I am a runner, on and off depending on injuries and life, for the last 15 years. I fixed my running form best I could, but never got the hang of high cadence. Everyone says that around 180 smp is best, use a Metronom to get used to the speed of the steps. But it always felt forced to me, like extra work with little benefit. So I did my runs at 160 spm. Last Weekend I did 11 km and on the final stretch I stopped the music and listened to my body. I played with the lean of my straight torso and when I shifted my lean forward, my steps got smaller and faster, while I went the same speed.
It was that simple. I checked the t watch and I was spot on. It was not too hard, it felt good, like a balance of fall and catch on every small step. I never got it before, but I think now I do.
I hope my revelation helps someone.
Great to hear you challenged conventional wisdom and found improvement. I’m someone with zero experience doing any serious running, but get paid to challenge conventions. The idea that there’s some universal pace sounds absurd. Bodies are so different, if there is some magic number it would at least be ratio based. Sports medicine is full of charlatans, and conventional wisdom in sports is constantly being upset by someone that tries something new and succeeds by shocking margins.
Just remember that there are still people alive today that believed in their 20’s that it was unsafe for women to run in marathons because it would damage their reproductive organs (early 1970s before women were allowed to compete at all). That people holding an opinion as incorrect as that had a hand in writing the phys ed textbooks that were used over the next 50 years.
Remember the history of world records for the fastest mile, that it was thought impossible to go faster than 4 minutes for more than 50 years until suddenly someone did, and then two more people did the same within a year. We are so prone to believing bullshit, don’t let anything set your limits.
180 spm is efficient even at paces that feel slower.
My first 50 mile run went well and I attribute that to focusing on keeping my cadence up throughout the run even though the pace felt easy (till near the end when moving at any speed felt hard!).
I wrote a story about that run— solo 50 miles mid-winter— and what led me there here: https://limestonepostmagazine.com/why-i-found-myself-running-50-miles/
I’m at 160 bpm. I’ve tried going faster. I think I can go up to 165 or 170. But first I would need to create a whole new playlist.
I’m mostly at 160, a bit higher if I go faster, and lower if slower. I think aside from speed, leg length is a decisive variable. I am tall and have long legs, so I don’t expect I’ll ever average above 170.
A good read on this subject:
https://www.outsideonline.com/health/stop-overthinking-your-running-cadence/
As for the magical 180, my own take is that the idea has persisted because it’s a good aspirational goal for many runners. Lots of runners overstride, crashing down on their heels and putting excessive force on their joints. Telling them to increase their cadence by, say, 5 percent results in shorter, smoother strides, and reduces loads on the knee and hip. But there’s a very big difference between saying “Some runners might benefit from increasing their cadence” and “All runners, regardless of what speed they’re running at, should take at least 180 steps per minute.”
Thank you for sharing!
