Heather: Think of your run as the filling to a sandwich and a sandwich needs a layer
of bread on either side of it. That's how I want you to think about your pre and post
running routine. Yes obviously the middle bit is essential to improving but what you
do before and after is also going to have a significant impact on your rate of progression
and that's where we're going to be focusing today on how we can improve those pre and
post-run routines. [music]
Heather: What you do before and after a run should look entirely different because they've
got completely different goals. Obviously for a warm-up you're trying to get your body
warm and ready for that run, and then when you cool down you're having the complete opposite
goal, so we might as well start at the beginning with the pre-run routine. This is aimed at
getting your heart rate up, your blood flowing, muscles warm, and also getting your mind in
the right state. You should make sure you include some sort of warm-up unless you're
doing something as light as a gentle jog or a steady run. Otherwise the warm-up is key.
Start off with a gentle jog. If you're not really awake or you've been sitting still
for a while there's nothing wrong with a walk to get things moving before you step it up.
I'd recommend a minimum of 10 minutes easy jogging. Feel free to make this social or
use it to get to wherever you plan to start your main run session. Once you've completed
your jog warm-up it's important to keep warm, especially if you're in colder climates, so
the rest of the warm-up needs to make sure that it's dynamic and moving. The type of
warm-up and the intensity of it will depend on how tough your main set is going to be
and how fast and the demands you're going to be putting on your body. Say a 200 meter
race is on the track you need a very different warm-up to a 30-minute tempo run. Today we're
going to use an example and imagine we are doing a tough track session so it's going
to be quite a thorough warm-up and then you can always scale that back to suit your own
requirements. [music]
Heather: I personally love to include some dynamic movements and stretches into my pre-warm-up
routine. They help open up my hips and get my torso moving. We'll leave static stretches
until the end. For now it's focusing on keeping that movement going. For these it's a good
idea you find something to hold on to because it will be a little bit of a test on your
balance but we want to make sure you can perform these exercises correctly without worrying
about falling over. Leg swings, these are brilliant for hip openers. We've got two types
here. We're going to start with the forwards and backwards ones. You want to make sure
that your toe is constantly facing forward so ideally hold on to something so you've
got that balance. You're simply going to swing your leg forwards and as it comes forward
you'll start to feel a gentle stretch at the back of your thigh, so in your hamstring area.
Then as your leg swings back again, you'll feel a bit of a stretch opening up the front
of your hip. If you are feeling coordinated then feel free to add in that spare arm to
fill up with a bit more of a torso movement as well. Then we've got crossbody leg swing
so for this it's a good idea to hold on to something in front of you with both your hands.
You're going to have a slight lean forward because your other leg is going to be coming
across in front of your body and across the standing leg. As you swing across in front
of that leg you'll feel a bit of a stretch across your glute and your abductors and then
when you swing your leg back out you'll feel a bit of a stretch on the groin inside of
your leg on your adductors. This is again another great one, it gets a bit more of a
movement around the torso and just helps get those hips ready and moving.
Onto walking lunges and these are a great activator of the muscles as well as working
in a bit of a dynamic stretch. As you'd expect you are doing lunges but moving forward. Take
a large step forwards you drop down with your back knee almost reaching the ground so you'll
feel a stretch on that opposite hip flexor. Then stand up so you're walking forwards in
a march position if you want to challenge your core, you can even try and hold that
on one leg momentarily before stepping forwards with the next leg. During these, you can add
in a twist with your torso if that's something you like. You can stretch up with your hands
to open up the front. It's really something you can adapt to work for you.
