THE SCIENCE
The science of cadence.
Cadence is the simplest number in a running assessment, and one of the most misunderstood. Here's what it measures, why it changes with age, and how to improve it without losing stride.
Timothy Starkey
PE teacher and founder of Huddl · 5 min read · October 2026
If you've ever watched a Pre-primary class run, you'll have seen legs going a hundred miles an hour while covering hardly any ground. Watch a Year 6 class and the steps get longer and the rhythm settles. That rhythm has a name. It's cadence, and it's one of the seven metrics Skill Grader measures in every run.
On the surface it's the most basic metric we have. Underneath, it says a lot about how a student is using each step.
What cadence is
Cadence is the number of steps a runner takes per minute. A step is one foot landing, so a full stride, from the left foot landing to the left foot landing again, is two steps. You'll also hear it called step rate or step frequency.
Skill Grader works it out from the foot contacts in the video. Count the steps a student takes over a period of time, scale it to a minute, and you have their cadence.
Two runners, five seconds each. Student B takes two more steps in the same time, which works out to 24 more steps per minute.
Speed is cadence times step length
Running speed comes down to two things: how far each step travels and how many steps are taken each minute. That's why cadence on its own can be misleading. A student with a very high cadence can still be slow if every step is tiny, and a student with a moderate cadence can be quick if each step covers good ground. What we're really looking for is a healthy balance between the two, which is why Skill Grader always reports cadence alongside stride length ratio.
Why younger students step faster
Cadence changes a lot with age, and most of that comes down to leg length. As the leg swings forward during each stride, it behaves a bit like a pendulum, and a shorter pendulum swings back and forth faster than a longer one. That's physics, not effort. A Year 1 student naturally takes quicker, shorter steps than a Year 6 student running just as hard.
This is exactly why Skill Grader uses separate thresholds for each year band. Holding a six year old to the same cadence as a twelve year old would make no sense, in either direction.
What the thresholds look like
Our thresholds are published in the Skill library inside the app, so you can always see where each grade starts. Here's what they look like for Years 5 and 6.
Why cadence matters
A slightly higher cadence usually comes with slightly shorter steps that land closer to underneath the body. That reduces overstriding, the braking that happens when the foot lands well out in front of the hips. Research with adult recreational runners by Bryan Heiderscheit and colleagues found that increasing step rate by just 5 to 10 percent, while running at the same speed, reduced the energy absorbed at the knee, and at 10 percent it reduced loading at the hip as well. That study was done with adults, but the mechanics behind it are the same for a ten year old on the school oval.
A low cadence in a young runner often comes with a long, reaching stride and a heavy landing. A very high cadence with tiny steps can mean a student isn't using push-off well yet. Both are worth coaching, just in different directions.
How to improve it
Cadence is one of the easiest metrics to coach, because students can hear and feel it. These drills and cues are a good place to start.
One word of warning. Don't chase the number on its own. If a student's cadence goes up but their stride length ratio drops off, they aren't any faster, they're just busier. Look at the two metrics together and aim for quick, light steps that still push the ground away behind them.
Cadence might be the most basic metric in running, but it's rarely the least useful. Read alongside stride length, it tells you a lot about how efficiently a student is moving, and it's one of the quickest things to improve.
SOURCES
Heiderscheit, B. C., Chumanov, E. S., Michalski, M. P., Wille, C. M., & Ryan, M. B. (2011). Effects of step rate manipulation on joint mechanics during running. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 43(2), 296–302.
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