90% of Runners Do Strides Wrong (Here’s The Fix)

[00:00:00] Strides are one of the most searched running terms online, but still 90% of runners either skip them or they do them wrong. You’re ready? Have the speed. You just haven’t trained your body or your brain to use it properly. This was me for years. I avoided strides most days. And the days I did them, I was sprinting them.

[00:00:19] Then wondering why I wasn’t seeing all the magical gains that said strides would bring. Today, I’ll show you how to do strides the right way while actually doing them with you on this field right here and showing you. That they’re not as hard as you think. In this episode, I’ll be going over what strides actually are, why most runners are messing them up.

[00:00:38] A simple 10 minute routine to start, where to place them in your training, how to stack them up over time in real speed. But why you need patience to actually see the benefits from this type of fast running. Yes, patience, fast get it, and a free download if you get to the middle to help you put all of this information into your training.

[00:00:57] Right now, right after you watch it, I’m Daren D Lake and my goal is to help 10,000 self-coach runners run 1% each day. 30 years ago, I was a sprinter first, 49 seconds in the 400 meter. Then I went long sub three hour marathon, 10 hour Ironman finisher, and throughout all of it strides with the bridge between speed and endurance.

[00:01:15] And it’s just fun to run fast every now and then. Let’s get into the episode. What are strides? So most runners think strides, they’re sprints. They are definitely not sprints. Sprints are all out 100%. And as Stu McMillan renowned sprint coach to many Olympians said. Most people can’t actually sprint. They literally don’t have the neuromuscular patterns, tendon elasticity, and ligament strength to execute a true sprint safely.

[00:01:42] It’s like trying to play a sick guitar solo without learning the basic scales First. Strides are short, controlled, acceleration. You start at 50% and then build to about 90%. Hold for a few seconds and then ease off. Think a pyramid with a flat top or a fdo for geometry nerds, you know, I’m maxing out.

[00:01:59] You’re just flowing and being expressive. And again, having fun, and I’ll go through this with you in real time very shortly. Think of them like those practice swings in golf, not actually hitting the ball, just getting your body to remember what a good swing feels like. I’m acting like I’ve played golf.

[00:02:13] Nope. Strives. Also very flexible, and you don’t need perfection to get the benefits. They can be great right before a hard workout or fast race pace. Long run in the middle of a run if you’re feeling sluggish or even at the end of an easy run, which is when I do the most. And whenever I coach someone, I tell ’em, they usually do them at the end of their runs.

[00:02:31] Quick Run Science Nerd Break. Look, your body basically is a biological or physiological machine that can learn to run way more efficiently. Here’s what actually happens when you do strides. Your brain gets smarter about speed strides. Wake up your fast twitch muscle fibers teaching your brain how to recruit them without freaking out.

[00:02:49] A 2009 review in sports medicine showed that this kind of neuromuscular training creates learning effects. Your muscles literally get better at using stored energy, like upgrading your body’s software. You become more fuel efficient. Think of running economy like your cars. MPG miles per gallon, or if you’re not in America, like me, I’m in Sydney, Australia, it is liters per 100 kilometer.

[00:03:09] I think. I don’t drive, so I actually don’t know. But research shows runners doing strides two to three times per week, improved their fuel efficiency by up to three to 4%. That’s crazy. That’s basically getting a free 30 to 60 seconds in your 5K or as much as five to 10 minutes or more in your marathon.

[00:03:28] Without training harder, why not do them? And the last point of this run science break is that your form gets dialed in strides. They teach your body how to move fast without falling apart. You land closer to your center of mass, bounce less and stop wasting energy on unnecessary movements. It’s like learning to drive stick shift instead of grinding gears everywhere.

[00:03:46] So quick, TLDR. What are actual strides? They’re 10 to 25 seconds of controlled. Runs that ramp up from, I’d say 50 to 60% to 90%. Float at 90% and then ease back down to 60 50% and then stop. They’re effort based, not speed, pace, or heart rate based. Remember that You don’t need to hit a certain speed, just feel like you’re running them.

[00:04:06] So for effort, speed, and you wanna know, how fast would you feel like you’re running? I like to do it between my one mile and 5K. Race pace effort, but again, not doing it based on pace on my watch. Just feel you’ll get to know that. Feel. If you do time trials, you should be doing time trials. Heart rate takes too long to respond to these short bursts, so it’s mostly useless for pacing strides.

[00:04:26] I don’t care about it. I actually use it mainly for recovery. I go, cool. My heart rate is dropped below 120 BPMs. I can do the next stride. I’m good. Or I could do seconds. I’ll get into exactly how to do them. Very shortly. So if you’re watching this or listening and you’re like, all right, Daren, you’re talking a lot, I really wanna try this as soon as possible.

