The Ultimate Warm-Up Guide

Coach Paulo went live in the Running and Race Training Facebook group to discuss all things related to warming-up before running!

​In this article you will find the video from the live session, some  text excerpts taken from the video and at the end of this article we'll provide a high quality image with the full routine so you can download it and use it whenever you want. 

What is a warm up and why do we do it?
The definition of a warm up is to safely transition from a calm and rested state into an active and alert state. To prevent stress in our cardiovascular muscle (heart) we should progressively increase our heart rate and blood flow.

If you’re not warming up, these two things may be happening:

• Not warming up causes your heart to go from 60bpm to 160bpm+ in only a few seconds, this is stressful and we want to avoid all kinds of stress. We want to be as efficient as possible in our workouts in order to stay healthy and increase our longevity in the sport.

• ​Stop static stretching before working out. Static stretching is hurting your performance! Many articles suggest this (like this one for example) and there have also been a few scientific studies showing the same results... static stretching before working out makes your performance suffer!

​If you want to stretch before a workout you should do dynamic stretches! I've included a few in the routine below.

Here's the image with all the movements for this warm-up routine:

1. We start by warming up the joints by performing rotations. Why? Because these movements don’t elevate the heart rate but they still warm up your body.
2. Dynamic stretches pulls the muscles (similar to static stretching) for a short period of time! This should slightly elevate your heart rate.
3. Full body controlled movements. These movements can and should be done slowly, fully in control of your body. These should get your heart beating faster and you should be feeling warm at this point.
4. A good warm up should include a couple of running drills. Make sure you watch the video in order to perform these movements correctly, they'll help you improve your running form.
5. Now that our body is warm and we’ve done the running drills, we’re going to elevate our heart rate even more and we’re also going to stimulate our nervous system. Studies suggest that jumping stimulates the central nervous system and leaves us more alert and thus, ready for exercise.

If you have any comments regarding this routine leave a comment below or join the discussion in Running and Race Training group.

"Thank you for tuning in!"

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 About the Author

​​Paulo Piedade is a Certified Track & Field Coach, based in Portugal.
Paulo is the advising Running Coach at the Running and Race Training group.
His Runner Profile - runpage.com/profile/paulo.piedade