If you’ve talked to me about how to improve your running at all lately, you already know that I’m obsessed with running cadence, aka step rate or step frequency. I’m not one to tell you that there is one BEST thing you can do for anything (see: it depends, see also: shit academics say, things undergrads complain about on their TA reviews). However, after reading a mountain of papers on running mechanics and injury, at this point I believe that cadence modification is
the one best thing runners in general can do to decrease their injury risk and improve performance.

Disclaimer: Ask me again in 1 year, 5 years, (also maybe 10 years?)…I might (probably will) change my mind.

What is the big deal about cadence? I’m so glad you asked!

What is it?

Cadence is simply how quickly you are stepping, measured by the number of steps per minute you take while walking or running. I’m particularly interested in running so everything from this point forward here will relate specifically to running.

Ideal cadence is around 180 steps per minute, which is equivalent to 90 strides per minute (steps: the number of times both feet hit the ground per minute vs. strides: only 1 foot). The graph below is from a study where they estimated optimal cadence at a set speed based on how runners performed at a variety of cadences at that speed, and as you can see it’s around 91 strides/min (182 steps/min) (de Ruiter, Verdijk, Werker, Zuidema, & de Haan, 2014).

How can you measure it?

Garmin and Apple watches, FitBits, shoe pods of various sorts, and probably some other apps that I’ve never heard of can measure your cadence. The technology used to measure this (accelerometers) works great for this kind of measure because running is very repetitive, so devices do a good job of detecting when each step occurs. If you have a device that measures this for you, it’s probably quite
accurate and you can trust it. If you don’t have such a device, you can also easily count your steps for 15 seconds (counting both right and left), and multiply by 4. You could also count for a full minute, but I usually lose track and the 15-second count is close enough.

Why does it matter?

There are about 10 reasons why it matters, but let’s start with one of the most important ones: metabolic cost. Metabolic cost in running is measured by how much oxygen you consume to travel a distance. All aerobic activity costs you oxygen, and when it comes to running the less you “spend” per mile the better, because it means you can run faster and/or longer, or at least be less tired if you don’t change your speed or distance. Some would argue that being less efficient is better for caloric expenditure (spending more oxygen does mean burning more calories), but you could and should spend that oxygen on running faster or longer instead-mostly because of the injury risks associated with inefficient running form.

You know the fancy new Nike shoe that Kipchoge almost ran a 2-hour marathon in? Metabolic cost is the variable this shoe has been shown to improve, and Nike is banking on the idea that if each mile costs the runner less than before, he’ll be able to run faster. By the way it worked-he ran the Breaking2 marathon in 2:00:25 and his prior record was 2:03:05. You may not be trying to break any land speed records, but everyone can get on the self-improvement train and go for a PR. Even if you can afford $250 shoes to race in, and especially if you can’t, you can increase your step frequency to get a little bit faster.

In addition to efficiency, there are a host of injury-related variables that step frequency affects, and I’ll get to those soon. In the meantime, happy running!

Reference

de Ruiter, C. J., Verdijk, P. W. L., Werker, W., Zuidema, M.
J., & de Haan, A. (2014). Stride frequency in relation
to oxygen consumption in experienced and novice runners. European
Journal of Sport Science, 14(3), 251–258.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2013.783627