Unleashing Your Potential: The Power of Warming Up Before Every Run

Finn Melanson [00:00:14]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Milanson, and this is the Run to the Top podcast, a podcast dedicated to making you a better runner with each and every episode we are created in. Produced by the expert team of coaches@runnersconnect.net, where you can find the best running information on the internet, as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. Perhaps one of the most neglected and often most misunderstood aspects of any runners training plan or daily routine is the warm up. I know I'm often guilty of not wanting to warm up like I know I should. Sometimes it feels like just another thing I need to do, especially when everything is feeling good. But what always helps me step back and focus on warming up, even when I know I don't want to, is thinking back to the scientific understanding of why it's so critical and just exactly how much it can help decrease injuries. In today's episode, we're going to help you by giving you that in depth understanding of the why, the benefits, and how to so you can remind yourself just how important it is on those days you want to skip it. To help me, we're talking with Matt Phillips. Matt is a Run conditioning coach, videogate analyst and sports therapist with over 20 years experience working with runners of all ability levels. He's based out of England and has actually written quite a few amazing articles for us. We're going to dive into exactly why the warmup is so important to performance and injury prevention, how we often confuse flexibility with being warmed up, and why we need to rethink this concept, the difference between active stretching and dynamic warmup, plus how long and what types of warmups to do even in bad weather. Matt shares a lot of helpful lessons in this one, so let's get to it. Today's episode is sponsored by Magnesium Breakthrough from Bioptimizers. Their industry leading magnesium supplement helps you sleep better and reduce stress. Head to Magbrakethrough.com runothetop to learn more and save 10%. If you're looking for the most effectively dosed electrolyte drink for runners, check out LMNT pronounced Element. It's loaded with everything you need to replace your electrolyte balance, and for a limited time, you can try Element's new grapefruit flavor. Plus, get a free sample pack by going to drinklmnt.com RunnersConnect. Hey, Matt, thanks for being with us here today. Start out by giving us a quick 92nd background into who you are and what you specialize in.

Guest [00:02:56]: So, my name is Matt Phillips. I'm a sports therapist and a runner and a writer for Runners Connect. I've done that for quite a few years now, and as in writing for Runners Connect, but I've actually been working with runners for probably I started off in strength and conditioning in about 2000, and then that was working on rehab and performance, and then I wanted to get involved in actually helping runners through injury. So I got into massage and then more manual therapy. And then we also got into gait analysis when that started getting popular. So today we've got a clinic here, watch them in. We've got about ten therapists, a combination of in the UK, they're called physiotherapists. We've got osteopaths, sports therapists, massage therapists, and we do gait analysis. We've got a running technique analysis lab and it's cool having it all on site because we can kind of refer runners, and not just runners, we look after all sorts of population to and from the respective professional who best be able to look after their needs. So it's taken a while, but, yeah, we're in a great position, we've got a lovely place here and things are good.

Finn Melanson [00:04:04]: Are warming up and stretching important before the run? And if so, what are the benefits?

