If you’ve read anything at all about cycling, you know that cadence gets a lot of discussion. In a nutshell, it’s generally more efficient to spin at a faster cadence at lower resistance than it is to mash the pedals at a higher resistance. Lance Armstrong is probably the most well known proponent of spinning at a high cadence and has obviously been quite successful at it.
Based on what I was reading, I decided to begin practicing spinning at a high cadence shortly after I started cycling several years ago. It didn’t take long before it became very natural for me. Now, quite simply, I’m a spinner. I can spin along at 90-100 rpm for hours, but give me a high resistance and slow me down to 75 rpm and I’m toast in a matter of minutes. When we first started riding the tandem, this was something of an issue for us, as I was a spinner, and Pam was still a masher. It took nearly the first full year of tandeming before Pam slowly worked up to the point where she no longer had to implore me to gear up and slow down!
Before I digress too far, Pam and I have signed up for a running class. Our first session was last Saturday, and unlike what you might expect, this class actually doesn’t involve a lot of running. The first class was spent videoing our form for analysis and talking about proper running form. One of the most interesting aspects that we learned is there is an optimum “cadence” for distance running.
Studies have been made of elite runners at distances ranging from 800 meters to a full marathon, and the common characteristic of every one of these runners is that they run at a cadence of 180 footfalls per minute, regardless of distance and speed. How is that, you say? How can you maintain a constant candence of 180 footfalls per minute regardless of speed? Well, the answer is about the same as how you control cadence on a bike. When you upshift or downshift, what are you actually doing? You’re changing the number of gear inches or forward gain for each turn of the pedals. By downshifting, you decrease the number of gear inches and by upshifting you increase the gear inches.
Well, when you run you can’t adjust your gear ratio by shifting gears, but you can adjust your forward gain. It’s called your stride! To increase your cadence, you decrease your stride, and to decrease cadence you obviously increase your stride.
To wrap up our class time on Saturday, we went out on the track to check our cadence by counting footfalls. Our goal was to count 90 steps with our left foot in a minute. The instructors gave us fair warning that it might seem pretty impossible for most of the group which consisted of some seasoned runners and a lot of folks just getting into running. How do you think I did?
My first attempt netted me 80 touches per minute, but that was pretty screwed up by getting caught in a pack of slow runners for most of the minute. On my second attempt, I was able to get to the front of the pack and I ran it pretty normally to set a better baseline. I counted 85 left foot steps during that minute. On my third attempt, I nailed it! 90 counts of the left foot or 180 footfalls for the minute!
We stopped to report our findings and to my amazement, I was the only one who had achieved the desired 180 footfalls per minute. They sent us back out for another attempt, and in the next two passes, I ran at a cadence of 188 and 180 footfalls. Again, I was the only one who could achieve that cadence.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t consider myself a runner by any stretch of the imagination, and I’m not trying to toot my own horn. I run in the winter to maintain my fitness and cardiovascular system so I can hit it hard and come up to speed quickly when real cycling weather rolls back around. What I think I learned is my preferred cycling cadence of 90-100 rpm has probably trained my muscles to “spin” at that speed even when I’m running. Therefore, while I run to make myself a better cyclist, the cycling has made me a better runner! Who would have thought?
God bless…
TW
