⚡️SSL #019: How To Improve Stride Frequency

Dec 11, 2022

In today’s issue of the "Saturday Sprint Letter” I’m going to discuss stride frequency.

The challenging part is improving stride frequency without messing up your stride length.

In today’s issue, I’m going share some of the valuable insight they gave me into how they train stride frequency.

Specifically, I’m going to talk about the following:

How can we measure stride frequency?
How does it affect our speed?
What factors affect stride frequency?
How can an athlete improve their stride frequency?

Let’s dive in.

#1 How can we measure stride frequency?

Stride frequency can be defined as the number of strides per second or minute.

It can be measured by: race distance / ( finishing time * stride length )

For example according to J Hum Kinet. 2013, in the 2009 World Championships Usain Bolt had a stride length of 2.47m, when he ran a blistering 9.58 over the 100m.

100 / (9.58 * 2.47)

This comes out to a stride frequency of 4.23 per second.

A “quick and dirty” alternative is to count the ground contacts over a given distance and divide it by the time it takes to complete the distance.

Ground contacts / time = SF estimate

41 / 9.58 = 4.28

It won’t be as precise as the first formula but it’ll still give you a decent estimate of an athlete’s stride frequency.

#2 How does it affect our speed?

In relation to sprinting, speed is often summarized as Stride Length x Stride Frequency.

Stride Frequency consists of the ground contact time and the time it takes for the leg to cycle in the air.

According to Dr. Peter Weyand, there’s very little we can do to improve the time it takes for the leg to cycle in the air.

However, according to Dr. Peter Weyand and colleagues, elite sprinters shorten their ground contact time by spiking their forces in the first half of ground contact.

The way I understand this, is that for an athlete looking to improve their stride frequency to run faster, their best bet is to focus on optimizing their ground contact times.

For example:

If an athlete shaves even .01 from their ground contact time, and it takes them 50 ground contacts to run the 100 then they can drop half a second off their time (.50).

That is how stride frequency can affect our speed using the compound effect.

#3 What factors affect stride frequency?

Stride frequency will vary depending on many things such as:

sport
sprint distance
limb length
athletic level
muscle insertions
flat feet vs high arches
central nervous system activation
ankle stiffness
stretch and shorten cycle
vertical force

The list goes on.

#4 How can you improve your stride frequency?

We already established earlier that improving stride frequency is a matter of optimizing your ground contact times.

Above, I mentioned several things that affect stride frequency which applies to ground contact times as well.

Many of these can be manipulated and improved, but others cannot (ie. limb length).

For example let’s say your stretch and shorten cycle is slow, which means it takes longer than usual for your foot to bounce off the ground.

In this case, you could apply some of the following exercises:

(taken from “Sprint Cheat Codes)

Depth jumps
Pogos
Single leg hops

The focus of the exercises would be to minimize ground contact time, resulting in a faster short and stretch cycle.

For example, in a depth jump, you would

drop from a box
land with both feet together
absorb the force by bending at the hips and knees slightly
Focus on spending as little time on the ground as possible
Immediately jump back in the air for max height

By improving your short and shorten cycle not only would you be improving your stride frequency by also it’s likely you’ll see improvements in your stride length as well.

TL;DR

Stride frequency can be measured by: race distance / ( finishing time * stride length )
In relation to sprinting, speed is often summarized as: Stride Length x Stride Frequency.
For an athlete who is looking to improve their stride frequency to run faster, their best bet is to focus on optimizing their ground contact times.
If an athlete shaves even .01 from their ground contact time, and it takes them 50 ground contacts to run the 100 then they can drop half a second off their time (.50).
Let’s say your stretch and shorten cycle is slow, and it takes longer than usual for your foot to bounce off the ground.
In this case, you could implement some of the following exercises:
1. Depth jumps
2. Pogos
3. Single leg hops

Stay Fast,

Cesar

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