Are you trying to fix your overstriding, improve your running performance, or manage a running-related injury?
In this article, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about running cadence!
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What Is Running Cadence?
Running cadence is also known as step rate. This is the total number of times per minute each foot strikes the ground.
At its simplest, running speed is the product of your step rate and step length, or the distance covered from one foot contact to the opposite foot contact. Faster speeds result from a higher step rate and a longer step length. This is an important relationship that we’ll be revisiting later because manipulating one of these variables may necessitate a change in the other.
You may also hear the terms “stride rate” and “stride length”, but they should not be used interchangeably with “step rate” and “step length” because a stride is not the same as a step. A step is the phase between one foot leaving the ground and the other contacting the ground, whereas a stride is the phase between one foot leaving the ground and the same foot contacting the ground when it comes back around.
As a result, stride rate is one half of step rate, and stride length is twice the length of step length.
Relevant Running Biomechanics
Continuing with other relevant biomechanics, each limb has a stance phase and a swing phase during running. The stance phase is typically less than a quarter of a second (Cavanaugh 1987) at an easy running pace and will decrease as we run faster (Novacheck 1998). The swing phase will also decrease as we run faster, as the entire cycle shortens.
Schache et al. in 2014 found that as running speed initially increases, the main strategy to support this is to increase stride length. As we approach higher speeds (above 15 miles per hour in the study) the primary strategy becomes increasing stride frequency.
This makes sense when we consider that speed is a function of distance and time.
Let’s say I’m running with a cadence of 168 steps per minute, or 2.8 steps per second. If my step length is one meter, I’ll be running at a speed of 2.8 meters per second.
If I increase my step length to 1.5 meters without changing my running cadence, now my running speed is 4.2 meters per second.
For running paces below “sprinting”, it’s rare to see more than 200 steps per minute, or about 3.3 steps per second. Given that, it’s apparent why the first strategy is increasing step length until we reach sprinting speeds.
What about “overstriding”? This is generally regarded as having an excessively long distance between the body’s center of mass and the initial contact point of the foot to start the stance phase.
Interestingly, there is no agreed upon “normal” distance for a stride, so this makes it difficult to actually determine if someone’s stride length is problematic for them. More on this later.
What’s The Optimal Running Cadence?
Many coaches and clinicians ask if there is an optimal running cadence for all runners. 180 steps per minute is frequently mentioned in popular running media and is traced back to Jack Daniels, a running coach and exercise physiologist.
Daniels wrote about his experience at the 1984 Summer Olympics, where he counted the step rates of as many male and female distance runners as he could in all events 800m or longer. He noted that across all events, nearly every runner had a cadence of 180 steps per minute or faster, and this was less variable from 3000 meters up to the marathon (Daniels 1998).
Unfortunately, this observation has been inappropriately generalized to runners at different paces and abilities. We already noted that running cadence will increase as pace increases. Is it reasonable, then, to expect that there should even be a “normal” cadence within the same runner, let alone across runners of different performance levels?
This is supported by research on step rate differences between collegiate and high school runners that were largely attributed to differences in self-selected running speeds (Luedke 2020). Tendforde et al. in 2019 also found that leg length and running cadence had a negative relationship in recreational runners. This indicates that runners with longer limbs will generally have a lower step rate.
Although there is not an “optimal” cadence, runners tend to adopt a “preferred” cadence at various speeds. In general, someone’s preferred cadence is the natural step rate that they fall into during an easy run, which typically represents the largest volume of running that they perform.
What Happens When You Change Your Running Cadence?
There are two conditions:
- Increasing running cadence while keeping step length the same or larger will result in an increase in running speed.
- If you keep running speed constant, though, and increase cadence, your step length will decrease.
This causes a number of changes in your running gait.
Heiderscheit et al. in 2011 reported a decrease in vertical center of mass excursion and step length with a 5-10% increase in running cadence above preferred. Essentially, this decreases a runner’s bounding up and down and forces them to take shorter steps.
Interestingly, this also led to significant decreases in energy absorption per step at the hip, knee, and ankle, with the most notable changes being a 20% and 34% decrease in energy absorption at the knee with a 5% and 10% increase in running cadence, respectively. This is consistent with other biomechanical investigations of increasing step rate, although long-term follow up in these studies is limited (Anderson 2022).
Most of the research on running step rate involves small changes of up to 5-10% above or below preferred cadence. This is, in part, due to the fact that larger changes of >10% are generally associated with a higher energetic cost of running (Cavanagh 1982).
While most acute changes to running form tend to result in an increased cost of running, changes up to 10% appear to be minimal. As a result, we don’t tend to expect a decrease in overall running performance with small changes in running cadence.
When Should You Try To Change Your Running Cadence?
Care should be taken when considering changing anything about your running form, as there may be unintended consequences. With that said, there are three main reasons why someone might choose to make a change in running form, and we will apply that to the pros and cons associated with changing running cadence.
These categories are:
- Managing a current injury
- Running performance considerations
- Reduce the risk of future injury
Injury Management
Although it is common to see an increase in running cadence used clinically when managing an injury, the evidence of its use in injured populations is limited. A randomized trial comparing education alone, education and exercise, and education and gait retraining (including, but not limited to an increase in running cadence up to 10%) showed no differences between treatments in runners with patellofemoral pain (Esculier 2018).