Guest [00:04:10]: In my opinion, when most people think of warming up and they kind of think of preparing the body, getting the sinovial joints lubricated, that's the sort of thing we learn. So it comes as no surprise that most runners believe that they just do the first mile, kind of a slow pace or something. The alternative to that is runners will buy into the idea that they need to stretch their muscles to get them prepared for running. Then there's a sudden jump where they suddenly believe they need to be able to touch the toes in order to run. And of course, this has been taught, and it sounds ridiculous saying it now, but again, in all of the or therapists as well, and runners, you go along to a meeting, track meeting, and you're all touching your toes, you're all trying to get your knees by your ears, and no one kind of stops to think it's almost White coat syndrome. No one stops to think, Hold on, I don't need to touch my toes to run or my knees aren't going to go any higher than waist max minimum. So what we know now, and the research kind of backs it up, is that runners don't need much flexibility. I say to my runners, if you can walk, then you can pretty much run. And there's not really an awful lot more and classic areas of hip extension. I see still videos being pumped out about increase your hip extension. And the research shows, black and white, we need about three more degrees for running compared to walking. So if you can walk with a little bit more hip extension, you're there, don't worry about trying to stretch those hip flexors. Same goes for hamstrings. A lot of runners come and say, My hamstrings are so tight, and then I'll say, just out of interest, how do you run? What sort of flexibility do you need in those hamstrings? So, for warming up, the first thing I kind of do with runners, and the research is there, and some runners are queuing up to it in the sense that you don't need static stretching we're runners, we're not martial artists, we're not dancers, we're not trying to kick people in the head or do the splits. We're just preparing for the range of movement we need for running, which isn't an awful lot. So stretching aside, the research is there disproving claims that stretching can reduce injury? Research is there showing it doesn't. Some research actually shows that static stretching and by static stretching, I'm talking about holding a stretch for kind of 20, 30 seconds or more over the major muscle groups, the typical hamstring stretch, quad stretch, hip flexor. Some research actually shows that that can reduce performance. And that's interesting for runners because as soon as you say this might be slowing down, that we just kind of prick up, you're like, well, give me an example. So I often give examples and quote research or athletes who have reduced their flexibility and actually got faster. And over here in the UK, Paula Radcliffe is a fantastic runner who we're very proud of and still holds her record and the marathon record. And she's got some documented reduction in hamstring flexibility where she reduced her sit and reach test by something like 8 think by, and I think it was 4 CM by strength training. Because the fact is, as we'll probably talk about later on for running, you actually it sounds horrific to most runners. You need to be stiff. Runners go stiff. I'm spending all my life trying to do yoga and not be stiff anymore. You need stiffness. You want to be a powerful spring, you don't want to be a kind of a floppy slinky. So when it comes to warming up, when people say, what shall we do my warm up? I'll say, well, you're preparing for what you're doing, aren't you? So we actually want to make you a little bit stiff, kind of really. And we want to make sure you've got enough range of movement, but I'm pretty sure you have if you haven't, do something. And we want to basically increase the skill element. We want to warm you up for the skill element that's going to be involved in running. This is something we'll probably touch on more later on as well because as soon as I get runners to realize that when the warm up is not just for your body, it's for your mind, it's for the nervous system, it's for the brain. That's the idea of warm up.

Finn Melanson [00:07:50]: Do runners need to be flexible or is there an advantage to sometimes being a little bit more stiff? And if so, how?

Guest [00:07:57]: Yes, the idea of actually stiffness being a good thing is all to do with basically what we know about how running works. It's a series of hopping from legs to big, basically bit like a pogo stick. And the human body is incredible in that the muscles and tendons in particular absorb the impact of landing on the ground and then they store that energy and then that's exactly what they use to pearl yourself forwards. Okay? So this system of it's called the stretch shortening concept, this system of landing, absorbing the energy and then releasing it, propelling yourself forwards, that depends on having a nice analogy of springs. So it's stiff springs. So if you spend all your life trying to loosen those springs up and just going for flexibility for the sake of it, especially in areas like the calves, where like, the Achilles tendon at the bottom of the calf has been shown in research to provide about 50% of the propulsion in running. So all these runners who potentially are spending a lot of their time trying to stretch the calf, stretch the calves in the belief that my calves hurt because they're tight, they're tight, so I need to stretch them. At best they're probably not doing anything at all and at worst they could be actually reducing its natural stiffness, which we need in order to propel ourselves forwards. And that's where the power of plyometric training, which has been shown by research to be very useful, comes into it. Plyometric training is working that elasticity and tendons by doing box jumps and skipping and hops and stuff. That's the sort of thing runners need to stiffen themselves up. You can do yoga and stuff to relax. I'm not dissing yoga at all. It's really useful depending on your personality because recovery is the other end of the spectrum is really important. But in terms of preparing your body for the demands physically, the tissues and the tendons, then yeah, stiffness, which takes us into strength training as well.

Finn Melanson [00:09:49]: What are your thoughts on active isolated stretching?

