned to my physio that I had been working to increase stride length. He said that most people who run and try to increase stride length end up getting hurt. That working to improve your turnover is a much better approach.
FWIW
I looked at him a lot, at 5’5" he is 1 inch taller than me but his legs are a lot longer than mine. His stride looks very natural to me.
Another person I looked at was Shelia Torimina, she is 1 inch shorter than I am, since she is a friend of my GF I get to talk to her every once in a while and has been a big inspiration for my running. She also looks natural but in order to run as fast as she does I would need a much bigger stride.
Reading a Biomechanics book that says running fast is about decreasing ground contact time. I’d suggest working on a fast foot strike with pre-tension in your hamstrings. It seems to be helping me.
Best
Bluey