Improving Run Cadence

m_max

I am currently in week one of the pre-season plan and today’s skill run had the focus as a cadence of 90. I haven’t focused on run cadence before so I bought the foot pad for my Garmin 910. During my run today the best I could do was 84 and that was in the first mile. After that I backed off to my normal (let’s do the time) pace and averaged 77. What is the best way for me to get my cadence up without beating myself up?

Dino Sarti

Congrat's on your first post!

Strides.... Do the running drill, keep your eye on the foot pod data field on your 910 and you will get there. Here is bit more data from active threads going on now in the forum. I try and shorten my stride, avoid reaching out with my foot and focus on turning my feet over. I also always use the foot pod.



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IanPowell

I did the strides in my workout and counted left foot strikes for fifteen seconds. The goal is 22 and I was hitting 21. My hip flexors are still pretty tight though from IMFL. I'm almost there. But I guess the idea is to get a better fore/ mid foot strike.

John Withrow

Hey Mark--
My cadence used to be in the 70's. and after a yr of hard effort, the mid 80's is now "natural" and I can do the low-90's with effort. I put cadence on my watch and spend many weeks/months constantly looking at it as I ran. It felt very weird at first, but feels way less weird now. It's a long process, but well worth the effort.

m_max

Thanks for the info everyone.

I will set-up my alerts to something that I think I can hit and build from there. I will probably try and set some runs as intervals with 1 min at 90 and 3 min comfortable and repeat till finish.

Thanks again.

Mark

Coach Patrick

great advice, and good work Mark. Just focus on getting that foot DOWN when it's under your knee...no more over striding...visualize a horse's front leg unfurling and the pouncing to the ground.

m_max

Thanks for the tip Caoch Patrick. I will keep  working at it.

SarWah

OK another tool is being added to my ever increasing 'gadgets' list - I have been debating purchasing the Garmin foot pod for my 910 for a few days - Hi Ho... its off to Wiggle I go

Jess Withrow

I find remembering, "knees down, heels up," works well for me to keep my cadence high. Like Coach P said - I was an over-strider, and keeping the knees "down" (ie, not lifting the leg from the hip and powering through the stride) and allowing my heel to "float" up behind me has really helped remedy that and increase my cadence without much effort. It's a tip I was given from a ChiRunning coach....

rmiller

Posted By Sara Pixley on 03 Jan 2013 04:53 PM

OK another tool is being added to my ever increasing 'gadgets' list - I have been debating purchasing the Garmin foot pod for my 910 for a few days - Hi Ho... its off to Wiggle I go

DO IT!

I just got one for christmas, and although it's been fairly easy to hit ~90 during LSD pace running, or even MP running - in the middle of a threshold interval there's just too much going on to really get good feedback unless you have an internal metronome in your head (actually, more on that in a sec...)  

I found that with the footpod, I can easily just check whether my cadence dropped 5-10 strides/min during threshold or faster intervals due to attention being diverted to staying on a specific pace.  Turns out, I can have a tendency to do that

Regarding the metronome - this sounds silly - but another thing I found helpful was to find an online one, set it to 176 or 184 (there is no 180), and sit there listening to it for a few minutes to let the rhythm sink into your head.  Each beat is a foot hitting the pavement.  Do that a few times over the course of a few days, and it helps set your internal clock so that when you are on the road, you can try to match the pace of your feet hitting the ground with that speed.

JeremyBehler

Mark...I initiated one of the original topics linked above. What I can tell you is that it takes time. I've been focusing on it for the last couple months and have made improvements but it still doesn't feel natural. That said...for a given Z3 pace...the RPE is lower.

run2far

Cruising the internet earlier last year, i found under cadence running that a disc juckey in california did week-ends and recorded his shows which you can download from about 159 to 180 cadence (both feet) for those who run with an ear bud. Haven't tried it myself, but each show all the music is at the same beat, so you could download 10 shows, 2 beats apart, etc. Just a thought (maybe I'll even try it, as I am stuck in a rut, too) Joe Newbie

Michael Johnson

Under iTunes you can get Motion Traxx Podcast or Podrunner. They mix Techno music that is labelled based on the bpm. I just download the one's at 180 bpm and ocassionally listen to them on runs.

Joe Matchette

Thanks for the rec's MJ! I have thought about downloading a program (beattunes, rec'd by WJ) but have never gotten around to it. I am going to give these two a try, but like what I have heard so far.

Scott Alexander

You can also download bpm analyzer, and update your own mp3s with the bpm. Then mix and match your own tracks to a specific playlist to listen to. I find it easier to run to my own music rather than some random stuff I might not know from some random dj (and this is from a long time dj).

SarWah

I've used the Motion Traxxx podcasts before and they are pretty good, although I prefer the Ministry of Sound Compilations.

Dave Tallo

I let the song "My Sharona" play on an infinite loop at 90bpm in my brain.