I'm a relative beginner, but I've seen people saying that you have to be careful not to overstride when trying to run faster because you might injure yourself. That would seem to imply that you have to push harder on each footfall (so you travel further on each "in the air" phase) or increase the number of strides per minute.
Assuming the first is based on muscle strength and won't really increase unless you do hills or strength training of some other sort, is there a way to get faster by increasing the number of strides per minute? Is it possible to train this and if so, how?
Comments
If you do build up your leg strength then you can increase your stride.
If you only have short legs then increasing your stride rate (cadence) is probably going to work better.
I think my stride length is probably about right at the moment, which is why I was concerned that I didn't make it any longer. I'm sure my muscles have got stronger since I started (I have visible thight muscles now), and I'm faster for it, but surely leg strength doesn't keep increasing after a certain point? Which presumably leaves increasing cadence, but I don't really know how to go about increasing it (although I haven't managed to measure it yet, I'll have a go at the weekend). Are there any drills that help to increase it? I had in mind something similar to the army running through tyres thing (but without the tyres).