Guest [00:09:53]: Okay, so first of all, the word stretching is in it, which kind of raises my biases a little bit. The thing about active isolated stretching that I like is actually the first word is active. So it's not really anything new. It's kind of a system that's been around for quite a long time under different names. Essentially it's all about the idea of taking the stretch down to 2 seconds or so so that you don't actually cause the stretch receptors to stop and contract. It's all about the antagonists and agonistic stuff. But what I like about it is the athlete actually takes control. So the other versions where we've got like the other acronyms and the pNFS and the Mets, where you've got a therapist kind of holding your leg and pushing that's okay. In early stage rehab and showing athletes that they're actually able to get arranged and getting involved. The only thing that I particularly as an evidence based practitioner see about active isolated stretching is I'm not very sure about the mechanism which they say is responsible for the success they have. There's evidence that you can increase range of movement with active isolated stretching. Like in the hamstrings, there's a few studies that do that. But again, as we were saying before, do we need this extra range. And is it that extra range that actually reduces pain? Because this is where active isolated stretching has had a success in helping runners who are in pain to get over injury. I really enjoy. For example, Phil Wharton. I think it is. Yes. Phil wharton. He did a podcast with Violence Connect, which I thought was amazing. And he's such a magnetic character and I can see totally why he gets on so well. Jay Johnson, who's another legend, too, who I love watching and listening to, they're just brilliant people in the world of running. But again, my biases alarm bells start going off because he's talking about postural alignment, he's talking about symmetry, he's talking about releasing fascia. And these are all kind of mechanisms of effect, which we know they sound kind of cool, but you can't for symmetry going around. Bolt is one side is dominant. There's no evidence to show that symmetry is better than asymmetry. In fact, more runners are asymmetrical than symmetrical. So there's no doubt that active, isolated stretching has its place and can help people reduce pain. Runners reduce pain. But I don't think what we're chasing in terms of the mechanism is actually that effective. And it's kind of better knowing how it works, because then we can make it work better. So, yeah, I love the idea behind it and I can see that it gets results in runners. I love reducing to two, but I wouldn't actually call it stretching. I would call it playing around with the nervous system, getting involved with contraction. And basically, what I said in the warm up, it's more of a dynamic form of stimulating neuromuscular communication.

Finn Melanson [00:13:00]: You mentioned being dynamic. Are you referring to dynamic stretching? And if so, can you explain what this means to you and how it differs?

Guest [00:13:08]: First of all, personally, I don't talk about dynamic stretching. I talk about dynamic ability or dynamic exercises. Because for me, it's an important point of difference to raise in the athlete's mind. I'm not trying to stretch you. I don't believe you need to be stretched to run. I believe you need to be warmed up physically. I believe you need to be turned on mentally. Because at the end of the day, it's the brain that controls everything. Whether you're going to feel pain, whether you get tired, whether you can get cramp, how fast you run, whether you hit the wall. It's all ultimately affected by a rationalizing emotional brain. So for me, the idea behind dynamic mobilization is you are training the body and the nervous system to actually prepare for the movements that are following. So, for example, obviously running is the most accurate motion to pair for running, but we want to take away the impact from it. I see everything in terms of rehab and performance and everything as a ladder. So when you start to start your run, you can't go straight to the top rung of the ladder, you need to start somewhere, depending on whether you've just coming back from injury. So we start with before hopping from leg to leg, let's start with just standing on one leg, swinging the other leg, because then we'll still do the arm motions. We're still letting the brain putting some context there. So the brain thinks, oh, this guy's about to run. Hold on, he's not actually moving. We'll go with it. This is really useful, especially if you're coming back from injury, but it's useful for any runner. Some runners need it more than others because we all know some runners can never warm up. They never do any strength training, they never do anything, and they never get injured. Okay? And it's infuriating. But this potentially explains why some runners need a warm up and others don't. It's all to do with how connected your brain is to your muscles and all sorts of things. So standing on one leg is a great start fighting for runners, maybe starting with a straight leg swing, moving to a bend leg swing, driving the arms as well, making it challenging. If the warm up is working for you, it should start difficult and then start to get easier as things start moving. I also love the lunges, which takes me back to Jay Johnson. Years ago, I kind of not Stole because I recognized him as the author, but I took his lunge matrix. And everyone who's ever worked with me recognizes each other if they're out, because they're all doing lunge matrices everywhere. But, yeah, it was based on Jay Johnson, who took it from the Gray Institute. And I love the lunge because the lunge is stepping out in front of you, about to accelerate as if you're running. But then we don't actually take off. We come back again. And then we can work the kind of sagittal planes and frontal planes and transverse planes by coming out to the side diagonally. The reverse lunge is fantastic because then you practice accelerating forwards. As far as I'm concerned. What I like my athletes to realize is we're getting the brain into gear. We're getting it slowly into that time when then we actually start propelling ourselves from foot to foot. So if there is any sensitivity issues, any kind of thresholds which have been lowered due to injury, then we're just nursing the brain gently into it and we can take off. And hopefully then we don't start suffering during the run or we get further, we can perform better.

