The warm-up is one of the parts in which we divide our training sessions, in fact, it is an essential part of any training session or competition. By doing it, we will obtain benefits both in terms of performance and health, and we will only have to dedicate between 10 and 20 minutes. All these data are already known to most of us, however, there are not a few amateur athletes who perform insufficient and inappropriate warm-up or, directly, do not warm-up. You have to change this habit, if you want to improve your performance, be strict in your way of training.
It is not the first time that we talk about the warm-up in Training.com, so for the better understanding of this article, I first recommend reading this other one: how to warm up properly. This time I will try to make a specific proposal on how to warm up before running training, and for this I will make two different models, one for when we are going to do shooting sessions at a constant pace, and another for when we are going to do intervals. , fartlek, HIIT or any other variant of these workouts.
To get into the subject, first I will quickly summarize the concepts explained in the article that I have cited and then I will move on to the warm-up proposal.
Key features on warming
In the first place I will rely on the definition of Paredes (2003) to explain what a warming is:
The warm-up is the initial part of any training and competition session, it prepares the body for later more demanding efforts, promoting performance and avoiding possible injuries.
From there we deduce that the warm-up is an essential part of each session, because without it we will not be able to perform optimally, in addition to that we will expose ourselves to injury more easily. To achieve these objectives we must individualize the warm-up, that is, it is not the same to prepare to lift 70 kg in the bench press than to run 15 kilometers, our body will have different needs, therefore, our preparation must also be different. In this preparation to the subsequent effort we must always avoid fatigue, because then we will not be able to achieve our best performance in the main part of the session, so intense exercises that increase our lactate production and, with it, increase our state of acidity will not they will be good allies, as a general rule.
On the other hand, in this article we also analyze the different parts into which we can divide a correct warm-up (general, specific and joint movement) and, depending on their order, we will be talking about a formal warm-up or an informal warm-up. we will remember how these differ in a practical way.
Without further ado, let’s see how to warm up before our running workouts.
Warm Up for Steady-Paced Shooting Sessions
The first thing is to analyze the main part of the training that we are going to carry out and the needs that our body will have in it, and based on this we will carry out the appropriate warm-up to exercise. So what are the characteristics of long-term running training at a steady pace?
- Threshold training: normally these training are carried out at an intensity close to our anaerobic threshold, to obtain good performance without triggering lactate production. This will gradually accumulate, causing the acidification of the environment that will lead to fatigue, therefore, any exercise prior to the main part that involves accumulating this molecule will be contraindicated. Therefore, first conclusion: low-medium intensity aerobic cutting exercises.
- At the muscular level: light and passive contractions of the muscle groups of the upper body, so it is not necessary to include any specific exercise for these muscles in the warm-up, since their exhaustion during the race will decrease our performance. As for the lower body, constant contractions will be made in each stride of the different muscle groups. However, during the race, a large recruitment of muscle fibers will not be necessary, since this would entail a greater energy expenditure (the more fibers are actively contracted, the more energy we must provide to the muscle), therefore, excessively increase the activity of our Central Nervous System (CNS) during warm-up will not be recommended.
- At the joint level: the knee and ankle ligaments will be the most affected during the race, therefore, including proprioception exercises in the warm-up will be essential to prepare them and thus avoid possible injuries.
- At a central level: the oxygen demand will be important in our body and will determine our performance, so progressively increasing oxygen consumption will be crucial to train effectively.
This quick analysis brings us closer to how our warming should be. In the first place, the type of warm-up must be informal , which is indicated for aerobic cutting workouts like the one we are dealing with, this tells us that we must first perform joint mobility together with active stretching (as recommended by Rafael Quintana in this article of great interest), then the general warm-up (low-intensity aerobic exercise that gradually raises our body temperature) and, finally, the specific part of the warm-up (aimed at preparing us directly for the main part of the training).
If we think, the general part and the specific part in this case will coincide , that is, if I am going to do an aerobic activity such as running, in the general part I will use the low intensity running, which will coincide with the specific warm-up also, no it would make sense (although not harmful) to do the general warm-up on an exercise bike for example. Thus, the warming can be as follows:
Stretching and joint mobility
First section of the warm-up. It will last approximately 5 minutes and will consist of joint mobility , followed by active stretching (mostly) and proprioception exercises in the knee and ankle to prepare our joints for the subsequent effort.
Joint mobility: we will start with the neck and we will move all the joints smoothly and in a controlled manner.
