90 Day Running Reset: Cadence
I’m not a pro athlete. I’m not a running guru. I’m a student of running. I listen to people with more experience than me, I read, I test, and I apply. Everybody has a different body, so what works for me might not work for you. What’s not working for me right now is my cadence.
Overpronation, overstriding, and underperforming…
As I stated in the last blog, I’ve got an issue with foot striking. Normally, when you hear about foot striking issues it is heel striking because of overstriding. Since getting back into running in 2018 that hasn’t been an issue for me. Mainly because I haven’t been concerned with running fast. For me, running slowly organically meant taking more steps. More steps means a better chance of developing better forefoot striking. That makes for healthier feet, joints, and muscles.
Recently I realized that the lateral parts of my shoes were getting more worn out than the rest of my shoes. That’s when I decided to video my form and see what was going on. When my foot started to come forward, and then down, the outside part of it was hitting the ground before the rest of my mid-foot. I was really starting to feel this strain in my feet and in my knees, which is why I looked at the bottom of my shoes in the first place.
I brought this up to Eric Orton, and he believes that my foot strike might be coming down too quickly, which means that there isn’t enough knee drive. I had already been working on knee drive and leg extension on my hill repeat workouts, but that has been more of a recent focus. I decided to work this into a drill from “Born to Run 2” that I’ve been doing for a while, but upping the frequency and intensity.
180 cadence…
Why is 180 cadence the “golden standard”? Where did it come from? Why does it matter?
Jack Daniels, storied running coach known for studying V02max in the 1970’s, was observing runners in the 1984 Olympics. What he noticed was that nearly every runner, regardless of distance, was running at roughly 180 steps per minute. His beginner and intermediate athletes all ran under 180 cadence.
Notable running coach makes observation on elite athletes and sets it as the “golden standard”. Many athletes and coaches question this. Many go along with it. Here is my thought on it.
I am a running enthusiast. I’d love to be able to run at an elite level. This doesn’t mean that I want to compete at an elite level, but I would like my running to be the absolute best it can be. So while 180 cadence is going to be my goal, I think that the pursuit of that higher cadence will make me a better runner, whether I get there or not.
How does a higher cadence make you a better runner? It prevents overstriding and promotes better foot striking. Shorter strides decrease the opportunity for heel striking because you aren’t reaching as far. It reduces injury rates by reducing load stress on your body (ankles, knees, hips, back) by taking those stresses from long strides and spreading them over a bunch of short strides. It’s lower impact running.
Rock Lobster and high knees…
So what’s the drill? Christopher McDougall outlined a drill in “Born to Run 2” that helps with upping this cadence. It's fairly simple:
Choose a song that is 180bpm (Rock Lobster is a great place to start)
Find a wall
Run in place to that song with your back facing the wall
Now there is more detail on this in “Born to Run 2”, but this is what it boiled down to for me. The song gives you a rhythm to run to. The wall helps you to keep from kicking your feet back and helps you focus on driving your knees forward and up. Doing this barefoot or in minimalist shoes helps you build foot strength as well. If I don’t do this barefoot, I do this in a pair of Xero shoes.
This drill will help me with increasing cadence, and driving my knees more up when I run. The problems this helps address are my foot striking and my low (170ish) cadence. Over the course of this 90 day reset I’ll be doing this every other day, gradually increasing the time that I spend doing it. This is a drill that has been part of my training for a while, but dedicating more time to it should maximize the results of it.
Each week when I retest how my running is doing I’ll be monitoring my average heart rate, and my time spent at 180 cadence. This will be my look into incremental progress. Each month I’ll take a video of my form and see how my foot strike is doing as well. As I get more input on drills and techniques that will help with foot striking, I’ll make notes and add them to the recaps. But the starting point is this one drill.