1. Get Into Gear
Some people compare stride length for runners to the gears of a bicycle. If you are running slowly, it's like being in a low gear on a bicycle, and your stride length is short. When you increase your speed, it's like going into a higher gear, and your stride length is longer. A combination of a longer stride and a faster pace--or increased cadence--makes you run faster.
2. Don't Overstride
Beginning runners often try to force their stride to get longer to they can move faster. However, while this might work, it can also lead to overstriding, which actually slows a runner down. This is because it increases the impact--or the force with which your foot hits the ground. When you hit the ground harder, you also take longer to get back to your center, and you increase your risk of injury.
3. Is Your Lead Leg Straight?
You can tell that you are overstriding if your lead leg is almost straight as it hits the ground. When your leg is straight, your heel is hitting the ground hard. This can cause injury to your shins, lower leg, back and hips.
4. Get Stronger and More Flexible
The best way to increase stride length without overstriding is to improve your muscle strength and increase your flexibility. This will take a while, but it's the best way to get results. You will want to do a stretching program and introduce some training on hills at least once a week. A weight-training program can also help.
5. Choose One Day for Drills
When you are first starting out, you are better off increasing your cadence--the amount of times your foot strikes the ground--instead of artificially increasing your stride length. The average runner's feet hit the ground 80 to 85 times per minute, but the average Olympic runner's foot hits the ground about 180 times per minute, so there is lots of room for improvement for most runners. Then, introduce exercises, like hill runs, that will improve your stride length over time. The increase will be very gradual, so you probably won't notice it. In addition to hill runs, there are a number of other running drills that can improve stride length. One of them--the hot coals drill--involves running a distance of 50 yards as if running on hot coals. This will improve your stride length. Running up flights of stairs--hitting each step as fast as you can--improves stride frequency. Some runners choose one day per week to do these types of drills, five days to just run and one day to rest.
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