Don't shorten your stride!

Has anybody looked into optimum or preferred stride length as related to leg length? I would guess that shorter legged people have an easier time with shorter strides and faster cadence. Longer legged people may feel more comfortable with longer strides. I would guess that total body weight and overall conditioning have something to do with it as well.
Also, in this thread anyway, it's all been subjective. Nobody's put down out any actual measurements.

Does anyone know of any accurate measuring devices for determining stride length as they run?
 
I have to disagree with you Mr. Hawkbilly, and that's why I find this topic so ironic. If you throw a punch, or hit a tennis/golf/base- ball, the mechanics are pretty much the same (bend your knees, develop torque through your hips, follow through the zone of impact, etc.). I've only played golf once, hungover at a bachelor's party, and yet I had a pretty good drive (my mid-game stunk though), because it's the same basic thing as hitting a baseball or throwing a punch, two things I've spent time practicing. Yet as far as barefoot running goes, which should be the most natural of all athletic endeavors, there's a strangely diverse range of opinion on what is proper technique. So I'm inclined to listen most to veteran barefooters who have no stake in the whole barefoot business, like Mr. Gentile and others on this forum, and they mostly seem to be saying KISS or listen to your own body, which is what I've mostly been doing anyway, both now, and on previous occasions when I've run with some consistency, whether shod (2000-2003) or bare (1988-1990). This thread is really clearing this issue up for me I think . . . hopefully ... at least until this weekend when I have a look at Ken Bob's book ...

When you actually look at science of running and experience rather than opinion you actually see hugh similarities
between coaches and schools of thought. Yes there are some difference but you can generally understand what they are and why they work to some extent for individuals even though it may not be exact or better than the other.
 
Bare Lee, if you were to watch Dr. Mark's barefoot running fundamentals video, and then Jack Nicklaus's golf swing video, you may see what I was referring to (or not, that's fine too). There are fundamentals to each, and they walk you through them (from their perspective). Now, Jack has his way of teaching a golf swing, and there are 100's of others who teach it differently. Some people "get" the way Jack teaches it, many don't. It doesn't work for them. My point was (however awkwardly made), I think barefoot running is the same. Dr. Mark's "tips" may work for many, but likely not all. Perhaps Ken Bob's book will resonate for them. You just keep running and reading until you figure it out.

Nothing wrong with figuring it out on your own either.....that's what Ken Bob and many others did. There likely aren't very many barefoot coaches in Ethiopia, because they never learned to do it wrong.
 
I am going to have to disagree with that statement. I feel very confident that I have changed my running form over the yrs for the better.
That statement is taken out of context. Of course you can change your running form, but probably not by adding effort to it. Most real improvement will come from not doing things we have learned to do since we were excellent 5 year old runners. Most true improvement will come from allowing the things that will do themselves in running. You can improve your breathing by learning not to interfere with it.
 
I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one Hawkbilly. I know there are different ways of explaining the same thing, and some explanations get through to different people for different reasons, sometimes even to the same person at a different times, but it seems to me in BFR there are substantively different ways of doing it. Of course, there's a bio-mechanical limit to how differently you can run from someone else, but Dr. Mark really drives his knee through, while Ken Bob bends. Pose people lean, while others say to keep your posture upright (unless you're accelerating of course), some insist on an 180 cadence and have great results, others pooh-pooh the whole notion, and so on. So yes, as you say, you can always just do what feels best, and that's what I've always done with running, but I'm really starting to get into it lately, and so have begun to look into the more technical aspects of it, and of the people I've come across so far, Dr. Mark is by far the most impressive. He looks like a fucking cheetah. So graceful, powerful, and smooth. If there's a right way to do it, I'm betting for the moment that that's the way to do it. Last week I tried the knee drive and man, I just took off, and felt really smooth. The problem is, I shifted into an anearobic metabolism, and started to get winded after a few minutes, but my goal is to be able to run like that consistently. There are other things I'll work on too, but right now I'm focusing on that. If you have any other suggestions, I'd be interesting in hearing them.
 
Hawkbilly, I should add that I think we're in substantive agreement about BFR; some tips or techniques will resonant more for some than for others, and in the end we have to figure it out for ourselves. Where I think we disagree is the extent to which this principle applies or can apply to other athletic endeavors, right?
 
I worked out the math for this a while back. Here's the resulting post I put up about a year ago. It all comes down to math and what works for you. If you want to go faster, either you have to take more steps per minute, or you have to take longer strides (or some combination of these on a continuum). As I've gotten more adapted to BFR, I've found that my cadence stays between 200 and 230 steps per minute, depending on how fast I'm going and on what surface I'm running. My stride length has gotten slightly longer than when I started, although it's still pretty short. At my peak sustainable performance and on a good variety of excellent surfaces, I can average about 7:30/mile at a cadence of around 230 steps per minute, which works out to an average stride length of 36.25." This much math effort still makes my head hurt.

