Hey, what's up, motivators Taren here.
If you're new to running, or maybe you're already in running,
in both cases, a lot of people are thinking, well,
what's a warm up routine that I should be doing before running?
There's a lot of blog posts and videos
and TikTok and Instagram reels out there about the best running warm ups to do.
And I am sorry to say that a lot of it is malarkey because there really isn't a lot
of evidence saying that really you should even be doing a running warm up.
Now, this isn't to say that running warmups are all bad and that you should
never do them, but the general approach that running has taken,
that every single run needs to have a running warm up done,
and there are best running warm ups to do that just isn't the case.
We're going to save you some time and get you something that is a lot more
customized to the nuances of your specific needs.
My name is Terry Gazelle.
In my twenties, I was overweight,
unfulfilled, and couldn't even run to the end of the block.
Over the following years, I found endurance sports lost £65,
won age groups, race world championships, broke records, and trained and learned
from some of the best athletes and coaches in the world.
You too can use endurance sports to change
your life and accomplish your fitness goals.
You just need a system.
A system that's meant for us amateurs
who want to be our best while feeling our strongest and healthiest.
My company, Mottiv,
offers that system and I want to share some of the tips from it today.
Welcome, Motivators.
Let's dive right into it here.
And I want to share some of the evidence,
because running warm ups are just part of running culture.
You join any running group and typically you're going to do a running warm up.
You go to the track and you're going to see a lot of running warmups.
It's almost just a standard part of every single workout.
I just want to dive into a few studies here just to show you what I mean when I
say that running warm ups aren't all bad, but they're also not the be all, end all,
that everyone should be doing the same running warmups all the time.
So this study right here was looking at the standard approach of running warm
ups about does warming up prevent injury in sport and what does the evidence say?
And basically there is just insufficient
evidence to say one way or another that a running warm up actually does what
it says, that it reduces the likelihood of injury.
It's not super clear, this next study.
Well, let's look at prevention of running injuries by a warm up or a cool down.
And stretching like this is expanding it into everything.
And this basically said the same thing,
that the intervention was not effective in reducing the number of injuries.
What it did was it improved the effectiveness of the athlete to be
knowledgeable of how to warm up and cool down.
But really all it did was teach people how
to warm up and cool down, not actually make people less likely to get injured.
What this study said was it looked at the effect of a warm up running technique.
So this wasn't basically no warm up versus
a warm up to see how the sprint performance was.
But what this one said is that regardless of which technique he used to warm up,
the sprint performance was basically the same.
So it's not like there was one technique
over the other that was better for everyone.
It was just like, hey, people warmed up and, well, they did the same thing.
And this was confirming that in just a different way.
This was instead of the run technique,
it was the duration of the warm up, a short warm up versus a long warm up.
What this one said is that it really
didn't change what the performance levels were.
However, that's not to say that all warm ups are bad.
What we looked at here with this study is
that the effects of low load Glute warm up so this is light glute activation.
Making sure that the sides of our body and our butts are turned on.
Which is very important for people who sit at a desk.
Because as we sit at a desk or we drive
and we sit in that folded 90 degree position.
Our butt tends to go to sleep.
It doesn't like to activate as much.
And it's very important for us to have
that activated because this study said that a low load glute warm up was more
effective at creating a more explosive jump performance because the athlete was
more stable to be able to jump very effectively.
So now you might be a little bit confused
because probably what you've experienced is you feel better after a warm up.
However, the studies say that warmups
didn't really reduce the likelihood of injury, but it also didn't say that it
definitely didn't reduce the likelihood of injury.
It was just kind of one or the other.
And I ended with a study that said
that explosive jump performance was better after a warm up.
So here's where I'm going to tie it all together with my belief on how people
should warm up that is different than what you're hearing.
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First thing, do what supports your unique physiology.
Whatever you feel needs to be warmed up
and loosened a little bit and turned on a little bit.
Do that.
I don't believe that everyone should do a warm up that is prescribed to them
by a running coach that wrote a blog post or did a YouTube video that said,
here is the running warm up that everyone should do.
And here's why.
Because what that feeling is where you
say, hey, when I warm up, I feel a little bit better.
That's largely just getting the blood flow moving.
And I think the areas of blood flow
and the stiffness is and the impingements that everyone has is unique to them.
So if your feet feel a little bit beat up,
maybe you're somebody who needs to do some trigger point rolling on a ball.
If you have very tight hips, maybe you should be doing foam rolling beforehand.
Maybe you should be doing some hip openers.
It's unique to everyone.
Do whatever makes you feel good.
If you generally just feel good at the start of a warm up,
don't feel pressured to have to do a warm up for every single run.
But the second point is that generally the studies show that there isn't one best
technique or an appropriate amount of time to warm up that everyone has to do.
Really.
It's just do a little bit of a warm up if you feel you need it.
So make it as short as possible.
If you only have a minute to do it, just do a minute.
If you have no time, well, don't worry about it that much.
I would say bring the amount of time
that your warm up takes down to a very reasonable level.
Anywhere from two to three minutes is good if you're going to do it at all.
The third thing, and this is kind of going
to go against the first two things it's if you are doing a very intense,
explosive workout, if you're doing an intense run,
you're doing an interval run with 32nd hill repeats with 1 minute Vo two max
intervals or eight minute Vo two max intervals or tempo intervals.
Those are very explosive running
movements, which are very similar to that final study that we looked at,
where a max jump was aided by turning on the glutes a little bit.
So in that case, what I would say is when you have an intense run,
a run that you feel is going to be work, is going to be challenging.
In that case, I would actually work to turn on your glutes a little bit.
So in light runs, in easy runs, runs that don't feel like a ton of work.
Don't feel like you have to warm up at all.
And even if you do, try to cut it down to a very small amount of time.
But then I would encourage you for those workouts that feel like work to do a warm
up that is specifically about turning on your glutes.
Especially if you are a desk worker.
Because you need to just open up this tight area here that.
Let's face it.
When we get down into this kind
of position where we're sitting and we are typing a lot.
Well. Our hips are very folded.
Our body is very scrunched and everything
is very tight and we want to open ourselves back up.
We want to get nice and open.
We want to be able to spread out.
We want to be able to open up and function really well.
And by turning on your glutes, it's going to help you do that.
And every foot strike you have is going to be nice and stable.
To turn on your glutes, I will link at the end of this video
to a video that will be over here in the corner that gives five minutes
of glute activation movements that you can use for a running warm up.
You don't have to do all of these.
You don't have to do the exact running routine.
You can focus on just the glute activation
and the movements that feel really good to you.
But generally it's a lot of like openers, hip openers, it's leg swings.
But while you're doing those leg swings and those really common movements that are
prescribed for a warm up, what helps a lot is just putting your
hands kind of at your love handles or at your side bum and just making sure
that you're activating the glutes as you are doing all of those movements
that you're turning it on, that you're feeling that butt muscle contract.
And that's going to fire up those glutes.
It's going to wake them up a little bit,
allow them to stabilize you when you hit the pavement.
Thank you for watching Motivators.
If you're looking for a training plan
that incorporates these methods that is as good as a one on one coach,
but as inexpensive as doing it yourself, check out our Motive Training app
that covers triathlons, running races, dothlon swim runs and cycling events.
The link in the description below where
you can check out your customized training plan for free.
Also, if you rather listen to these tips, we also publish these videos in podcast
format on the Terrence Motive Method podcast so you can check that out.
And if you don't want to do.
Either of those things, but you found this video helpful,
hit us up with a virtual high five by smashing the like button below.
Later, Motivators.