# 47: The Cadence Mistake Destroying Your Heart Rate Zones

In episode 47 of the Forever Runner Podcast, host Herb Reeves explains that many runners who can’t stay in low heart-rate zones may be limited by low cadence and overstriding rather than poor fitness. 

He describes discovering his own form issues during low heart-rate training and adopting the Pose method—upright posture, foot landing under the body, and short, quick steps. 

Reeves gives three reasons to raise cadence: it reduces joint pounding and braking forces (citing a University of Wisconsin finding that a 10% cadence increase cut hip and knee loading by over 20%), it improves running economy to make Zone 2/low heart-rate running possible (referencing research by Jonathan Foland and Dr. Peter Attia’s Zone 2 emphasis), and it can extend running longevity, supported by a long Stanford study of runners over 50. 

He outlines an “eight-minute cadence reset” drill sequence and recommends gradually increasing cadence in small weekly steps using a metronome.

00:00 Heart Rate Spikes Fast
00:37 My Low HR Struggle
02:19 Reason 1 Save Your Joints
04:15 Reason 2 Unlock Zone 2
06:32 Reason 3 Run for Decades
08:21 Fix Cadence Pose Basics
10:04 Eight Minute Cadence Reset
12:07 Progress Slowly and Stick
12:55 Wrap Up and Next Steps

P.S. If you are passionate about running, and you don't want to lose that passion, then getting your copy of my new Forever Runner Method book is the right move. Click this link to get yours: https://foreverrunner.com/

Runners over 50: Pain free running without injury with slow running!