[00:04:43] Don’t worry. I got you. I’ve got free strides Training plan bundle for you. I give you a weekly training plan, progression, when to use them, tools and tactics, a really quick cheat sheet, little images that you can print out or have it on your phone or whatever, and even incorporating other training around it with some mental strength.

[00:05:01] Gotta get that brain right and habits flexes. This is the cheat code that I seriously wish I had back in the day 20, 30 years ago. So get at the QR code here, link below or in the show notes of your podcast app if you’re listening. Alright, enough talking. Let me actually show you how this works out in the real world.

[00:05:17] How to do strides. So we’ll start off at 50%, 60% get up to 90%, and then we hold 90%, two to three seconds, and then we drop down 80%, 70%, all the way down, 60%. Nice and easy, gradual, slow down, chill out. Don’t stop, walk, finish. Don’t wanna hurt anything. So I usually tell runners I coach to do these again at the end of a run.

[00:05:50] Usually easy run is best when you’re starting out. Don’t wanna do ’em at the end of a hard or long run because you are fatigued and you won’t get the best out of ’em. So easy. 20, 30 minute run. That’s when we’ll tack them on. If you’re new to running or new to strides, start at 10 seconds total. So that’s from the beginning to the end.

[00:06:06] And break that 10 seconds into thirds. So think a pyramid with the flat top again. First them. So first, third is ramping it up. So if we break this into. Three seconds, three to four seconds. We’re at 50% starting out on second one, and then we’ll get up to about 90 seconds by the third or fourth second. And then from seconds four to seven, we’re gonna hold that 90%.

[00:06:26] For those two to three seconds. And then the last third, again, the last three or four seconds, we’re ramping it down from 90% to 50 and then come to a gentle stop. I like to not come to a complete stop to avoid injury. You don’t wanna pull a hamstring or do something silly. So for the rest we always want to do three to four x the amount rest of the time of we did work.

[00:06:48] So I just did 10 seconds. I wanna do about 30 seconds, rest, 35 seconds. The longer the better. Obviously you don’t wanna do five minutes, but you don’t wanna do. 10 seconds on stride, 10 seconds off. That’s not good. This is so important. I cannot stress it anymore. Do not skip the rest. Do not speed up the rest.

[00:07:04] You need a TP to replenish. You can do more rest. Two minutes is absolutely fine, but just some people run outta time. You get a bit anti, you might get cold. So that’s why I like to do three to one, so you know. Okay. This is the minimum. You can either look at your heart rate when it goes all the way down to like.

[00:07:18] Below your zone one. So zone zero before you even start zone one. Mine is 120 BPMs. You need the a TP to replenish so you can go full speed. So I’ve done an episode on a TP up here, and base training just jumped into the A TP. But a TP is basically the energy that allows you to move forward. It’s actually what happens before glycogen and you need that to replenish.

[00:07:40] If you want to go full speed, that’s like very dumbed down run science. But this again, this isn’t an interval workout. Now, if you’re feeling that. Light bulb, aha moment where this is starting to click. The best thing you can do for me, besides subscribing, liking, and sharing this, is to watch this all the way through for the algorithm gods to show it to more runners who are stuck in that endless cycle of running hard, but not getting the speed gains they deserve.

[00:08:02] Or just comment below if you do strides or not. So tell me yes or no if you do strides, and if you want why? Thank you so much in advance. All right, so we’re gonna get. Onto another one. Again, start off 50%, all gentle. Then we hit 70%, 80%, 90%. Hold in two, three seconds and then we’ll bring it down. 80, 70, 50%.

[00:08:31] Boom. And then walk, finish. Not immediate stop. Don’t one immediately stop. Doesn’t get it done. That’s how you hurt yourself. So as far as sequencing and how many reps, I like to start at four. Pull by 10 if I haven’t done ’em in a while, or I’m brand new and that’s four reps with 30 seconds rest. And then each week I add one.

[00:08:53] That’s it. Just one. We don’t need to go crazy. And then after four weeks, I’ll get to 8, 5, 6, 7, 8, and then, is that right? And then I drop down on the ninth week back to four, but I do 15 seconds, then go back up to eight again. Then when I hit nine, I drop back down. 20 seconds. Four. And then the goal, I usually end it about 20 seconds by eight.

[00:09:18] Sometimes if I’m feeling spicy, I’ll do 25 seconds. Eight times I’ll get up to, but that’s like over the course of like 16 weeks. So then I hold it there. No need to do 30, 35 seconds. Uh, it’s the, the, the dose is the poison. We need to be very precise about what we do, and it’s the effort and the intention and not how much we do.

