Cadence

Since the cavemen, humans have been running barefoot or with little on the foot. The
Tarahumara Indians have run 100 mile races for years wearing sandals called huaraches made out of old tire tread and leather straps and the Kenyans abilities running barefoot speak for themselves. Irene Davis, Director of the Running Injury Clinic at the University of Delaware states that "The technological advancements in shoes over the past 30 years have been amazing. We've seen tremendous innovations in motion control and cushioning. And yet the remedies don't seem to defeat the ailments." So what?s a runner to do?
All experts in this field agree on the contention that to prevent injuries you have to get off your heel and land mid to forefoot. Blaise Dubois, a leading Physiotherapist in the prevention of running injuries from Quebec has a multi layered approach that is centered on this theme and one of less is better. First and foremost runners have to get back to a turnover of 180 steps per minute. Too many runners get into a low, slow shuffle particularly when training for endurance events, which causes them to sit back and land heel first. Landing heel first increases ground reaction forces, reducing your body?s ability to absorb the shock of landing and causes you to spend more time on the ground as you must roll through your entire foot. Barefoot proponents believe that shoes reduce our innate ability to absorb shock by naturally landing mid to forefoot
Not sure you agree? Kick your shoes off and jump up and down...where on your foot do you land? Now try running around the room...do you land on your heel? How about your stride...did it get shorter or longer? Don?t do this for too long because muscles you haven?t used in a while will start to get very sore.
Now to begin your road to recovery and/or prevention. Put your shoes back on, hop onto your treadmill if you have one and warm up for four minutes. At this point count your steps, every time your left foot hits. How many did you get? Now try increasing that so that you hit 90 left steps or 180 total steps. Next listen to how hard you land and think light on your feet. Not sure if you?re getting it? Try it barefoot for a few minutes (but no more) which should put you right at 180 and quiet. Now put your shoes back on and see if you can replicate it. Don?t have a treadmill? Use a portable metronome, swim stroke counter or your Garmin GPS cadence counter and set it to 180. Now run to the beat.

Congratulations to Doug Dixon who completed the Beaches Spring Sprint 5k in 34:18. Want your own finishing time? Don?t miss the Pitter Patter 5k/10k on April 19 at Loyalist College and the WingNut 10.5k/21k and 21k relay on April 26 in Trenton. Applications are available for both at Tri & Run Sports in Trenton.