Two case series studies on runners with patellofemoral pain showed improvements in pain and changes in running biomechanics at the hip and knee with an increase in running cadence that ranged from 7.5% to 10% (Neal 2018, Bramah 2019). These results were consistent with a recent randomized controlled trial that showed improvements in patellofemoral pain with a 7.5% to 10% increase in running cadence followed up to six months (de Souza Junior 2024).
Caution should be noted when interpreting these results, though, as the cohorts of runners were small in these studies. Given the reduced demands at the knee with an increase in running cadence and little downside to implementing the intervention, it may be worth using this clinically to help runners with patellofemoral pain continue to train with less pain.
Bone stress injuries represent a large percentage of running-related injuries, though the role of increasing step rate in the management or prevention of them is not well-studied. A bone modeling study by Edwards et al. in 2009 predicted a lower rate of stress fractures with a 10% decrease in stride length (via an increase in running cadence).
Although a higher total number of steps are taken with an increase in cadence, the peak stress per step is lower, and this seems to be more impactful for bone health. As a result, while managing a current bone stress injury, an increase in running cadence may be helpful to allow the individual to cover a longer distance with less relative stress on the area of concern.
Running Performance
Changing running biomechanics to improve running performance is a controversial topic. There are three primary determinants of running performance: Vo2max, lactate threshold, and running economy. Of these, only running economy appears to be affected by changes in biomechanics.
Running economy is the measure of efficiency, or metabolic energy cost, to run at a certain pace. When you improve your running economy, you decrease the amount of energy expenditure used to run at a given pace.
Several studies investigating up to a 15% increase in running step rate, as well as changes in running speed, have shown no change in metabolic cost (Swinnen 2021, Hunter 2007, Mercer 2008). Contrary to these findings, Quinn et al. in 2021 showed an improvement in the metabolic cost of running at self-selected speeds after 10 days of training cadence to 180 steps per minute in well-trained female runners.
In the previously mentioned study by Heiderscheit et al. in 2011, the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) during running increased by 6% with a 10% increase in cadence. Although metabolic cost was not measured, it was hypothesized that this increase in RPE was more because of attentional focus than an increase in energy expenditure.
It should be noted that there are no long-term studies on performance when habituating to a new running cadence, so our current understanding is based on immediate to short-term changes.
Injury Prevention
Running injury development is complex and can be attributed to a number of different factors, but at its core it is a balance between training load and the capacity of the runner (Bertelsen 2017). An individual’s running mechanics play a much smaller role in loading compared to the frequency, volume, and intensity at which they train.
That being said, there have been mixed findings in the literature on the role of running cadence and injury development.
Luedke et al. in 2016 found that a lower cadence was a predictor of developing medial tibial stress syndrome, or shin splints, in high school runners. Kliethermes et al. in 2021 had similar findings in collegiate long-distance runners, where a lower relative step rate was associated with the development of all bone stress injuries. A low running cadence was not found to be a risk factor in the development of general running-related injuries in individuals in a military setting, however (Szymanek 2020).
Despite popular belief, research has not shown that overstriding is a risk factor for injury, considering that there is no agreed upon normal distance for a stride as mentioned earlier. However, if your goal is to decrease your stride length, increasing cadence by 5-10% is an easy option to achieve this.
What’s The Best Way To Do This In Practice?
If it’s determined that a change in running cadence would be helpful, there are a few strategies that you can employ to start working on this skill. First, it is necessary to know what your self-selected step rate is at an easy running pace. Counting the number of steps in 15 seconds and multiplying by 4 is an easy way to estimate this.
Practicing changing step rate on a treadmill rather than overground has the benefits of keeping running speed the same. It can be more challenging to increase step rate independently while running overground, as it affords the ability to run faster (which doesn’t accomplish the task of increasing step rate at the same relative pace).
The feedback that you choose to monitor your step rate can also differ. Phone or watch-based apps can both give real-time feedback on running cadence. This can range from playing a metronome or music at the desired frequency of the new step rate all the way to sending alerts if you fall off of the goal. These wearable devices have been shown to effectively produce changes in running cadence up to a one month follow-up (Willy 2016).
Regardless of the strategy that you choose, the general principles of motor learning suggest that a faded feedback strategy needs to be used over time in order for this change to become permanent. For example, this could be gradually decreasing the real-time feedback on running cadence to only post-run feedback, or decreasing the frequency of real-time feedback to only a few runs per week.
The timeframes for which these changes occur are highly variable, although some research demonstrates they can occur as quickly as one week and last up to six months.
Looking for rehab or performance programs? Check out our store here!
Want to learn more? Check out some of our other similar blogs:
Strength Training For Runners, Achilles Tendinopathy, How To Choose The Best Running Shoes
Thanks for reading. Check out the video and references below.
References
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- Kliethermes SA, Stiffler-Joachim MR, Wille CM, Sanfilippo JL, Zavala P, Heiderscheit BC. Lower step rate is associated with a higher risk of bone stress injury: a prospective study of collegiate cross country runners. Br J Sports Med. 2021;55(15):851-856.
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