[00:09:37] So where to do these strides, I like to find a straight, flat field, about a hundred meters in length. We’re not running a hundred meters to start with, at least depending on how fast you are. You might be super fast and a hundred meters, you’ll be able to cover it in 15 seconds doing 90%, but most of you won’t.

[00:09:52] I definitely don’t. I like to do strides on a flat field. This is artificial turf right here. So I know that there’s pretty low chance of divots in rocks and random bumps and whatnot. ’cause you could twist an ankle. So grass field is like second or third best, but artificial field or track are your main places.

[00:10:15] Um, and that’s ’cause of the surface being soft and safe. Now, grass field is next best, um, with an asterisk that I’ll get into in a second. Um, then. If you have asphalt, the actual street, if it’s safe for you, is fourth best, and then fifth best would be. Uh, pavement, sidewalk, concrete. ’cause concrete is the hardest.

[00:10:38] So the street is actually softer than concrete. Bonus, advanced level stuff, if you can, and especially in the beginning, it’s really good to find a slight uphill on a soft surface. So you could find. A grass patch that actually goes uphill. You don’t actually need that long because you’re going uphill. So even 60 meters, 80 meters, a football field is what you want.

[00:10:57] If it’s flat, and then you could do probably 50 to 70% of a football field if you’re in America. But just a slight one to 2% gradient is all you need. Don’t wanna get into that three to 5% land. You don’t need to measure it. These aren’t hill sprints, that’s a whole other workout. Hill sprints. This is just strides and the hill allows you to not.

[00:11:15] Be so taxing on your body because you’re up, so you’re landing gently and on grass. It’s like a double bonus. Do these at least once a week, preferably working up again to two to three times a week. I’d say after your sixth or eight week, you can probably start doing three times a week, and I like to do them after easy runs.

[00:11:31] And long runs. I am now, I’ve been doing them for many years. I’m up to about five days a week. I’ll actually do them after interval sessions. Definitely long runs ’cause I like to blow out the cobwebs, dust off the cobwebs at the end of a long run and just do some strides. I did a deep dive on strides versus sprints versus windups.

[00:11:48] Versus run throughs as there’s a slight variance in terminology amongst the running community. So you could check that out up there. And I talk about skipping, which is actually a beautiful bridge before you do strides, and I’ll get into that a bit more. So why do strides work? Because you’re sinking your brain and your body.

[00:12:05] At speed, they train neuromuscular coordination, improve ground contact time. They sharpen your form. You’re teaching your legs to turn over without tension. Quick run science nerd. Break number two. Here’s where it gets interesting. A 2015 study tracked 18 runners for eight weeks doing a comprehensive neuromuscular training program that included stride like accelerations combined with strength slash gym work.

[00:12:28] The results, these runners got seriously stronger and generated more. Power, which is strength and speed, which is actually what we want from strides. So 23% boost in max strength, 12.7% jump in explosive power and they could run faster on the treadmill. And the crazy part is that they crushed the 10 K times, especially in those brutal final last one, two kilometers of last mile where most people fall apart.

[00:12:53] And the injury prevention stuff is legit. A master review of 10 studies found that when runners increase their stride rate, everything, it just works better, less balancing around smoother ground contact time and your joints absorb way less punishment. So that’s running economy, AKA running efficiently.

[00:13:10] So every step you get more speed, you go forward faster with less energy. It’s like switching from an old truck to a smooth sports car, same distance, way less wear and tear in your body. But here’s the trick. You can’t force that adaptation. You have to let it build. And that, again, I’ve been talking about it forever.

[00:13:28] If you’ve been watching it, it is patience. We need it all. Strides are where you practice patience. At speed, you learn how to run fast without force, you stay relaxed. And that transfers to every race that you run. And even the long runs that seem pretty daunting. You’re like, can I finish this long run? I don’t know, strides, they’ll help you.

[00:13:45] So in my upcoming book, the 1% Better Runner, I did a whole section. Three or four chapters on patients. More on that in the future, if you haven’t already, remember to get that free Strides bundle download at the QR code or link below QR code here, and as a bonus, you’ll get automatically signed up to my weekly five minute or less newsletter that goes deep on stuff like this.

[00:14:03] VO two max threshold runs and that mental fitness so important. But strides are actually quite advanced if you’re not ready, and one part of a bigger picture for runners to help you bridge into strides. I break down in this next episode the difference between strides, sprints, windups, and run throughs, and even skipping, which is such a secret weapon for amateurs and even pros and even experienced runners like me.

[00:14:24] To start and maintain running fast and keep your Achilles tendon and ligaments nice and strong. I skip a lot. Skip for warmups. I skipping in the middle of a run. I love skipping. I skipped my son, so check it out here or link below or in the show notes of your podcast app base.