What’s so important about cadence if you’re a runner? Well, anytime you’re training for a longer distance event, like a marathon, it’s very important not just that you train your body to handle the actual workload, but also to teach yourself what a good pace feels like. Especially if you’re trying for a fast time. By training your body to be comfortable at a specific pace, you’re allowing the natural muscle memory that we all have to take over and do some of the hard work of getting you through the race a bit easier. Cadence, the number of steps per minute that you take, gets brought in because it’s a powerful way to train your body to get into a rhythm that will almost automatically allow you to keep a steady pace.
There’s a new iPhone app that will automatically adjust the speed of your music to fall in line with a cadence that will help you reach a specific pace you’ve entered into the App. Say you want to run an 8:30 mile, the App will track your speed via GPS and adjust the cadence of your music to keep you on track for that 8:30 mile. Pretty sweet! Runner’s world did a great write up of it here. Sit back, pour yourself some Gnarly Whey, and check out their take on the App and hear how they feel about the science behind cadence training. Pretty cool stuff!
