Warming up...

[NickAndKate]

Hi all,

Does anyone have any good warm-up routines that they swear by? Do you stretch before a run? Any advice welcome!

Thanks

[ukhursty]

Depends what kind of run I'm doing I suppose, for a training run, I won't bother with a warm up at all, just ease in to the run nice and gently from the start and let the muscles gradually warm up.

For a race then I'll deffo do a warm up, still nothing heavy, a nice jog round, a few ham-string sweeps, high knees, heel kickers, with the odd very short sprint, but thats about it really, just a nice loosen up. No actual plan I follow.

Everyone seems to have a different way of warming up, you see some people getting a good run in before the race sometimes!

[CL]

'What do you want to warm up for?' 'Rabbits don't and they run like the very devil.'

[Deadlegs]

'What do you want to warm up for?' 'Rabbits don't and they run like the very devil.'

If they warmed up they might not get caught so often.

[Rob Furness]

Do rabbits use energy gels?

[IanDarkpeak]

Do rabbits use energy gels?

What a Hare brained idea....

[stevefoster]

What a Hare brained idea....

Hare we go with the silly rabbiting
Not sure if they warm up, but a good run' warren's a 'watership' warm down

[Deadlegs]

Hare we go with the silly rabbiting
Not sure if they warm up, but a good run' warren's a 'watership' warm down

Puntastic! Really bunny.

[nikalas]

'What do you want to warm up for?' 'Rabbits don't and they run like the very devil.'

.... but we're no rabbits or cheetahs... different species, based on their survival needs, have evolved different physiologies so comparing us and our physiology to a rabbit is irrelevant and slightly unhinged. It's like saying we can breath hold like a seal or a whale. We evolved for long duration hunting which would necessitate long low intensity effort followed by a short bout of higher intensity effort at the kill... therefore our bodies are not constantly held at an optimal level for higher end efforts. Smaller prey species and fast burst hunters will typically have a higher resting body temperature and a greater ability to process anaerobic by-products. It's no co-incidence either that the real speedsters tend to live in hot climates.

[nikalas]

Hi all,

Does anyone have any good warm-up routines that they swear by? Do you stretch before a run? Any advice welcome!

Thanks

There's plenty of study back evidence for the physiological and psychological benefits of a warm-up routine. The general rule of thumb is that the shorter the race, the longer the warm-up needs to be. A top sprinter's pre-race warm-up will typically take an hours plus.

For a typical 5-6 mile fell race a good routine would be:

- 10 minutes of easy paced jogging followed by mobility exercises such as high knees, heel flicks, bounds walking lunges etc. Do 10m of the exercise followed by 10m jogging. Cycle through the exercises for 5 minutes.
- 5 minutes more of running building to near race pace for final 30 seconds.
- 6x25m strides with 30 seconds recovery.
- Aim to finish above 5 minutes before the off and then just stay loose and warm with jogging on spot, bouncing etc

Don't perform static held stretches before running. The research shows no performance benefits or even losses and no benefits with regards to injury prevention.