The art to a runners warm up

You have overcome the mind battle and your healthy mini me inside has been victorious, all those thoughts of going for a run are finally being put into action, you’ve found your favourite sports kit and the running shoes are on, you have arrived…the beginning of your run. Wait, what, a warm up!

We have all heard it should be done and if anyone has watched any form of sport then you’ll have seen that, before starting, a warm up is performed!

So why is this run you’re about to do any different?

Let’s put this into perspective. You are about to take part in a form of physical exercise.

Maybe you’re just going out for a thirty minute healthy run, or maybe you’re about to race your first 5km park run, or maybe you’ve done thousands of these before and you’re trying to hit a top ten finish and a pb, or just maybe you’re trying to qualify in this particular race to compete for your country.

No matter which of these categories you fall under, we are all human, our bodies all work in the same way. Someone might have more muscle or stronger muscles or be able to run five times faster but guess what, everyone has the same muscular system.

So performing a warm up before exercise will not just benefit the professionals.

The benefits

Most of the time you’ll hear or read that a warm up is to prevent injury but there are far more reasons you should add this into your exercise routine.

The mind can play some terrible tricks and worse it can cause serious health problems, but research has shown that physical exercise can reduce or at least minimalise these effects. The warm up is the beginning to any form of physical exercise so can be a great way to switch off from life and any problems and turn the attention to your physical body movements and think about nothing but the exercise you are about to begin.

Your body needs to adjust too, you can’t expect your body to just perform at its best, you need to help it by allowing it to adjust to the activity you are about to begin. The more you allow your body to prepare itself for what is about to become, the more rewarding and beneficial this will be for your performance.

The chances of aches and pains during or after your run can be reduced. Why would you not want less aches and pains? If your boss said that instead of going into work tomorrow that you needed to go to the local port and make sure that each ship and yacht is tied up securely to the harbour then I’m sure you’d want to know how to tie a safe knot and practice it a few times. You wouldn’t want to go and tie 1000 bad knots as chances are most would come undone. Essentially a warm up is our bodies way to do this movement practice with regards to the physical exercise, in this case running, so the more the body can learn and practice these movements before the pressure of the actual activity the better it will be able to perform well in this activity, again in this case each stride in the running will be performed well as it has practiced the motion beforehand. You would not want to run 1000 strides with poor technique and with no practice as chances are most of those strides will result in aches and pains.

One of the best uses of a warm up that I have found is it can help to control or reduce any nerves that you might have before a race. The more I practice a warm up before my daily runs, the more natural it comes to me and the easier I can use that warm up flow before a race which in turn calms my nerves by making things feel familiar.

Another thing that is great is the fact you can do some amazing technical movements and flows without any equipment, you just need some space, and let’s face it, if you’re going for a run, the one thing you probably do have is plenty of space.

What should the perfect warm up be?

Well, to put it simply, how long is a piece of string? Each and every one of us, although we are all the same through being human, we are also all totally different. This doesn’t mean to say that there is no specific answer and so why bother to try to get one.

Depending on the run you are about to do, you can more or less determine your warm up. Plus, knowing your own body, you can also adjust the warm up even more to suit you.

So if you’re about to go for a gentle jog, to put things simply, you can probably get away with a simple warm up. On the other hand, if you’re about to compete in a big race event and will be pushing your body to its maximum limits then, guess what, you’ll need a bigger warm up.

If you know your body usually aches in a specific area after a run then again, simply, you can try to warm that area of your body up more.

Lastly, if you’re coming back from injury or going through rehab then again you’re going to want to focus the warm up more in that area of your body.

The minimal warm up

You may be fed up with hearing the same two words but a warm up is just that, you’re body is getting warmed up, this means that by the end of a good one, your body and muscles will be warm, it would make sense to feel your heart rate racing and you might even be starting to sweat. This would be a good indication that you have successfully got yourself ready to go for your run.

We can try now to determine the principles of a good quality warm up.

First

I’d recommend to get your body moving at your own lowest level running ability, this could be a fast paced walk or a very slow jog, this will begin the process of loosening the joints, muscles, ligaments, tendons and let you get a feel for how you’re body is feeling. This doesn’t need to last long, maybe a minute, but it will wake your body up, switch your mind into working out mode and get blood and oxygen flowing a little better around the body and let you know which areas of your body might feel tight or sore.

Second

Some dynamic movements (flowing stretches) focusing on your main joints and muscles that’ll be needed and again if you know your own issues then slightly more focus work on those areas. These actions should (if possible) be in all three planes of motion, so forwards/backwards, sideways and rotational.

If you’re unsure on these type of movements then as a simple plan I would include some calf raises, inch worms, lunges, leg swings, some mountain climbers and some full body extensions.

Third

You’ll want to start some running focused movements and again you’ll want to do these so that they start with less effort and are less complex and they finish with the higher impact and effort. So again for some simple ideas you could include some calf skipping jumps, some high knees, high heels, some skipping, some hopping, some bounding and then maybe work up to some high paced speed bursts. One last thing that should benefit your run is (if possible) you might want to start the pace slower and build the pace of the run up during the actual exercise.

Lastly and to sum it all up

Your warm up can be just as enjoyable as your run or even more so as it has so many different variations and movements that you can add to it and you can turn it into its own creative flowing artistic activity. It can even look to some onlookers like a piece of a dance routine or like the art more commonly seen during a stage show at the opera.

I give you the challenge to (instead of seeing a warm up as an extra time consuming, annoying activity that needs to be added to the beginning of your run or other sport) enjoy your warm up and make it flow so that you feel engaged in every motion and every breath until it becomes something that is performed consistently and perfectly and lets your mind and body disappear from reality and switch over to prepare you so you can go from normal every day life to the perfect run through the flow of your artistic choreographed warm up.