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Guest [00:19:00]: I think it's useful, I mean, taking into account again, if the warm up is there to replicate or prepare you for the demands of the run. If you're going in all honesty, if you're going, for example, a weekend long run, your knees aren't going to be coming very high. You're not going to generate much propulsion, you're just preparing or improving your aerobic capacity. So unless you're coming back from injury, you're probably not going to need that much of a warm up. Okay, I still recommend doing a little bit because just because of that psychological effect. But if you're either about to do a fast session like intervals or sprints or something, then yes, you're going to need to warm the body up and extend that length of warm up so you're not suddenly shocking your brain. All the tissues into bam. Take this. Oh, surprise, surprise. It's no coincidence a lot of people get injured during threshold or heel spins or stuff, because that's where the warm up really counted. And if you are going to be raising the knee higher, driving back further, that sort of thing, then, yeah, you've got to prepare the muscles responsible and your whole system to be ready to produce that training. Just jump into it.

Finn Melanson [00:20:05]: Do you suggest warm up and stretching to every runner?

Guest [00:20:09]: Yeah.

Finn Melanson [00:20:09]: How long do you suggest for a warm up?

Guest [00:20:12]: Yeah, again, it always depends on if I know that the runner is a little bit adverse to the idea of warming up, then I'll take it down. I don't want to give him like a 20 minutes warm. I'll just say, look, all I'm asking is five minutes of your time, and then hopefully when they come back and go, you know what, I didn't get that hip flexor pain, or wow, I just got a PB. Then I'll say, we know what you want some more. Here, have some more, I'll give them some more, maybe let's do nine minutes, let's do a bit of this, let's do a bit of strength training at the end. So it depends on the runner in front of you, which is kind of the key to looking after any athlete. But generally, if you're going through I'm normally a proponent for most runners of some single leg balance work, some lunges. How they perform these exercises can vary whether we're trying to stimulate something more sagittari or transverse or working on positioning stuff. So the actual way they perform the exercise can be tweaked according to their needs. But generally I try and get runners to realize that if they've got an hour to run, they haven't got an hour to run. They've got maybe 45 minutes to run. Because not only are they going to need maybe I always say nine minutes because it's like when you go to the shops, if it's 999 or $9 instead of ten, then you're kind of okay, so I say nine minutes for the warm up and then leave yourself four or five minutes for a cooldown at the end.

Finn Melanson [00:21:30]: Talk a little bit about the cooldown. How important do you think it is and what should runners be looking to prioritize here?

