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Podcast Data
29th January 2023
"Cadence Run"
Brief Summary of Episode
Welcome back to the podcast and if you’ve been listening to our past episodes I just want to say a big thank you. Don’t know if you know that this is my second attempt at doing a podcast. My first was over 5 years ago. Just to let you know it was about programming. Anyway let’s move on and talk about today’s episode. We are going to go into the weeds of the technical side of running.
Bullet Points of Key Topics:
- We are going to talk about Cadence:
- What does it mean?
- Is there a right Cadence?
- How can I improve my Cadence?
What has been my experience of improving Cadence.
Also, we are going to talk about intervals. What is the history behind intervals? How will it improve my running? Is it really for me? I hope to give you a simplified version and if nothing else it will arm you with the knowledge of why it could be useful. As someone once said – Knowledge is a very powerful thing!
What is Cadence?
Put simply, cadence – also known as stride rate – is the number of steps a runner takes per minute (SPM). It’s the most common metric used to measure running form and remains important for several reasons.
For starters, the shorter your stride length and the quicker your stride rate, the faster and better you run. If you have a low cadence, you likely also have a long stride.
Runners who over stride tend to lock their knees and slam their heels to the ground on every step. This slows you down, creates a choppy, bouncy gait, and puts extra pressure on muscles and bones, making you more susceptible to injury.
By increasing your cadence, you’re doing more than moving your feet faster; you’re changing the positioning of where your foot lands.
This naturally decreases your stride length and increases your turnover, which means you’re wasting less energy moving up and down (from the ground to the air and vice versa).
Benefits of Cadence:
When you increase your cadence, you also limit the force with which your body hits the ground.
If you have a low cadence, you’re spending more time up in the in-air displacing your body mass so you hit the ground much harder than if you had a high cadence.
The more steps you take per minute, the less time you spend in the air, equaling a softer impact on landing.
Louise Damen article says that Cadence can be used as a marker of Fatigue.
Runners begin to lose form and their cadence.
This, along with information about pace and even heart rate can be useful in determining if there’s a point in your run when you can no longer sustain your target pace.
You can then use this information to make some adjustments to your training.
Finding your current and optimal running cadence.
For many years, running experts encouraged runners to increase their stride rate to 180 SPM to achieve optimal running economy.
This was based on legendary running coach Jack Daniels’ analysis of the strides of elite distance runners at the 1984 Olympics.
He found the fastest and most efficient
Plus, we have a new feature on the podcast you can now send me a message. Yep you heard it right- Brian's Run Pod has become interactive with the audience. If you look at the top of the Episode description tap on "Send us a Text Message". You can tell me what you think of the episode or alternatively what you would like covered. If your lucky I might even read them out on the podcast.
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