Stride Length vs. Stride Frequency

Recently, I have been having a great discussion with one of my Youtube subscribers about sprinting and the different things that you need to do to run faster. Specifically, this person wanted to discuss improving your maximal speed. One of the topics that was brought up was about stride length and stride frequency. The question was, "Which one is more important for you to run faster; stride length or stride frequency?"

This is a great question. I have heard some of your top professionals take both sides of this debate. Some will say to really start running faster you need to work on stride length. While others have said that stride length is somewhat fixed and that a stride frequency improvement will get you running faster.

When it comes to my clients, a lot of times I have to take it by an individual case. If I have an athlete who has a decent stride length, but their stride frequency isn't that great, then I will focus on the stride frequency and sprinkle in some stride length to see what can be improved. If I see the reverse, then obviously my focus will be switched. Ultimately, for my athletes (understand that most of them range in age between 10-17) developing leg strength and power will be the solution for both issues.

If your legs are generating more force as they are pushing off the ground, then stride length is increased because you will have a little more hang time with your strides. Thus, you are making the stride length longer. Also, if those legs are generating more power than the turnover speed of those legs is quicker. Because it is quicker that means you move from point A to point B faster.

Now let's go back to the question at hand. The only way to truly answer this question is to discuss it with an athlete that really has no mechanical flaws. There are no flexibility issues that are limiting the range of motion for the legs (this can really affect both stride length and stride frequency). Essentially, the runner is perfect. So how to get this athlete faster?

If you had a gun to my head and forced me to pick an answer, I would give the slight edge to improving the stride frequency that would give you the better shot of the athlete getting faster. My reason is that the stride length first will be limited by leg length. So at a certain point you can only get out so far before you would be increasing your hang time to a point that is detrimental to speed development. Once you have maxed out that stride length, then you need to apply all your tricks to get that frequency as fast as possible. How quick can those legs turnover? That is where training, strength training, and speed drills will come into play to continually develop that over time.

Lucky for you though, when I develop a speed program, I don't have to make a decision which one I'm going to work on. I usually will be hitting both because those are the athletes that I'm working with right now. Most have some very noticeable mechanical flaws (at least noticeable to me) and those flaws usually include an improvement of both stride length and stride frequency. So, as fun a debate as this was, I will never have to pick and choose and I will work on both areas for you to start running faster.