Legs vs Lungs and run cadence
making a few observations as I'm moving through this outseason, and I'd like to hear if others have the same experience.
I've always had pretty good run cadence - I have just sat at 90 strikes per minute at easy, hard, or very very hard paces, and I'm constantly counting out 30 footstrikes on 20s on my watch. However, this OS, and particularly during the v02 block, I was noticing that I was really raising my cadence to achieve interval paces. I was also noting that my cadence was higher than normal at all other paces.
What I have discovered, however, is a 'ceiling' on my cadence where it seems like it was pushing up my heart rate too far. I was seeing about 10 bpm higher than normal on EP, and blowing up a LOT during v02 intervals.
This high turnover wasn't some master plan to get faster through efficiency, though. Looking at that v02 period through the rearview mirror, I think i might have had so much residual fatigue in my muscles from the v02 bike work that a big muscle push / larger contraction that would normally occur at 90 strikes per minute was just not possible, so in order to achieve whatever pace I needed, I would just turn into Crazy Legs Tallo and be well about 96 or 98. Very fast turnover.
This carried into the final LT block, but now facing this unsustainable HR with a higher stride ride, I made a very deliberate choice to slow to 90 strikes per min. All of a sudden, HR is down and paces are achieveable. I have to admit, though, it feels weird. Kinda like I'm bounding, or making big exaggerated muscle contractions when running fast. In fact, I was playing around with forcing myself to stay at 90 during this week's LT sets. It worked: despite having carried a lot a muscle fatigue from the previous day's bike/run BT, I was able to execute. Don't think I could have at a higher rate.
So is 90 my personal stride 'sweet spot?' Do others in EN have different stride rates that they observe between EP, MP, HMP, TP and so forth? (Matt A, I'd be very interested to hear from you on this point, particularly recalling your time training on the track and raising your cadence). Is it totally inconceivable that there might be different training adaptations for 'lungs' (which I think of as coming into play more at the very high stride rate) and adaptations for 'legs (which are coming in at 90)?' Definitely, the legs just intuitively feels more like the 'fitness is in the muscles' axiom, but I was very surprised that cadence was something that topped out or had diminishing returns at a certain rate.
Comments
The point of me saying this is that I tend to think it's (for lack of better terms) "unnatural" to force yourself into the same high cadence no matter what speed you're running. Usually people who don't like me saying that think I'm advocating slow turnover for slow running. I'm not. I'm just saying that if the easy runs are at 86-90, the threshold runds are at 90-93, and the really fast stuff is 93-95, that sounds perfectly reasonable to me. [I'm just making those numbers up, but they're obviously in the ballpark.]
In the last couple winters, I took to using fixed tempo music playlists to help me train my cadence "up", and now I'm running my threshold stuff in the 90-93 range. It doesn't bother me in the slightest that my faster/shorter intervals are faster cadence than that. I see no moral obligation to run all my runs at the fastest possible tempo.
On the other hand, I do make a conscious effort to make sure my cadence doesn't drop too much on my easy runs, just to keep up the good habits of the better stride and racing cadence.
http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/1999/05000/Biofeedback_and_relaxation_techniques_improve.15.aspx In summary I try to lenghthen my stride, but stay relaxed and efficient. Use form cues.
My quick notes of the top of my head
- I used to run at 80 or less, and I pretty much always had some nagging foot, ankle, knee, etc injury
- A year of run focus (and about 20lbs weight lose which likly helped a ton) and I got my cadence to over 90 for everything. I PRed at every distance and never got injuried
- My cadence is now typically 92 or 93 for an entire run and the same for an open or IM marathon
- At easy pace i'm around 91 or 92 most days, around 95 for HMP/TP and I've hit 100 during speedwork
- I now have a mid foot to fore foot strike for everything, i run very light on my feet and can do a ton of miles or drop into a marahon and not get injuried BUT i don't I'm not making many gains anymore
- I no longer focus on cadence during most runs, however I find it helpful if my form starts to slip at the end of a long run or race.
On a side note, on the bike I have definitely noticed that at <75 my quads start to burn first, but at >95 i tend to get tired or winded before my legs hurt... not sure if that is related or not but seems to follow the same thought process you have.
My take away is, just like everything else we need to train how we are going to race. On the bike I am almost always between 80-90 rpm and therefore I don't worry too much about the extremes. On the run I was always of the higher cadence is better mindset but not that I can hit 100 at times, I'm may have to re-think that a little.