Guest [00:21:37]: So, yeah, the cooldown is another interesting area where there's not really any research to support it, but then again, it's very difficult to kind of focus on just these factors of doing a cool down and getting rid of all the other variables which are there. The only evidence we've got in terms of research, and it sounds pretty obvious, is you'd never want to stop an intensive exercise straight away because your heart's pumping fast and all the blood vessels and your legs have dilated. And if you suddenly stop, you can get pooling and get dizzy and kind of feel a bit sick. Some runners will do that after race or after a hard track session. They just get back in the car so they'll get home and they wonder why they feel a bit sick the next day. So in terms of evidence, not a lot there in terms of anecdotal evidence of how runners feel by doing some form of warm up, and there's loads of benefits. Stretching again raises its head as something where we know that it does. At best it does nothing, and at the worst it may well make you sore the next day. It sounds always like I'm on a crusade against stretching, but it's only because I find that's what runners do spend so much their time on there's so much of a myth around stretching. And because they're spending time on stretching, then not only are they potentially lowering their performance or not doing anything, at best they're also wasting time they could be spending on something evidence based, like strength training, like plyometrics, like trying to sleep or eat better. So as far as stretching goes after Iran, two reasons people do it is because they think it's going to reduce their DOMS the next day. Research shows it's not true. In fact, some research will show that stretching muscles could actually make you sore the next day. And I love it because it makes me look really clever. I love it when I tell a runner, look, you're getting pain in your hip flexor. You do loads of hip flexor stretching and you run. Try not doing it. Try taking away look, just see what happens. And when they come back and go, oh my God, you're a god. It didn't hurt anymore. And I'm like, of course it doesn't work with all runners. Some runners actually. The research shows if they stop stretching, then they actually feel sore the next day. But I would still probably wage a bet that it's not a physiological reaction. It's more that they're taking away that emotional kind of thing of not stretching. I'm going to hurt more. I'm going to hurt more than they do. But it is interesting on a physiological level. When we run, we tear ourselves all the time. We're always tearing fibers. And I think it's important that runners realize that because tear is seen as a really ugly word. I've torn a ligament, or well, ligaments are different, but I've torn a muscle fiber. We're tearing muscle fibers all the time. The only thing which makes it into a potentially kind of debilitating tear is how many muscle fibers have been torn. So whenever we exercise the way we get stronger, we break ourselves down catabolically by tearing little muscle micro tears. And then as long as we rest and eat, then we repair those tears, we get stronger than before. So if you've just been on, especially after an intensive run, and you've got lots of little micro tears in your muscles, and then you reward your body by trying to pull those micro tears even wider, it kind of makes sense that your nervous system isn't going to go, oh, thank you very much for that. That's really why I needed the next day you're going to be hurting even more. So that's what it's all about. That's mainly my job. It's trying not to come across as a pompous kind of therapist. Who's told you? So I like to try and help runners reach that own conclusion. If I tell them about microtest and I says, what do you think stretching your calves do at the end? If they can go, it's going to make it worse, then I'll hallelujah.

Finn Melanson [00:25:11]: What is help. He LP? And how does it apply to injury prevention?

Guest [00:25:17]: Although there's no research there, I like the idea. I came up with an acronym because acronyms sell really well. So I thought, I'm going to make my own acronym. There's AIS and PNF and met and FMS. I'm going to come up with one. And I narrowed it down to help. And I did an article about it. I'm not sure when it runners connect. And I thought, wow, this is my future now. This is my retirement thing. Everyone's going to be using Help. Didn't happen, but I try and use it in here sometimes when I know someone likes an acronym. But so for me, Help, the H stands for hydration. So even though runners can overhydrate, I still think for a lot of runners, especially after a hard session, there is a danger that they just don't hydrate at all. Busy lifestyles back in the car, auto work. Maybe it's a morning run and running does depending on how hard your session is. You do lose, obviously, water and electrolytes, especially if you sweat a lot. So either water, depending on how hard you've exercised, or a sports drink. There's research into chocolate milk as well, which has been some good articles on mine is Connect about that where some studies show that having carbohydrates and protein can help after strenuous workout. So for me, the important thing is not to let that person just go straight back into life again. Okay, we need to hydrate your body. So that's the H. The E I struggled with with a while because I love the name Help, but like E, what can E stand for? And I thought, I know E can be an easy walk. Okay, so you finished your run. Just keep walking a bit. Don't stop there. If you stopped at the end of your park run or something, just go for a little bit more of a walk, an easy walk, just to let your heart rate come down. Let your blood supply kind of return to normal. Let your whole system just calm down a bit. Again, something that a lot of runners will forget about. The L was if you've got time, and especially after hard workout, this is where you lie down. Unless it's raining, but maybe you get home and then you lie down. Because once you've lied down, that's what your. Body really wants, then you're more likely to actually do a little bit of cool down exercises of some form. You're more like to go take a breath and then think, well, I'm lying on my back now, I may as well do something. And that's where the P comes into it, which there's been a little bit of research to show that even though stretching a muscle either does nothing or doesn't really help after running, just gently pumping your joints can potentially help waste product flow and can help the body just return back to a sort of level homeostasis. So I just get people to lie down and just really gently start turning their ankles around, bending their knees a little bit, rotating their hips, turning the head sideways. Just imagine that they're just pumping the joints and that it's aiding of fluid. It's not amazing, the research on it, but I think the combination of just doing that, helping you lie down, calm down, there may be a good effect on fluids and that should help. And that might take about, I normally say about nine minutes.

