Strides are an often underused way to improve your speed and running form. Here's our guide on how to include them in your training!

Strides are short bursts of faster running (often lasting around 15-20 seconds) done at about 85-90% of max effort. You accelerate smoothly over the first few seconds and aim to hold a fast-but-controlled pace through the middle, then ease off, avoiding complete strain or flat-out sprinting.

They’re often included after easy runs or in warm-ups before workouts or races. They're not part a hard interval session. They're different from tempo runs (sustained, comfortably hard efforts over minutes) and from intervals (repeated hard efforts with structured recovery). Strides are much shorter and about sharpness, not endurance.

1. They help you run with better form. When you run faster, your body naturally falls into a quicker, lighter stride and your cadence usually improves. If you practice this often enough, it will help transfer into your everyday running too.

2. They switch on muscles your easy runs don't use. Running easy mostly uses one set of muscle fibres. Strides wake up a different set: the ones built for speed. Practicing switching on these fibres means when you need a burst of pace, like at the end of a race, your body already knows how to find it.

3.They're a safe way to practice getting faster. Because each stride is short, you can get a lot of the speed-building benefits without adding proper intensity to your training load. That's why they're often just tacked onto the end of an easy run.

4. They can freshen up your legs before a race or hard effort. A short, relaxed run with a few strides in the day or two before race day is a common and legitimate way to keep your legs feeling sharp rather than flat, without adding fatigue.

5. They make a great warm-up before a hard session. A few gentle build-up strides before intervals, a tempo run, or a race gradually raise your heart rate and prime your muscles for faster running, so the jump into full effort feels smoother rather than sudden.

The easiest way to add strides into your weekly training is by including some at the end of an easy run, once your legs are warmed up. You could do this once or twice a week, aiming for 4-6 reps of 15-20 seconds each, with an easy jog or walk to fully recover in between reps.

They can also be used as a race-week or pre-race tool. Adding strides to a short shakeout run 1-2 days before a 5K, half marathon, or marathon can help keep your legs sharp without adding fatigue.

Adding strides at the end of your warm-up before a harder interval session can feel like exactly what your legs need: a few gradual, building efforts that lift your heart rate and prime your muscles for speed, so the first hard rep doesn't come as a shock to the system. Rather than jumping straight from a gentle jog into full effort, strides bridge the gap, helping you ease into the session feeling ready rather than rushed.

Can I do strides on a treadmill? You can, but it's trickier as you're stuck with the treadmill's preset speed rather than the gradual, natural build-up you'd get running outside.