Matt,
Since I am currently in that 80 or less always having knee, ankle, ITB etc problems, can I ask what you did beside losing 20 lbs to get your cadence up?
Thanks,
I am tall (not Jim Hansen tall) and have some long legs 35 inch inseam/short torso so maybe this makes up for it some. On the bike I ride on the high side around 88-92 rpms. Then again, I run like a baby giraffe so maybe you should disregard my advice.
I'm 90-92 for all speeds/distances up to 5k pace. If I try to run intervals faster than that, the only way I can achieve it is to increase cadence. I "learned" how to run @ age 50 (never having run a step before then). I learned out of some now-forgotten book that my cadence should be 90, so that's what I ran at. I also read that I should maintain the same cadence up or downhill, just alter stride length. So that's what I did. It took no thought or effort, and I didn't have any old habits to break. But I am lean (BMI of 21.5), with calves on the slender side, so that might make it easier.
I don't obsess about my cadcence, and hardly ever measure it. Only when I'm on a treadmill or a particularly boring long run will I do a quick check, maybe once a month or less. It's always the same. OTH, a friend of mine wears one of those metronomes on his wrist plus the cadence pod for his Garmin. He's all over the map without those crutches.
I don't think the weight lose and cadence change were related. The cadence change was becuase I foces on it (and running for a while). The weight chane was becuase I started counting calories. I actually worked out less that year than the previous year and I lost 20 lbs instead of 5, just becuase I watched how much I ate.
Going out and buying VFFs, newtons, or just trying to all of a sudden to all of your running on your forefoot will likely just injury more, but if you ease into it over time your body will adapt.
Totally conjecture here, but i think that higher cadence work (bike or run) tires out the brain-body connections quicker, rather than causing some kind of increased muscular fatigue. If that is true, it might be something that is trainable.
Scott, to add to what Matt said, two things that helped me when I bumped my cadence up were the Chi Running book, and a small, beeping metronome that I clipped to my hat, so I always knew what 90bpm should sound/feel like.
great discussion everyone, as usual
Pulling some of my data:
run from week 1 of OS: cadence was ~74 warmup/Z1, and 77-78 for my Z4 pace
Today, week 20 of OS: 79 during warmup Z1, and 83-84 for my Z4 pace.
During that time, my Z4 pace has moved from 7:45 to 7:33, and I expect my final OS test to move that down even further. Its a lot easier for me to keep Z4 pace now than it was a few months ago.
i did this by always focusing on form. Matt's points above are an excellent place to start. Cadence is something that I have really been focusing on since joining EN and reading from here and other sources that 90 is where I should be. I now run with the footpad at all times, not just inside. I'm hoping to get to 90 soon. old habits are hard to break!
@Dan 86-88 sounds a little low to me but not crazy low by any means. Given your inseam length and how well you run in general, I'd say it's working out for you.
As for myself, I'm really glad this topic came up. To put it bluntly, my run has sucked recently. I felt I was doing well during the first TP block and during the VO2 block, but since the start of the second TP block I have felt stagnant if not worse. I'm typically a high cadence runner, my HMP pace is about 91 SPM, my TP pace is 95-96, my Z5/IP/RP is at about 98-99, even 100+ spm for maximal efforts.
I'm beginning to think that my cadence is simply too quick. I've heard the merits of both self-selected cadence and quick turnover, balancing the knowledge that while physiology is unique to each runner some forms are simply better than others. I have been feeling unusually winded during my intervals and conversely not always feeling the results as much in my legs afterwards. While my cadence might be ideal for a smaller runner, I'm 6'0 and fairly leggy and starting to speculate that my cadence is adversely impacting both my stride length (duh) and in turn my efficiency.
I can also speculate a few reasons for this, much like @Dave I think I may have carried over some excess cadence from the VO2 block, but perhaps more significant I think the running surface has a lot to do with this. I have been doing nearly all of my intervals on an indoor track since the weather is still miserable and I have a personal hatred of treadmills. This track is unfortunately exceptionally short (160 meters / 0.1 mile per lap) and sustained running with a long stride is near impossible due to the constant corners. Having been in FL this past weekend and back running outside in much more favorable conditions, I noticed a tangible lengthening in my stride and a perceived great increase in efficiency. I can imagine there would have been a corresponding decrease in cadence, but alas I did not have my foot pod during the trip.
I've begun to put a lot more thought and consideration into my run in general, adding an additional focus on core and stability via TRX and really attempting to focus on my form. Still, I feel like I have a lot left on the table and am thinking about trying to have Coach Pat do some gait analysis for me if I can pester him into it.