Finn Melanson [00:28:17]: We all know not every run starts in perfect conditions. So how do you advise runners to modify their warm ups when it's raining or super cold or something else?

Guest [00:28:27]: Yeah, it's a really good question and I make sure runners realize, especially with the warm ups well, in both cases, but if it rained, for example, in England, chances are it's going to rain like 51 weeks of the year. So telling someone to stand in the middle of a park and do a lunch matrix is like, it's not going to happen. So I try to, in that case, make runners realize that they may need to actually do their warm up at home. If they're being pestered by kids or dogs or wife or husband or partner or something, then they need to find a quiet space where they can just go through it rather than just miss it and go running out of their door. Because a lot of runners, well, recreational runners, they will start running from their front door. And the reason we love running in a door is because we just slip our shoes on and don't need to book anything and we just go and we fly like a bird, feeling great. So it's really dangerous. It's really easy just to think, forget the warm up, let's just go. So have a room. Maybe even if you're lucky enough, make a warm up room where you've just got maybe some inspirational quotes or posters or you'll keep your running books or something, or your gear in a wardrobe. Just do your nine minutes there, whatever it is, and then once you've left your front door, you're happy. If you're at a track with something. Then again, a lot of the time coaches are running to a tight schedule and maybe they just don't even believe in the efficiency of a warm up, maybe they don't need a warm up, so they don't bother giving their runners a warm up. But if I tell a runner you need a warm up, then it might mean getting to track a bit earlier if it's raining, making sure you've got access to somewhere undercover just to do your thing. Because if you're paying me to help you, and I think warm up is going to help you, then you've got to think ahead and plan, because I'm not going to be there with you. I just need to know that you've got the possibilities of doing it. Same thing kind of goes for cool down, Zack. The same. If it's pouring down, I don't expect to see runners lying in the park twilling their ankles in the rain just because I told them so. It has happened before. Really clear instructions to runners sometimes. Yeah. One runner I remember looked after, she mistook. I don't know how what happened, but patients or runners often leave the clinic going, yeah, I understand, yeah. And inside they've got some other picture, but she think we were just doing walking lunges or something, but we tweaked it a little bit and had a few things going on to try and change some stuff. And then somehow or another, she kind of turned what I said something like 20 repetitions on each leg or something. It turned into a 20 minutes lunge walk along the seafront in the rain. She came back the next day and a quads on the final, like, what have you been doing? I did your lunch walk. How many? 20. What do you mean? 20 lunges? No, 20 minutes. So she was like, in the rain walk going on the seafront, 20 minutes of lunges. She had to see me for a bit more, but, yeah. So it's important as a therapist, in case any therapists are watching this, always ask your runners, what did I tell you? What are you going to do when you leave here?

Finn Melanson [00:31:16]: Do you find dressing extra warm and using layers actually helps with the warm up?

Guest [00:31:22]: I think obviously layers are useful if you just go back to the idea of getting your body warm. So layers can be really useful. Don't forget about the newer part of it, though. But, yeah, sometimes people forget that they can actually put layers on and then take them off, even if it's sometimes it's like with hydration on longer runs and stuff, you have to think ahead. I'm going out for a two hour run. Am I going to be get some water? I don't want to run with a bottle. Where can I get water from? Or what I'm going to do with my bottle when I finish it? Or maybe I want someone I get back. So I try and get runners to find little safe havens where they can. Maybe if it's safe, they can leave a bottle, they can leave some clothing. Or it's all about planning ahead. Planning what you're trying to get out of the run, what you're going to need to execute it, and then what you're going to do to make sure that your body recovers properly.

Finn Melanson [00:32:26]: Thanks for listening to the Run to the Top podcast. I'm your host. Finn milanson. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on Instagram at Wasatch, Finn and the rest of our team at Runners Connect. Also consider supporting our show for free with a rating on the Spotify and Apple podcast players. Lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our guests, and premier access to contests and giveaways and subscribe to our newsletter by going to RunnersConnect. Net podcast. Until next time, happy trading.