It comes down to this: whatever works for you in BFR is right. Finding it is the trick. The old Army saying goes, "A dumb idea that works isn't a dumb idea." Try altering your stride, cadence and landing until you find what works for you, but you do have to allow for some time to adjust to a shorter, faster cadence which WILL kick your quads' butts until they adapt to this effectively new exercise for them. You're going to have to give it a minimum of a few unpleasant weeks of substantial effort to convert them over to this new type of work and bring them up to speed to see if it will work for you; if you give up after a couple uncomfortable days, you'll never know whether it would be useful for you. It's a commitment to try an essentially new way of running, so if you're not willing to commit to a thorough trial, I'd recommend that you not waste your time and give yourself sore quads for just a couple days of being miserable.


"There's also the mathematics to figure out a cadence and stride length required to maintain a particular pace. It's very straightforward, but also tricky. Here's my long-past post describing how I worked it out for myself.
I was (and frankly, still am a bit) dismayed at the loss of speed and at the potential prospects for regaining any speed at all, much less back to my 6:15/mile traditional, shod running pace.

I ran with LTC Rex Hall to have him watch my form in person and help me improve it. While running, I asked him how one might go about increasing one's BFR speed.

A quick check of the math works out like this: in traditional heel-striking form, I was making 54-inch (4.5-foot) strides at a cadence of 188 steps/minute, or 1,173 steps per mile, resulting in a 6:15/mile pace. The BF math is as follows: 32-inch (2.67-foot) strides at a cadence of 233 steps per minute, or 1,977 steps per mile, resulting in a 8:30/mile pace.

(SARCASM WARNING/ALERT!) So by decreasing my stride length by almost half and increasing my cadence by 24%, I've been able to add 2:15/mile to my pace (that means getting slower, folks) with no difficulty at all. Not what I was hoping for, but being older, I'll live with it.

The problem is that I'm pretty much maxed out at that cadence, and my soles are pretty much maxed out at that pace (unless I'm on dirt or grass that don't abrade like concrete does, giving me some room to allow more friction as I speed up).

Rex Hall's theory was that to increase speed BF, rather than significantly lengthening your stride by extending the angle between each leg and your hip joint forward and backward, which will increase the friction your feet experience due to push-off and braking effects, you should simply hold your feet up in the air for a longer time. This sounds like what Master Abide is advocating from a different angle now that I've read what he says above about " high knees and butt kickers."

But my experience is that to get any significant increase and still keep my feet landing under my center of gravity, I've got to lean forward more with my hips at the same time to provide the forward motion without the push-off and braking effects coming into play. The biggest downside to this is that while holding your feet up for a longer time before setting them down, you get more impact on each foot plant due to gravity's pull effectively increasing as you increase the time above dirt. This is a recipe for stress fractures if you don't gradually work up to it. Since my initial stress fracture 7 months ago, I've not even begun to attempt this again yet, and probably won't until this summer (and then, only on dirt, and VERY SLOWLY). "

I have attempted it many times in recent months, and found that the softer the surface, the easier it is on the body to raise higher and then hold your feet up for a longer time.

But this is about math. Just an idea. I'm a hard-core NON-mathematician who is married to a college math and physics major who teaches high school math now. I only use math when I have to in order to get an answer I simply must have. It makes my brain overheat and smoke come out my ears."
 
Thanks for the lengthy post Phil. Not sure I'm sold on the idea of such a high cadence, but will withhold judgment until I'm willing and able to try it out, as you advise. The 'high knees and butt kickers' tip sounds like similar to Dr. Mark's knee-drive idea. In any case, it's interesting stuff and I appreciate having a veteran runner describe their thoughts and experiences here.
 
I am going to have to disagree with that statement. I feel very confident that I have changed my running form over the yrs for the better.

I think Lawrence Smith is saying that allowing your body to run naturally (like small children) is best ,however, you first have to ditch the shoes and allow yourself to relearn to run the way nature intended.
That being said, it sounds ideal in theory, but in practice a good coach can work wonders.
 
I worked out the math for this a while back. Here's the resulting post I put up about a year ago. It all comes down to math and what works for you. If you want to go faster, either you have to take more steps per minute, or you have to take longer strides (or some combination of these on a continuum). As I've gotten more adapted to BFR, I've found that my cadence stays between 200 and 230 steps per minute, depending on how fast I'm going and on what surface I'm running. My stride length has gotten slightly longer than when I started, although it's still pretty short. At my peak sustainable performance and on a good variety of excellent surfaces, I can average about 7:30/mile at a cadence of around 230 steps per minute, which works out to an average stride length of 36.25." This much math effort still makes my head hurt.

