Lighter, Quicker Steps: How to Improve Your Running Cadence

Heavy steps have a sound to them. You hear the thud as the foot lands, you feel the jar travel up through the knee, and by the end of a long run your legs feel like they have absorbed more than they needed to. How many steps we take in a minute has a great deal to do with that.

Runner demonstrating quick, light steps to improve running cadence

What Is Running Cadence?

Running cadence is simply the number of steps you take per minute while running, both feet counted. Most recreational runners land somewhere between 150 and 170. Nudging that number up a little, without running any faster, is one of the few changes to running form that is genuinely easy to make and easy to feel.

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Why a Quicker Running Cadence Helps

When we take fewer, longer steps, the front foot has to reach to meet the ground. It lands out ahead of us on a leg that is already braking before it has begun to carry our weight. Shorter steps bring the landing back closer to underneath us, and the leg can do what it is built to do.

A study at the University of Wisconsin looked at exactly this. Runners who increased their step rate bounced less, landed closer to their centre of gravity, and absorbed less force through the knees and hips. The study measured loading rather than injuries, so it does not prove that a quicker cadence keeps us injury free. What it shows is that the same run asks less of the joints, and most of us can feel that difference for ourselves within a few minutes.

You may have heard that 180 steps a minute is the number to aim for. That figure comes from the coach Jack Daniels, who sat and counted the strides of distance runners at the 1984 Olympics and found nearly all of them running at 180 or above. It is a useful observation about elite runners at racing speed. It is not a target the rest of us need to hit. Your own comfortable number is the starting point, and a small increase from wherever you are is worth more than chasing somebody else's figure.

Finding Your Own Cadence

Count the steps of your right foot for thirty seconds on an easy run, then multiply by four. That is your cadence. If you run with a GPS watch like Garmin or a running app like Strava, it is recorded for you, though counting once yourself is worth doing because it puts your attention on your feet, which is where the change begins.

Whatever the number is, it is not a verdict on your running. It is a place to start from.

Here's how the cadence data is displayed in the Garmin app:

My own Garmin watch showing a cadence reading after a run

That screenshot is from my own watch. I have a high cadence now, higher than I ever set out to have, and I never once trained for a number. It came from years of paying attention to how I was moving, and my steps shortened on their own. I am not showing it to you as a target. I am showing it because it is what happens when the attention comes first.

Changing It Gently

Aim for about five percent more than your current number, and give it several runs. If you count 156, you are looking for 164, not 180. Sudden jumps ask a great deal of the calves and feet all at once, and a niggle that arrives during a form change is the surest way to abandon the change.

The cue that works best is not a number at all. Think light and quick. Imagine running barefoot on hot sand, or running along a hallway without waking anyone. Your feet shorten the stride by themselves, and your legs do not need to be told how. The sand image works because sand asks for short, light steps without anyone having to explain why, and if you have ever tried barefoot running on sand, you already know the rhythm I mean.

Cadence drills for runners including high knees and strides

Drills to Help Improve Running Cadence

A few drills help the rhythm settle, and they fit into runs you are already doing.

Strides. At the end of an easy run, do four to six bursts of twenty to thirty seconds where you gradually pick up the pace. Focus on quick turnover rather than speed.
Counted repeats. After a ten to fifteen minute warm up, run thirty seconds at your usual pace and count the strides of one leg. Rest a minute or two, then run another thirty seconds and add one or two strides. Repeat five times.

High knees. Twenty to thirty seconds during your warm up, to wake up leg speed.
Short hill sprints. Ten to fifteen seconds up a gentle hill at a controlled effort. A hill shortens your stride for you.

A Note About Music

A steady beat can be genuinely helpful while a new rhythm is unfamiliar. A metronome app set to your target, or a playlist at a matching tempo, gives your feet something to follow while you learn.

Once the rhythm is in your body, you may find you would rather hear yourself. Your own footfall tells you more than a beat does, because it changes as you get tired, as the ground changes, and as your attention wanders. There is more on that in mindful running without music, and it is worth trying a few runs each way to see which one you prefer.

The Peaceful Runner Perspective

Cadence is usually treated as a setting to adjust, as though the body were a machine waiting for a new instruction. What I have found is closer to the opposite. When we bring our attention to how we are moving, the reaching stops on its own and the steps shorten without being told to. The number on the watch goes up afterward, as a result of the attention rather than as the object of it.

This is why I would rather you spend a run listening than counting. If your steps sound heavy, that is your body telling you the foot is landing too far out in front, which matters more than whether your foot lands on the heel or the forefoot. If they sound light, nothing needs fixing. The same attention that shows you your cadence is the attention that catches a niggle in the calf three weeks before it becomes a calf injury, and that is the real value of it.

A quicker cadence will not make you a different runner. It takes some of the pounding out of the runner you already are, and you can feel whether it is working without any equipment at all.

Have you tracked your running cadence before, and did anything change for you? Share it in the comments below.