What's The Optimal Warm Up For Running? (Not What You Think)

Let's start with when you need to warm up because  although you will find plenty of Articles and   YouTube videos claiming that you NEED to warm  up before every run with these stretches and   exercises and if you don't you will probably get  injured there is really no evidence supporting   those kinds of claims when it comes to going out  for an easy run. So if you're going for a slow   run you can start off with going easy and if  you're new to running so just running is tough   then I would recommend starting off with a five  minute walk before you ease into running to get   your heart rate up a bit and get your body warm.  But if you're running a race or doing a tougher   workout like running intervals then you might  want to consider doing a more proper warm-up.   Before I dig into what the evidence says about  warming up that actually shocked me a bit when I   was reading it I thought I would share my current  warm-up routine before harder workouts and races   that is really simple to do and I feel  puts me in a good spot to run fast   I start off with just running easy for 10  to 30 minutes for most workouts around 10   minutes but for shorter races where I need  to start super hard I'm closer to those 30   minutes. During this easy run I slowly increase  the pace and when I'm done with that I do one   interval at race pace for about 1 minutes and  then I do just a couple of drills usually just   high knees and heel kicks for about 20 seconds  times four after that I finished off my warm-up   with doing two to three strides where I run  hard for about 30 seconds to start recruiting   all of those muscle fibers and get my heart  rate up of it after a short rest I'm ready to   start my workout or race. I've been doing  this warm-up routine for years and I feel   that it has been working very good but before I  made this video I had actually read very little   evidence on this topic and when I started doing  research as I said I was actually a bit shocked. The first relevant study I found on this topic  when I started doing research was this one done   at the University of Madrid where they compared  two different warm-up protocols before a 20-minute   all-out cycling time trial so not running  but doing a cycling test like that should   be pretty relevant for a 5k running race since  its physiological demands are pretty similar   the first warm-up protocol that the cyclist got  tested on was just easy cycling for 10 minutes   at 60 percent on Max effort the other warm-up  they did was five minutes at the also here sixty   percent of Max effort but then it was followed  by three all out 10 second Sprints in the study   they found no performance difference with the  two warm-ups but what's even more interesting   is that they did a third way of warming up  which basically was no warm-up at all just   sitting still before the test and also here they  found no they difference in performance compared   to the two different ways of warming up and this  is what shocked me a bit because my gut feeling   would say that the ones that didn't warm up at  all before a race like that performed way worse   but this wasn't the case at least in this study  here you can see a graph so most participants   performed very similar with the three different  warm-ups some performed better with warm-up and   some actually performed better with no warm-up  at all it was also really interesting to look   at this power grapple how hard the cyclist cycled  after the different warm-ups where you can clearly   see that after doing the warm-up with the free  all-out Sprints they seem to cycle a lot harder   in the beginning but then later have to pay for  that so the end result is the same so perhaps if   your race or training requires you to start off  really hard right from the gun doing sprints like   that is important as I said reading this surprised  me quite a bit but this is just one study and you   should never draw two big conclusions from yes  to one single study and it's done on cyclists so   it might not be 100 relevant for runners there  has actually been done quite a lot of research   on this topic I found this this review here that  included over 170 studies and many of them found   a performance Boost from warming up but most of  the evidence is showing that warming up boosts   performance for Sprint and Power Sports and  not for endurian sports like a long distance   running I also looked at a study done in 2017  that looked at an easy run as a warm-up for a   30 minute running time trial and compared it to  not warming up at all they found no significant   difference here either but they found a tendency  that the participants performed slightly better   with the warma compared to no warm-up at all  running on average 7.8 kilometers compared to an   average of 7.7 kilometers with no warm up so the  evidence supporting warm-ups performance boosting   effects are not that strong the positive thing  with this is that you don't have the stress if   you don't have that much time to warm up before a  race or a workout but all Elite Runners seem to do   some kind of warm-up and I think there are some  good reasons why you might consider warming up First of all I think it feels good to start off  easy and not go all out from the start and if   the training is more enjoyable as a whole the  likelihood of you doing more of it gets higher   the easy running you do during the warm-up isn't  wasted training either if you warm up before every   workout that adds up and becomes quite much time  running over months or years and if it's one thing   we know is that higher training volume corresponds  with becoming a faster and better run there over   time the last reason to why I like doing warm-ups  before harder workouts and especially before races   is to get my head in the right mindset and use the  warm-up time to think through the workout arrays   so I feel mentally ready to start pushing hard  right from the start after my research and reading   all of this I think this is one of those cases  where you will not find evidence proving that   this special super cool warm-up routine is optimal  for everyone and will make you run faster and with   no injuries even though you will find plenty of  Articles and YouTube videos claiming that they   have the perfect warm-up routine to run fast  and in year three which I can I can understand   is appealing to people because sometimes it's a  bit frustrating that you don't get clear answers   on things like this but as a coach fees you an  athlete myself I also think that is what makes   it fun and interesting because our bodies are so  complex and we're all different and we need to   try things out here what others do and together  with the evidence that's been done in the area   draw conclusions of what you believe in but what  about stretches before you run here you can find   a video where I talk all about that, train smart  have fun and I will see you in the next video!

Channel: Göran Winblad

Views: 30,255

Keywords: warm up, half marathon, how to warm up before running, warmup running, best warm up routine for running, running, training, dynamic warm up, running warm up, running tips, marathon training, how to stretch before running, running warm up exercises, running warm up drills, running warm up stretches

Id: 05-0ujFiKQc

Length: 8min 2sec (482 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 18 2022