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Fast Cadence Is An Indicator Of Good Form
When you are running and your place a foot back on the ground for support, you experience what is called Ground Reaction Force.
You are propelling only your own body weight, and gravity does not change, but the impact forces that you experience can be increased or decreased by how your come into contact with the ground and how long you stay in contact with the ground.
When running in good form, you are able to minimize the amount of force that is transmitted back into the body by impact with the ground.
Position of contact and the time of contact determine whether you experience more or less impact force.
Less Ground Reaction Force (GRF) the less stress on your body!
Less contact time = less GRF force.
Faster cadence = less contact time.
Faster cadence comes as a product of ‘pose, fall, pull’.
Faster cadence allows you to access more gratuitous force to propel you forward, and use less muscle power. Lower cadence indicates that you have shifted to using more of your own muscle power to propel your body forward.
Faster cadence = less impact on joints, tissues.
Faster cadence results in less vertical oscillation, less bouncing.
Appropriately fast cadence is a product of your good form. Monitoring cadence is a way of getting feedback about your form.
What is appropriate cadence? Consensus seems to be around 175 to 185 beats per minute.
You do not make your legs spin faster – rather, you set your posture, lean forward to channel gravity, and pull the supporting foot to instantly transfer support to the other side. Faster cadence is what your brain does to your legs in response to those actions you take.
If you are running and find your cadence is slow, then you may go through that checklist to see where you can make a correction. When the appropriately fast cadence is restored, or feels easier to maintain then you have some assurance that your correction took you in the right direction.
Fast cadence is not the only indicator of good form, not complete in itself, but it is very helpful.
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