- Neck rotations
- Shoulder mobilization (up-down, opening-closing, circumductions, …)
- Elbow rotations
- Waist (flexion, extension, or circumductions)
- Hips (front, side, and circumductions leg raises)
- Knees
- Ankles
Stretching: This time we will focus only on the large muscle groups.
- Pectoral
- Dorsal
- Core (we hang from a chin-up bar and relax the body, so we will stretch the entire core and avoid unnecessary hyperextensions).
- Psoas Iliacus
- Quadriceps
- Hamstrings
- Twins
Proprioception:
- Knees: place hands on the wall, one on top of the other, and leave only one leg semi-flexed for support. In that position, a partner gently unbalances us by mobilizing parts of our body.
- Ankles: Same as the previous one, but this time the supporting leg remains straight, thus we block the knee joint and the work is focused on the ankle.
General warming
10 minutes of smooth running. In these 10 minutes we can include running technique exercises in a smooth way, such as low skipping (in its different modalities).
Specific heating
5 minutes of light-medium running, we can now increase the intensity a little compared to the previous phase. As we saw before, this time, the general and specific warm-up will consist of the same exercise.
Warm-up for interval sessions or similar
As in the previous section, we will start with a quick analysis of the main part of the training that we are going to do, since it presents differences that need to be clarified, and that will be responsible for changing our warm-up routine.
- High intensity training: this time we will work with short series of high intensity, so that our body will work producing lactate peaks that it will try to clean during breaks, that is, we will be working on the lactate clearance mechanisms. This indicates that it would be advisable to introduce high intensity exercises in the final phase of the warm-up in order to prepare the body for the activity that it will have to perform later.
- At the muscular level: in this type of training the upper body muscles contract more intensely, due to the simple fact that the stroke when we work speed is more energetic, the breaths are faster and deeper, … In the same way, we need longer and faster strides, which will require the more active involvement of these members. Contrary to what happened in aerobic training, now we are interested in increasing the activity of our CNS, this will lead to a greater recruitment of fibers that will produce more efficient muscle contractions and we will obtain greater performance in each series. The cost will be a higher energy expenditure that, obviously, we are willing to assume when we work with intervals.
- At the joint level: the knee and ankle ligaments are still the most affected, so we will continue to use proprioception mainly in these joints.
- At the central level: now we are not looking for a threshold training, but close to VO2max (maximum oxygen consumption that we can assume). Reaching these high quotas without first increasing our oxygen consumption a little is impossible, that is, before we have to progressively stimulate our cardiorespiratory system so that afterwards it gives the best of itself.
The appropriate type of warm-up this time will be the formal one (used for anaerobic cutting and strength training). Which indicates that the ordering of the warm-up sections will be: general warm-up, followed by stretching-joint mobility and ending with the specific warm-up.
General warming
10 minutes of a low intensity aerobic exercise, the race would be the ideal one, but it could be any other. As in the previous warm-up, it can be combined with gentle skipping exercises.
Stretching and joint mobility
This time the same routine set above will work well for us, since the muscles involved are the same and the stretching and mobility will increase blood flow helping to increase our performance later. It is important not to forget the proprioception phase and not spend much more than 5 minutes on this section.
Specific heating
At this level will be the main difference with the previous warm-up. We will take advantage of this phase to increase the activity of our CNS, later achieving a greater recruitment of fibers that increases our performance. How to get it? the most effective way that I have tried consists of the CNS-Intensive Training (explained by Arturo Cantarero in the linked article). In summary, this consists of performing 3 intense exercises. One of them will consist of a jump or Olympic movement, the next in a core stabilization exercise and the last in a throw. I propose the following exercises:
- Countermovement jump.
- Iron, in any of its modes (I recommend the use of an unstable platform).
- Medicine ball throw from chest or plyometric push-ups.
We will do 3 to 5 series of 3 repetitions in each exercise (in the case of the planks we will maintain them for 15 seconds)
After this it will be important to do 2 progressive series of approximately 200 m (we start jogging gently and we increase the speed until we sprint to the top in the last 10-20 m).
Bibliographic references
- Hidalgo, J. (2013). How to heat properly.
- Quintana, R. (2013). Should we stretch before or after exercise?
- Cantarero, A (2012). Nervous activation taken to another level: CNS intensive training.
- Hidalgo, J. (2014). What is proprioception.
- Hidalgo, J. (2014). Proprioceptive training.
