Running Barefoot

Cadence, is the number of revolutions your legs turn over in a minute.

Steps per minute, is twice the number as cadence, because steps per minute counts each foot landing. While cadence counts the entire cycle, or only the landing of one foot.

Most running experts agree  that the ideal runner’s cadence is 90 or faster (180 steps per minute, or faster). 180 is nice, but faster is better.

Most “joggers” might think this is way too fast. But, that’s because they may have learned that they’re supposed to lengthen their stride to go fast. And as soon as they try to stretch out their stride, usually by reaching way out front with their leading foot, and their cadence sloooooowwwwssss waaaayyyyy dooooowwwwnnnnn….

The problem with pushing our foot out in front of our body, and waiting for it to slam into the ground, is that it slows down our forward motion. In other words the jogger is essentially hitting the brakes with each and every step. This slows the runner down, eats more energy, and causes a greater amount of impact than is neccessary or desirable, thus contributing to the frequency of impact injuries among joggers.

Landing beneath the body, instead of out in front, the feet must take shorter, quicker steps. In addition to reducing impact, by landing on the forefoot, the quicker steps, also decreases impact, simply by decreasing the time between steps. Less time in the air, means falling a shorter distance, and less gravity-forced acceleration toward the earth.

The earth’s gravitational field is constantly pulling on our own body’s gravitational field. This is a constant, at sea level, and it is 9.8 m/s/s. That means that for every second we fall, we accelerate another 9.8 meters per second. For example, if you are falling off a cliff, your body will accelerate continuously, and after one second your body will be falling at 9.8 meters per second. After two seconds your body will be falling at 19.6 meters per second. The longer you are falling, the faster you will be falling, until you hit the ground. The faster you are falling when you hit the ground, the harder you hit, and the more risk of injury!

This is important, because a lot of runners seem to believe there is some advantage to taking long slow strides. One reason may be from watching slow-motion videos of folks running, and seemingly “floating” in the air between each step. But, of course, gravity doesn’t work that way. Whatever perceived advantage there is, there is an actual and very real disadvantage. That is, a runner who spends twice as much time “floating” in the air, will fall/land twice as hard, as someone taking twice as many steps in the same time!

OK, you may doubt this, and the reason you may doubt this, is because you may be confusing forward distance traveled with time. The difference can be illustrated with two bullets. One fired from a gun, horizontally, the other dropped from a hand at the same height as the gun. The two bullets will spend exactly the same amount of time in the air, and will accelerate toward the earth at exactly the same rate. The difference, of course, is the bullet shot from the gun, during that same amount of time has also traveled forward, a pretty long distance!

The runner who launches her/him self high into the air, so they can travel a long distance forward with each stride, is only fooling themselves. Due to the time wasted launching up into the air, and the other half of the time in the air falling, and therefore, accelerating toward the earth, they will not only hit the ground harder, but quite possibly not even travel as far forward as they expect – remember the bullet example, the bullet was not shot UP into the air, but straight ahead. So what happens if we fire the bullet up into the air? Well, number one, it doesn’t travel as far forward. Number two, even after “floating” in the air at the top of it’s arc, it’s going to hit the ground much harder than the bullet that only accelerated vertically a few feet to the ground.

The runner who, instead of focusing on spending more time in the air with each stride, focuses on moving forward faster, may very well spend less time in the air for each step, but that’s not because they are running slower, it is because they are stepping faster. And there are two factors in going fast, how fast you step, and how long (in forward distance, not time) each step is.

You see, the two (er.. three?) bullets in our example, could each be said to have taken one step, and the time for that step was exactly equal, but the distance traveled forward was not equal. But it is NOT the longer stride that creates faster speed, it is faster speed which creates a longer stride. From the runner’s point of view, the stride may seem shorter – I, or anyone willing to volunteer, will work out the math later, but I’m pretty sure that the bullet shot up, spends a longer time in the air, before it lands, despite, landing closer to where it began. SO, when we look at the person who is focused on running FORWARD, instead of launching themselves high into the air, we should likewise see that the former (forward runner) is taking longer (distance) steps, while the later (upward pushing runner) is actually covering less distance horizontally.

Anyway, you can measure your cadence by counting the number of steps in a given amount of time, that is, if unlike myself, you can run and count at the same time.

Or you can try to follow the beat of a metronome set to a desired cadence (or fraction thereof). But, I don’t much like this method, because I like to march to the beat of my own drum, so to speak. And the beeping or blinking can be pretty annoying.

Instead, I usually practice my cadence while I’m bicycling, and by looking at the cadence meter installed on my bicycle, I can see exactly what my cadence is. If my cadence is too low, I simply downshift. If I’m approaching a feeling of spinning out of control, then I shift to a higher gear. I find that typically, I’m comfortable between 93 and 110 rpm (186 and 220 steps per minute).

This gets me used to a range of cadence, instead of a fixed metronome controlled, robotic beat. A range of cadences gives me more flexibility to react to a wide variety of running conditions.

While running, I simply try to stay in the same cadence range as when I was bicycling. Of course I could check my cadence quickly, by counting “one-thousand-one” and making sure that 3 full steps fit easily into the duration of that “second”. And that’s about as far as I can count while running anyway.

But, instead of counting, since I have practiced on my bicycle with correct cadence, I start becoming aware of how the right cadence feels while running. But, the bicycling does one other thing to, it helps me practice “spinning” my feet in a wheel pattern.

And this brings up another little trick I like to use, lifting my foot BEFORE it lands! But, this not only makes me a more active participant in the activity of running, it actually helps pick up the pace (of my cadence). It also cushions my landing, and loads my natural springs to help me move forward in my next step.

Think of a space shuttle trying to dock with a space station. The space shuttle doesn’t wait to fire reverse thrusters after it makes contact with the space station. And likewise, there’s no reason for us to wait for our foot to land, before we start pulling it up – in reality, we’re only slowing it’s downward descent toward the earth, even though, relative to our falling body, it may seem like, as I suggested, that we are lifting our foot up, before we land!

Who said that Running Barefoot wasn’t rocket science?

Just one more thing which the bicycling comparison might help with, is that our feet are constantly changing directions. We aren’t simply pushing our feet down, and pulling them up. In fact, we don’t need to even try to push our feet down, gravity will take care of that.

But, there is also a forward and backward movement involved. So one might try to think of moving their feet in a box-shaped pattern, moving the foot forward, gravity pulling the foot down, pushing the foot back (to move the body forward), and lifting the foot up to get in position for the next step. But, this box shaped movement can be a bit clunky or even jerky, so how can we smooth those corners? Simply, move our feet in a circular path, as they do when we peddle a bicycle.

Now the direction of our foot is constantly, but smoothly, changing. Depending on your point of view, the actual motion will be more elliptical, rather than circular. But, this is also true on a bicycle as well, even though from the bicycle’s point of view, our feet are moving precisely in a circle, constrained by the mechanics of the peddles and crank, from an external observer, the bicycle, as well as the crank, are all moving forward… (Later, I’ll take some video, and mark the trail of the foot while running, and bicycling)

• also see: Basics – How to Run