The Importance of Warming Up and How to Do It Correctly

Audio Transcript

Claire: Hi everyone. This is Coach Claire and welcome back to the Runners Connect, Run to the Top Extra Kick Podcast.

We have a great question about warm ups today from Adeline.

Adeline: Hi! My question is about warming up for my daily workouts.

I know that I should warm up, but honestly there are some days I get up with just enough time to fit in my run before work, or I come home from work and it’s getting dark, and the longer I’m out there, the less safe it feels.

I want to get started and I’ll end up just shaking out my legs once or twice and heading out the door.

“I’m wondering, what do you consider the essentials of a good warm up, and does that vary depending on what type of run I’m going to do?

For example, if I’m going to do a long run or a speed work, or an easy run, or strength training routine, I wonder if I could forego a warm up, if I’m doing an easy run.

Basically, I’m often seeing the instruction to warm up and then do X, Y, Z and I wonder, how do I know if I’m sufficiently warmed up?

I want to avoid feeling sluggish on my runs or getting injured but also being realistic, I know that I am just not going to do a really complex involved warm up routine every morning. Thank you for your advice.”

Claire: I love that you sent this one Adeline, because a good warm up is important for good running, and it is so often skipped or shortened or ignored.

We’ve got to show a little love here for the warm up, and I’m going to explain how and why to do one, and maybe it will be something that you can look forward to instead of something you want to skip.

First of all, I’d like you to do a little experiment.

The next time you are in an office building, or a mall or some place with a tall flight of stairs, stop at the bottom and then run up the stairs as fast as you can.

I will bet you, no matter how fit you are, that you will be a little winded at the top or maybe even really winded at the top.

The reason you are out of breath has nothing to do with your fitness. It has everything to do with the fact that you were not warmed up.

What does a warm up do physiologically in the body?

First of all, it increases body temperature and that’s why it’s called a warm up; it warms you up.

When you muscles are warm, that’s when your metabolism starts kicking into gear, blood starts to flow to your muscles, which is exactly where you want it.

That increased muscle temperature lowers muscular resistance or viscosity, and that allows muscles to contract faster and stronger, which is exactly what we’re looking for when we go out for a run.

At the same time, your heart gets in on the action and your cardiac output increases, and more oxygen circulates through your body, fuelling your muscles.

Another happy benefit to a solid warm up is that several research studies have shown that a proper warm up can reduce the risk of injury, particularly in the case of fast and explosive movements like hill sprints, or finishing a race with a kick.

Like most runners, you probably just want to go out and run.

No one likes sacrificing part of the run for some silly looking drills or dynamic stretches, or even strength work because we’ve got a lot of miles to run, and we’re often pressed for time.

I understand that, but I also suspect that most runners not only want to run, but they want to stay healthy and improve.

Simply running and doing nothing else is not the best way to become a better runner.

Lots of running does build a huge aerobic engine, but creating well developed neuromuscular connections between your body and your brain will help make you a faster and more resilient runner.

What are the essentials of a good warm up?

It can be several things, but it is not a few minutes of jogging before running. What you want to do is invest a few minutes in a way that will improve your running efficiency and economy, and a little bit of jogging is not the way to do that.

There are about a zillion drills that you can do to warm up, but the best ones are the ones that mimic or exaggerate good running form, and ones that target the area that need the most extension when running well.

The most important area that you should be working on is the extension of your hips, absolutely essential for good running form.

My favourite warm up routine includes a lunge matrix and that is just a fancy way of saying, lunges to the front, to the side, and to the rear, all on one leg and then switch.

I’ll do five lunges to the front on my right foot, five to the side, five to the back and then I’ll switch and do the other side.

Next up is the hip swing, and that’s where you hold on to something for support, like your car door or a telephone pole, or whatever you have in front of you, and you swing one leg at a time.

You start to the side and you swing it out, hopefully you get it up to hip height, and then you swing it out to the front and then you switch legs.

You want to feel a slight stretch when you do this, but you want to be careful to not overstretch it. You don’t want to pull something but you should feel a little slight stretch.

This is a great dynamic stretch, because it’s just fun to swing your leg like that and you can imagine your stride being up as you glide across the finish line.

Maybe that’s a little bit much, but you get my point.

I also like to throw in about five to ten quick squats, being sure to squeeze at the top with a little forward hip thrust; think Rocky horror picture show here.

That helps wake up the glutes and get them ready to fire up when you go for your run.

Does the warm up vary depending on the type of run?

It definitely does. The longer the race or the run, the shorter the warm up and vice versa. A marathon runner would look a lot different from a 5K warm up, and your warm up before an easy run will look a little different than before speed work.

Before a track session, I like to add in a few quick moves that tell my feet that they better get ready to run quick, so that would be some fast feet drill.

What you would do is just pitter-patter your feet as fast as you possibly can, and to do that for about 20 seconds or so.

Then you might want to throw in a grapevine or a carioca, which is a side to side lateral movement .

That helps keep your feet quick and light, and you might even throw in a few strides right before some speed work.

Those more explosive drills are best done after some warm up mile, so if you have a mile or two easy warm up miles on your schedule before your speed work, go ahead and do those at an easy pace, stop and then do five to ten minutes of drills, and then get ready for your speed work.

You also asked if you have to do a warm up before an easy run, well you don’t have to, but you might want to.

Doing five to ten minutes of dynamic stretching and a few drills that make you stronger and faster is a far better use of your time, even if you have to cut out an easy mile from your run.

That one easy mile that you have to cut out, if you’re crunched for time is not going to make a big difference, but regularly doing dynamic stretching will make a huge difference in your economy, and your performance, and your resiliency.

The bottom line is if you have time to run, you have time to warm up. I hope that helped, Adeline.

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Have a great run today.