[music] Heather: If you're worried about your heart
rate dropping too much in this warm-up this one is going to solve it. It's high knees
and you can't really do this without a quite a lot of intensity. It's a really simple exercise
I'm sure something you've done since primary school. You can do it jogging on the spot
or progressing forwards ever so slightly but the idea is trying to get your knee up to
hip height so at a right angle just keeping your body nice and upright with really good
form driving with your arms at the same time. Because it's such an intense one I'd suggest
just covering a short distance or doing it for a set amount of time, say do 20 high knees
on each leg whilst you're on the spot. If you want to be really progressive with this
you could make it into high knee skips but that's probably a little bit more challenging
and one for another video. Heel flicks are a nice contrast to the high
knees because they are working the posterior chain so those muscles at the back of your
body as opposed to the ones on the front that the high knees did. For this, it's a good
idea to maybe even put your hands on your bottom so you can see how close your heels
are getting. You're going to be working your hamstrings and your glutes and simply trying
to kick your bottom with your heels. Again do it on the spot or progressing forwards
whichever you find more comfortable for you. It's still pretty intense so probably do it
for around 20 strides each and then take a rest.
[music] Heather: Onto side steps which will just get
everything moving a little bit more and get you bouncing and feeling ready to run. It's
pretty simple as you'd expect, basically galloping sideways. Imagine your body is in between
a pane of glass, you want to be nice and upright and narrow, use your arms to help propel the
movement and you're going to be taking nice wide steps in one direction in a straight
line. Once you've done 10 to 20 strides one way then just turn around and come back the
other way. This one is one of my favorites but it might test your coordination slightly.
It's side twists so you're going to be stepping with one foot in front of the other then the
other way around. It's much easier if you look at the demonstration. Use your arms to
help and it's a full body twist going sideways but make sure you do it exactly the same coming
back in the opposite direction. Now for the icing on the warm-up cake, it's
strides to finish off. For these you want to aim to do around three of about 80 to 100
meters so if you've got a nice straight area that's perfect. You want to build up from
around 80% of your maximum effort right up through to maximum by the time you finish.
For each one do the whole distance and then walk back to the start so your legs have plenty
of time to recover before the next one. Then at the end of that you should be feeling absolutely
primed and ready to nail your main set. I know we've covered quite a lot of exercises
throughout this warm-up. I don't want you necessarily doing all of them because you
obviously don't want to be tired before you start your main session but you do want to
make sure you're optimally warmed up. It's up to you to choose what works for you and
how much of it you need. [music]
Heather: You'll be pleased to hear that the post-run routine is much lighter in intensity
and volume. Immediately you can add in some core work but that is optional and the type
of warm down you're doing will depend on you to reflect the session's intensity and volume
that you've also just completed. For example today we are still presuming that you've done
a tough track workout. Initially you need to get that heart rate back down. The quickest
way would be to lie down but let's avoid that for now you'll feel
far worse afterwards. It's still important to keep the body moving and to not let it
get cold. A walk to drop the heart rate is best before your breathing is under control
and then it's time to try and jog. This job can be as slow as you like, there's no points
for winning the warm down. You'll be the one paying for it the next day. Either before
or straight after your jog make sure you put some layers back on. Obviously, if you're
in cold climate because once you've got cold it's so much harder to warm up and you want
your body to recover well. After all that's the whole point you have to cool down so that
your body can absorb that training and be better prepared to train again the next day.
Now on to stretches and for this make sure you go somewhere that's warm and comfortable
so you can really get into all the areas that need working. Just take it and listen to your
body for this. You might know, if you've done a track session maybe your calves are going
to be extra tight. You need to do it fairly soon after that jog so that your muscles are
still nice and warm and you'll get more of a benefit from it. My local run club actually
choose to run a core session straight after Tuesday night track workouts. That does sound
a bit brutal but in comparison to the hard work you've done on the track it's really
not going to seem that hard and it's a great way to get something that's so important done.
You could actually opt to have it before your warm-up even before your jog to help getting
things activated and firing but afterwards is equally as effective. The core as we know
is just brilliant exercise or really important for making sure that we're going to be running
efficiently and you've got the right muscles firing wherever you choose to put it.
As you can see the pre and post-run routines do deserve their respect and they're certainly
worth having a bit of a think about and planning appropriately according to whatever session
you've got in mind. Take from this video all the points that you want and you can devise
your own warm-up and your own warm-down routine to make sure you get the most out of your
next training session. Hopefully, you've enjoyed it. It's given you some ideas and something
to go away with. Give us a like if you have and remember you can follow us on our social
media channels. You can also subscribe to us here on youtube.
[00:10:09] [END OF AUDIO]