Before I go into too much detail to help you decide whether this is important for you to write about, whether you need to make sure your stride rate is optimal, there are 3 times when it’s good to have an optimal stride rate while running:
- if pace matters (you want to run fast)
- when distance matters, you want to run with as little energy as possible so you don’t get tired and finish further
- if you want to lose weight
If any of the above matters to you read on. If you think they matter to you but you already know all about them, read on, because you might read something you haven’t read before.
If you blindly believe that 180 is the ideal number of steps, read on, because I’m going to try to debunk the myth of 180-a-step.
I’m not only going to write about what the ideal step count is, I’m also going to describe how you can achieve it.
First, let’s get clear on what a stride is. There are two types of measurement, one counts in pairs and the other counts in chunks how many steps you take in 1 minute. If you have a Polar watch, it will count in pairs, so on a Polar watch 1 step is the stride of one right and one left foot, whereas most watches measure this as two steps. Although I wear a Polar watch, as most don’t measure like Polar, so 1 step will be taken as 1 left or 1 right step (Polar people split everything by two). In English, a step count of 180 means that in 1 minute I have stepped 90 times with my right foot and 90 times with my left foot.
If you only measure your step count with a watch, it’s good to know that most watches rely on your hands and feet moving together. The movement of your hand can be perfectly (almost) measured by the watch, so it assumes that the number of swings of your hand is the same as the number of swings of your foot. There are other indicators that most watches take into account, but arm movement is the most important. This is accurate in most cases, but if you carry a canteen in your hand (or anything else), or only occasionally use your watch hand for anything, there may be inaccuracies in the measurement (don’t carry anything in your hand while running, by the way, but that’s another topic). There are stride sensors that can be fitted to your shoes, however, which measure more accurately.
If pace matters
To understand this perfectly, it is worth defining what running is. Running is a movement where you get from A to B as quickly as possible using as little energy as possible. In other words, one can run fast if one has energy or does not need a lot of energy to run fast.
Speed depends on two things: the length of the stride and the number of times you move in a unit of time. If I take 1 metre strides and walk 200 metres in a minute, I will cover 200 metres in a minute (which is 5 minutes pace and 12 km/h mark). If I stride at 1.25 meter strides and stride 165 in 1 minute, that is also 200 meters (1.25*165=200). But if I keep the 200 steps per minute and the 1.25 metre steps, I’ll have covered 250 metres per minute, which is 4 minutes pace, or 15 km/h.
Ok the theory is clear. Verification exercise 😊. For those of you who understand the above, the question immediately arises, should you increase the number of steps or the stride length if you want to run faster? If your stride rate is already optimal, the answer is simple, you need to increase your stride length. If not, the answer depends on many things. The distance is important, or not the distance but the length of the run, the height of the runner is important (not so much the height but the length of the legs, but height is a strong determinant), where the runner’s heart rate zones are and the speed at which he can run in a given zone is important. But forget about these there is a very simple solution, which I’ll write down at the end of the article (because until then I need to clarify a few things)!
If distance matters
Let’s revisit the definition of running: using as little energy as possible to get from A to B as quickly as possible. The less energy we use per unit distance, the later we start to get tired. Energy is taken by muscle work, muscle work needs energy. But we have one tool, one organ, that can help us run without energy, and that is the fascia.
Fascia is an elastic, elastic membrane-like substance that surrounds the muscles. It’s like a rubber band. If we can call on the fascia’s stretching-contracting process to help us run, we need to use our muscles less, we need less energy for our muscles. But to do this, we need to keep the fascia in motion, i.e. we need to achieve and maintain a certain stretching-contraction frequency.
I suggest you do an experiment. Download a metronome app, set the beat to 30 (30 beats/minute in English) and start doing small jumps according to the metronome. Do this for 1 minute. Then relax and do the same thing at 120. Which was harder? For the vast majority of people, the 30 pace is harder, but for those who don’t, the 120 pace isn’t 4 times harder. Why? Because the 120 pace is already high enough to call on the flexibility of the fascia (the 30 is not).
Translating this into the language of running, it doesn’t matter the frequency, the number of strides, if you want to call on the fasciae. However, if you can do this, your muscles will use less energy, you’ll tire later and you’ll be able to cover longer distances.
If you want to lose weight
There are several rules and suggestions to follow if you want to lose weight by running. Fortunately, there are many articles about these rules, but most of them don’t talk about the number of steps.
If you want to lose weight by running, it’s the intensity (heart rate), the time spent running, and the calories burned that count. The latter is (also) a function of the first two. The more I run at the same intensity the more calories I burn.
It seems logical, but it’s not.
Have you ever noticed that you run the same amount of time at the same average heart rate, yet you get different calorie values? One reason for the difference is the number of steps. If you run the same amount of time at the same intensity but at a higher cadence, you will burn a lot more calories, you will lose a lot more weight. Warning, if you suddenly increase the number of steps, you can get injured, and you will not be able to maintain low intensity (I would not explain here that you can only lose weight at low intensity, let’s accept it as a basic fact)
Here’s what you should do if you want to improve your weight loss efficiency by increasing your cadence. Go for your usual run, check your step count (if your watch doesn’t measure it count it in your head to 1 minute) and check your intensity (heart rate). For your next run, download a metronome app and set the pace to +1 the pace of your previous run. For your next run, increase it by 1 more. Continue to increase by 1 for each run until you reach a 10% increase from your original pace (. In other words, if your first run was at 140 paces, for example, the goal is to reach 154 (140*1.1=154). Importantly, you should achieve this without increasing intensity. What you will achieve is that your pace will be about the same, you will cover the same distance in the same amount of time, you will just do more steps.
Tracing the myth of the 180 stride, or what is the optimum stride
A fact widely known and treated as an axiom by runners is that the optimal stride rate is 180/min. This is what you need to achieve if you want to run optimally. Is this really true?
The number 180 itself is attributed to running coach Jack Daniels (that’s his real name), who counted the runners’ strides at the 1984 Olympics. Since the majority of runners ran at 180 strides, he concluded that this was the optimum number.
It’s not hard to see that even if this is the case, the way it was arrived at is foolish. Just because a few elite runners who have achieved good results run at 180 does not mean that this is the correct stride for EVERYONE.
It is quite obvious that the optimal stride rate depends on the individual’s ability. Just a simple example. If you run 5 km at 6 minute km average, you will run for 30 minutes. If you do this at a stride rate of 180, that means you will take 5,400 strides, which means you will have 93 cm strides, the equivalent of a walking pace stride length.
Increasing your stride rate is a useful way to increase your results, but only for a while, and, like target heart rates, target stride rates are not constant, they are universally true for everyone.
That said, the optimum stride rate that will still improve your results but not cause injury is 5-10% higher than your normal stride rate, but this is individual to everyone and best found through experimentation.
Go for a run at a moderate pace, measure your stride rate. Multiply by 1.05 and next time run at that cadence using a metronome app. If it’s not too uncomfortable, try it next time by multiplying your base cadence by 1.1. If that’s not too bad either, stick with that cadence, if it feels like too much try between 1.05 and a multiplier of 1.1.
It is important to note that this step rate is independent of your speed. In other words, always use this cadence, increasing the speed by increasing the stride length. Of course, there are extreme cases where you may want to change this cadence, but try to always run at the same cadence.
Also note that you should repeat this test at least once a year, as quite a lot can change and you may not be comfortable running at the same pace.
