How to use music to increase your running cadence (strides per minute)

Recent research has revealed how using beat frequency can help improve running cadence

We know from previous research that running with music can actively change your running cadence (strides per minute). However, it’s been unclear whether those changes in cadence carry over when you aren’t using music. Researchers explored that topic in this recent paper - lets get into some of the details.

Study design

First things first, how did the researchers set up their study? This was a 12-week study using seven different runners (each with steps per minute - spm - of less than 170) to investigate how a 4-week music running program impacted cadence, speed, and heart rate.

During the “interventional phase”, the runners ran with a musical beat that was 7.5% to 10% higher than their normal cadence. Each of the tested metrics were measured twice a week during 5 kilometer runs and analyzed via randomization and visual data inspection.

Results

The researchers found that cadence significantly increased during the intervention period (running with music), nearly +8.5%. More importantly, that cadence change remained elevated (+7.9%) in the three to five weeks following (the “post-interventional phase”).

Further, speed and heart rate were not changed at any point during the interventional or post-interventional phases.

Practical application

Running with music that has a beat higher than your preferred cadence may lead to increased running cadence and may remain there for three to five weeks following not listening to that music anymore. The hope is that running at that increased cadence for those weeks would normalize it as your new baseline.

Further, this cadence change doesn’t come with any increase in speed or heart rate, which may indicate there isn’t any increase in physical exertion. This aligns with other research showing that increasing cadence by less than 10% limits the impact of exertion.

All in all, using music could be an effective and easy way to increase your running cadence and glean many of the benefits that come with it!

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Dr. Rajpal Brar, DPT has a doctorate in physical therapy from Northern Arizona University, and runs his own in-person and online sports medicine and performance business, 3CB Performance, in West LA and Valencia, CA and partners with Quantum Performance in which he further combines his movement expertise and fitness training background to rehab & train elite athletes. He also works at a hospital — giving him experience with patients in the immediate healthcare setting and neurological patients (post stroke, post brain injury) — and has been practicing for over 5 years. Brar is additionally training at UCLA’s mindful awareness research center (MARC), has a background in youth basketball coaching and analyzes the Lakers from a medical and skills perspective for Silver Screen and Roll and on his own YouTube Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @3cbPerformance.