Transcript

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Hey runners, how's it going? Tell me if this sounds like you. You know, you get ready to go for your run, you strap on the old garment, you set your heart rate zone, you start running, and in 10 seconds you're already over the limit. Does that sound familiar? Well let me tell you, your cadence is probably the reason. Hi, welcome to episode 47 of the Forever Runner Podcast. I'm your host, Herb Reeves. Let's make your running smarter so you live longer. So the first time I tried low heart rate training, I couldn't do it. My calculated target heart rate was so low that actual running sent me straight into the red. I had to slow down, way down. I had to walk. It felt ridiculous. That's when I started paying attention to what my body was doing, and I didn't like what I saw. I was over striding. My foot was landing way out in front of me, breaking with every step. My cadence was low and my form was a mess. That discovery led me to the pose method, which is upright posture, foot landing underneath my body, not ahead of it, and short, quick steps. So I took it out to our local lake path, you know, the popular one where everyone sees you. So I was out there putzing along, my heart rate stayed low, I was taking quick little steps, moving slowly, and I was getting past by baby strollers, by people walking their dogs. You know, embarrassed, yes, humbled, absolutely. But I knew I was on to something, and it only got better from there. So if you've been fighting to keep your heart rate low on your runs, your cadence is probably the real problem, not your fitness. And let me go through three reasons why raising your cadence changes everything. So, number one, raising your running cadence protects your joints from every pounding step. Now I see a lot of older runners over striding and running at a low cadence. Every time your foot lands in front of your body, you're slamming on the brakes. And that braking force has to go somewhere. It travels up through your heel, your shin, your knee, your hip, your lower back. You know, do that a thousand times over a mile, over 30 or 40 years of running, and your joints will eventually tell you to stop. Brian Hiterscheid and his team at the University of Wisconsin studied this directly. They found that increasing your cadence by just 10%, let's say from 155 to 170 steps per minute, doing that reduced the peak loading at the hip and the knee by more than 20%. That's not a rounding error. That's the difference between finishing the year strong and spending October on the couch with an ice pack on your knee. So here's the mechanism. When you shorten your stride and quicken your feet, your foot lands underneath your body instead of way out in front of it. You know what people call heel striking. Your body weight stays over your foot instead of crashing into it. The pose method calls this falling forward from the hips. Less breaking, less impact, less wear. If you still run with a heel strike first long stride pattern as an older runner, you're making daily deposits into future knee surgery. Raising your running cadence is how you fix it. So number two, raising your running cadence unlocks low heart rate training. This one took me a long time to figure out, and it's the one I get the most emails about. When I first tried low heart rate training, I couldn't stay under my target heart rate. My heart rate would just zoom past 140 beats per minute, just jogging. I thought I was just out of shape. Turns out I was working against my own mechanics. A study by Jonathan Folan and colleagues in medicine and science and sports and exercise confirmed that a higher cadence significantly improves running economy, meaning you use less oxygen and less energy to cover the same ground. When you're more efficient, your heart doesn't have to work so hard to carry you forward. If you're one of the many older runners fighting aerobic deficiency syndrome or ADS, that's where your heart rate spikes the moment you start to break into a jog. Cadence probably is the lever you're not pulling. Fix your form, raise your cadence, and suddenly you can run at that 130 beats per minute without having to walk all the time. This is exactly what Dr. Peter Atia has been preaching about zone 2 training. Your aerobic base is the foundation of longevity, but you can't build that foundation if every step sends your heart rate through the roof. Raising your cadence is what makes zone 2 running physically possible for most of us over the age of 50. So why don't you just check yours out real quick? On your next easy run, take a look at your average cadence. If it's under 170 and your heart rate won't settle below 130 beats per minute, then you've probably found out what your issue is, and that would be your cadence. Again, Dr. Peter Atia talks about the centenarian decathlon, and that's the idea that what you do today determines what you'll physically be able to do when you reach the age of 90. Running is on a lot of those lists. Most runners I know still want to be leasing up at 75, 80, even 90 years old. And you don't get there by pounding yourself into the ground. A long-running study out of Stanford tracked recreational runners over 50 against non-runners for more than two decades. The runners had lower rates of disability, chronic pain, and all-cause mortality. They stayed sharper, stronger, and more independent. But only the runners who adjusted their training as they age. Now adjusting your training means running in a way your 80-year-old self will thank you for. That means protecting your joints. That means building efficiency instead of grinding out miles. And that means treating every run like a deposit in your retirement count, not a withdrawal. Raising your cadence is one of the cheapest, simplest deposits you can make. You don't need new shoes, you don't need a coach, and you don't need to do a lab test. You just need about eight minutes of drills once or twice a week, and a garmin or a phone app with a metronome. Let's go through how to actually fix your cadence. This is a method that I recommend and that I coach. So the first thing is to establish what we'd call the pose form. And that means while standing straight, lift one leg up until your thigh is parallel to the ground. Now from the side, this should look like the number four. To loosen up, just try marching in place for like 10 steps, each time bringing that thigh up all the way up so it's parallel. Now try it again, but just bring your thigh up halfway. This will be your new running form. Again, march in place for like 10 steps just to get the feel for this. Now to test this on a run, go from marching in place to running in place, but matching your current cadence. So if your current cadence is 155 steps per minute or 170 steps per minute, whatever it is, start off jogging in place at that cadence using that pose form, and then to start running, you just lean forward at the ankles to start running. So that's that'll give you an idea of what it feels like. So how do you actually do this on your runs? Well, this is what I call the eight-minute cadence reset. So on your next easy run on level ground, pick out four times during the run to do the sequence, and each sequence takes about two minutes per round. So that's where I came up with the eight minutes. So as you're running along, do ten quick pull-ups on just your left leg. So every time your left leg hits the ground, then bring the heel up under your hip fast, like a little mini butt kick. And just do 10 of those and you're alternating. And then you want to do 10 quick pulls on your right leg, same thing, but on the other side. So that's where you'll just go one foot after the other, left, right, left, right, left, right, under your hips, quick feet, short steps, and and bringing that heel up under your hip fast. Uh like again, like the mini butt kick. So after that, then try running one full minute at a higher cadence to than normal. So if if you normally run like at 155 steps per minute, aim for like 160. Yeah. Just bump it up like five steps per minute. And you can use the the metronome on your Garmin or a phone app to match your foot strike to the new cadence beat. So, what do you want to do is is bump your target cadence up by five strides per minute every week or two. You don't want to jump it up a lot, like from 150 to 170 in a single run, but you'll feel it and it won't stick. So just take your time and keep going through the eight-minute cadence reset, and once it as it feels more comfortable, you can just lengthen the amount of time that you actually run at the higher cadence, and you'll get there. Don't worry about how long it takes because it'll take a while. It can take a couple months for some people, but it's well worth the effort and the time to get this fixed. So your cadence is not just a number on your watch, it's it's the difference between breaking and flowing, between beating up your joints and protecting them, between running hard and running easy. What I'd call effortless running. So remember the three reasons to raise it is it protects your joints, it allows you to actually do low heart run training, and it adds years to your running life due to lack of injuries. Imagine running your favorite loop at 130 beats per minute with short, quick steps, no pounding, no heaving breath, just a steady rhythm that you can hold for an hour. That's what the right cadence feels like. And you're maybe just 30 days of drills away from getting there. Let me know what's your current average cadence and what's your first move to raise it. Let me know in the comments. And if you want to learn more about all this, then head over to foreverrunner.com, my main website. There you can pick up my new book, The Forever Runner Method. You can just click that, download it, and be reading it in the next 10 minutes if you want. I'll put a link down in the description for that. Other than that, give this a try and I'll see you next week.