That Fredrik uncle coach also said something about cadence and strides depending on situation. Till today i still cannot understand fully. Only understand that the most energy saving is good and hopefully we are elastic enough to save the most amount of energy.
I think ultimately, really need to extend our "flexibility" or "elasticity" or whatever you may call it and be able to tahan slower/high cadences and also shorter/longer strides and hopefully our bodies would gravitate to the most energy efficient setting. Like some folks just neruomuscularly cannot run fast at 180-195spm range....and then they are also limited to a certain stride length. Bro glassdoor can tahan 190+ for his shorter ~ 5k TTs i think, and he is in his mid 50s already.
This is probably quite dependent on the strength and neuromuscular elasticity that one can give and it needs to be trained. The same thing goes in cycling. Like for eg, i can "stretch" till around 1.4 - 1.50++ m stride length and still feel ok, and ultimately no issue ie no injuries nowadays, wrt to the level of plyo + S&C and distance/intensity i am doing.
But then if another fella runs 160spm (recently got 1 did that in the what inter-tertiary 5k poly/ITE competition), that means need to stride nearly 1.9m if at 3:10-3:20 pace (eg if i do 3k). I'm sorry, 1.9m is crazy, i totally cannot do even if i stretch, nevermind the injury aspect.
But then for 3k, i need to up 190+ spm coz i feel maxed out at around 1.5m ++
For sprints of coz that is another matter.
Ultimately not pro or elite, so i think the best is that we can adapt and perform around a wider performance envelope. There are folks who cannot and that might be the limiter, not that he/she is aerobically limited.
There is also similar regarding cadence and power as the race goes on, the graph shifts around and changes etc. Damn cheem one.
But i'm still learning and it's quite interesting, no hurry ba......just hobby only, it's the journey not the destination.
Our bodies really wonderful, esp if there is sufficient experience. If you are racing or trying a very hard effort, and riding across different routes/roads and gradients and headwind/tailwind, it would "self select" one.
In cycling, we have gears of coz. So in order to "survive", depending on whether it is still early and legs are fresh, mid ride or late ride, whether the glutes or the quads are more laden with lactate, we would be able to self select the best gearing in order to achieve a good speed or when to off saddle for best power output in order to still latch on or when to guai guai stay seated for best energy efficiency.
Also, for road riding, there are quite a fair number of times in which there is no choice but to cheong also, just to merge with traffic. So bo bian, forced to ride fast in order to survive. It's not as constant as running.
Provided not much limited aerobically or too much lactate in the muscles.
But this only comes with experience, then it becomes muscle memory / neuromuscular liao.