It comes down to this: whatever works for you in BFR is right. Finding it is the trick. The old Army saying goes, "A dumb idea that works isn't a dumb idea." Try altering your stride, cadence and landing until you find what works for you, but you do have to allow for some time to adjust to a shorter, faster cadence which WILL kick your quads' butts until they adapt to this effectively new exercise for them. You're going to have to give it a minimum of a few unpleasant weeks of substantial effort to convert them over to this new type of work and bring them up to speed to see if it will work for you; if you give up after a couple uncomfortable days, you'll never know whether it would be useful for you. It's a commitment to try an essentially new way of running, so if you're not willing to commit to a thorough trial, I'd recommend that you not waste your time and give yourself sore quads for just a couple days of being miserable.


"There's also the mathematics to figure out a cadence and stride length required to maintain a particular pace. It's very straightforward, but also tricky. Here's my long-past post describing how I worked it out for myself.
I was (and frankly, still am a bit) dismayed at the loss of speed and at the potential prospects for regaining any speed at all, much less back to my 6:15/mile traditional, shod running pace.

I ran with LTC Rex Hall to have him watch my form in person and help me improve it. While running, I asked him how one might go about increasing one's BFR speed.

A quick check of the math works out like this: in traditional heel-striking form, I was making 54-inch (4.5-foot) strides at a cadence of 188 steps/minute, or 1,173 steps per mile, resulting in a 6:15/mile pace. The BF math is as follows: 32-inch (2.67-foot) strides at a cadence of 233 steps per minute, or 1,977 steps per mile, resulting in a 8:30/mile pace.

(SARCASM WARNING/ALERT!) So by decreasing my stride length by almost half and increasing my cadence by 24%, I've been able to add 2:15/mile to my pace (that means getting slower, folks) with no difficulty at all. Not what I was hoping for, but being older, I'll live with it.

The problem is that I'm pretty much maxed out at that cadence, and my soles are pretty much maxed out at that pace (unless I'm on dirt or grass that don't abrade like concrete does, giving me some room to allow more friction as I speed up).

Rex Hall's theory was that to increase speed BF, rather than significantly lengthening your stride by extending the angle between each leg and your hip joint forward and backward, which will increase the friction your feet experience due to push-off and braking effects, you should simply hold your feet up in the air for a longer time. This sounds like what Master Abide is advocating from a different angle now that I've read what he says above about " high knees and butt kickers."

But my experience is that to get any significant increase and still keep my feet landing under my center of gravity, I've got to lean forward more with my hips at the same time to provide the forward motion without the push-off and braking effects coming into play. The biggest downside to this is that while holding your feet up for a longer time before setting them down, you get more impact on each foot plant due to gravity's pull effectively increasing as you increase the time above dirt. This is a recipe for stress fractures if you don't gradually work up to it. Since my initial stress fracture 7 months ago, I've not even begun to attempt this again yet, and probably won't until this summer (and then, only on dirt, and VERY SLOWLY). "

I have attempted it many times in recent months, and found that the softer the surface, the easier it is on the body to raise higher and then hold your feet up for a longer time.

But this is about math. Just an idea. I'm a hard-core NON-mathematician who is married to a college math and physics major who teaches high school math now. I only use math when I have to in order to get an answer I simply must have. It makes my brain overheat and smoke come out my ears."

Thx for the response. I am no mathmagican either. Do you know of any tech device that do it for you as you run other than a crappy pedometer?
 
Hawkbilly, I should add that I think we're in substantive agreement about BFR; some tips or techniques will resonant more for some than for others, and in the end we have to figure it out for ourselves. Where I think we disagree is the extent to which this principle applies or can apply to other athletic endeavors, right?

I think so, but no worries either way. I appreciate the dialogue.
 
Does anyone know of any accurate measuring devices for determining stride length as they run?

A garmin with the pedometer would be the simplest way. I'm not sure if the Garmin actually tells you your stride length but just divide the distance by the number of steps. You could get a pretty big sample this way.
 
Beautiful running from Dr. Mark! A more in depth theory of how the legs extend in running can be found here:
http://www.alexandertechnique-running.com/?p=51
What Dr. Mark demonstrates on the trampoline shows the biarticular system in action brilliantly. I tried to show this in my post Running is Jumping.
Also, the notion of “core stability” has long been debunked. See: The Myth of Core Stability here:
http://www.alexandertechnique-running.com/?p=361

Good posture is constant adaptation, and stabilizing willfully prevents the muscles that are stabilized from adapting within the muscular system.