MIKEbrought out the interesting subject of the importants of a rapid cadence when running,in his blog yesterday.
most of us lope around with a relaxed cadence and don't think to much about leg speed. look at any top runner and you will see there legs are really turning over, 90+ revs often 95- 100 rpm.
lance amstrong's [ 7 x tour de france winner] coach
chris carmichael knew that a faster cadence was more efficient,gave greater speed and produced less fatigue.chris got lance to retrain away from big gears and slow rpm and into very fast cadence and moderate gears,the rest is history!you only had to see lance in the time trials or climbing through the alps to see efficient he was,awesome comes to mind.
ARTHUR LYDIARD knew the importants of good leg speed many years ago and had his athletes doing a leg speed session even in there base training .
how to do arthurs leg speed session 10x 120m
find a good grass area with a slight down hill that will give you at least 150m to run on, warm up well then run about 120m downhill think leg speed,don't worry about your stride length.the idea is to turn the legs over as fast as possible,at first it will feel like you have resistance in your muscles stopping you but with time you will develop faster cadence, not only will you become a mor efficient runner you will also have a fine sprint when it comes to the end of a race.
try this session once a week at first,starting with 6 x 120 and build up to 10x 120m with 3 min between efforts.
