7 Minute Pre Run Warm Up For Runners
How to get from your desk to warmed up and ready to run…
We know what it’s like after a long day in the office spending hours sat at your desk. You can’t expect your body to go and suddenly run, it’s going to take a while to get going. That heavy legs, sluggish feeling you might be feeling when you’ve finished work can put you off doing a running session and effect how well you run.
To make sure this doesn’t happen, you need to be doing a proper warm up, and I'm not talking about just going for a quick jog, you need to be doing more than that to get your body ready to run. So if warm ups are so good, why don’t people do them?
What puts many off is how long they think it takes, and they think they’ll get too tired doing their warmup and won’t be able to run.
Well, a proper warm up will actually help you to get the most out of your runs rather than hindering them. If you do it properly, a warm up prepares your body and mind so that you can perform at your best and reduce your chances of getting injured when you run.
In the video below I’m going to be taking you through a 7 Minute Pre Run Warm Up Routine, that is going to get you ready to run.
Before you head in to the video do a 5 min jog to get your heart rate and body temperature up. The exercises in the warm up are listed below with some tips on how to get the most out of each one. We’ve also linked each exercise so you can go straight to it in the video,
1. Soleus Dynamic Stretch
The first exercise in this pre running warm up routine is about getting the ankle, foot and calf region warmed up. If you’ve ever suffered with tight calves and you want to make sure they don’t seize up half way through your runs you need to do the Soleus Dynamic Stretch.
Holding onto something for balance, keep one foot planted on the floor and bend at the knee, raise the other leg off the floor and bend the leg that’s planted on the floor until you feel a stretch. You should feel this stretch in the bottom of the calf. You should return back to the start position. This counts as one rep and you should do this 10 times and then swap onto the other leg.
2. Ankle Rocks
The next exercise were going to do is called Ankle Rocks. Your ankles are so important for stability when you’re running, so we want to make sure we’re getting them warm and ready to run.
To do this exercise, you want to gently rock back onto your heels, then onto your toes, pushing up so your heels are off the ground. That’s 1 rep. You want to do 10 reps of this exercise.
What a lot of people tend to do here is bend at the waist when they lean back and you don’t want to be doing that. I’ll throw you off balance and it’ll take away from doing this dynamic stretch properly. A quick and easy solution to fix this is to look straight ahead and keep your chest up.
3. Forward Lunge
The Forward Lunge is going to help activate the quads, hamstrings and glute muscles, which are the main drivers involved in running. The Forward Lunge will also stabilise the knee joint, so you don’t get knee cave (knee giving way) when you run which can increase your risk of knee injuries and we don’t want that.
To do the forward lunge you want to take a large stride length out in front of you looking straight ahead and slowly lower your back knee down to the ground. Then you want to push with your bent leg back to the start position, and this will count as one rep. We’ll do this on the spot and you wanna do 10 on each side.
If you are getting pain at the front of the knee when running we show you how assess and fix the problem.
4. Arm Circles
So the next exercise you’re gonna do is Arm Circles. When you run you use your whole body, not just your lower body. Your arms help to generate power so that you can run faster. If they’re not warm you wont be able to generate as much power, run as fast, and you’ll be more likely to pull or strain them.
To do arm circles, start with your hands at either side and palms facing forward. Start with smaller arm circles and gradually get bigger. You should do 10 forward and 10 backward.
5. Leg Swings
Next up we have Leg Swings. You might want to hold onto something when you do this one. If you are at the park find a tree or fence you can use. To do the leg swings, look straight ahead with your chest up and concentrate on keeping your hips and pelvis forward without moving from side to side or rotating.
From here, gently swing your leg back and forth. Similar to the arm circles you want to start with a smaller range of motion and then increase the range of motion as you do more reps.
You should feel this stretch in your hamstring when you bring the leg forward and when you swing your leg back you should feel a stretch in the hip flexors.
When doing leg swings, don’t try and keep your heel on the floor as you can overstretch your hamstrings. You should find you’re naturally raising that heel off the floor - bear this in mind when you do leg swings. Do 10 leg swings on each side.
6. Side Leg Swings
When doing Side Leg Swings you should again hold onto something for balance. Point your toes towards the thing you are holding on to and , importantly, stay on the balls of your feet because if that foot is planted without allowing for the rotation we’re about to do, you could twist your knee or pull a muscle.
Start by swinging the right foot. Place both hands onto something in front of you for balance, get on the ball of your left foot, swing your right leg through, twisting at the waist and foot as you do so.
As you bring your leg back through twist the waist and foot out to the other side. A rule of thumb here is your toes should point in the direction you’re swinging.
Start off gently to begin with. By the end your swings your leg should be at it’s greatest range of motion; getting your legs up as high as they can go. Do 10 leg swings on each side.
7. Heel Flicks
Now that we’re almost ready to run, we’re going to take your warm up, up a notch, by doing some heel flicks. Heel Flicks will raise your heart rate, stretch the quad muscles and get your body ready to run.
To do heel flicks, look straight ahead, put your hands on your bum, and flick your heels towards your bum.
Do 10 heel flicks on each side. You should feel this in your quads, which are at the top half of the front of our legs, above the knee.
8. High Knees
So the last exercise we’re going to do for your Pre Running Warm Up is High Knees. High Knees are going to get your heart pumping and all your muscles in your body talking to each other.
When you’re doing high knees, look straight ahead, pump your arms opposite to the way your legs are moving. Start off with a few smaller high knees and then increase the height as you go. You should do 10 high knees on each side.
You’re almost ready to run your race or session…
After these exercises you should be warm, your heart rate should be up, your body temperature should have increased… but most importantly you've started engaging the muscles that you’ll need to run.
Just before you head into your session or race, we need to do some Running Strides. Runnings strides are where you run close to your race pace for short distances. This will help you to get your mind and body prepared to run.
So, here you are going to do 2-3 strides, start off at around 40% of your race pace on your first one. On the next 2 runs you want to slowly build up to around 80-95% of your race pace over a 60 metre stretch. If you’re not sure what 60 metres looks like, walk 66 steps and drop a marker like a water bottle.
Once you have done these you are ready to run!
So that’s how you do your 7 Minute Pre Running Warm Up Routine, get your body ready to run and reduce your chances of getting injured.
Please comment in the video with how you get on.
Also…
If you want to be a faster runner we’ve produced a FREE 7-day video series with loads of tips and advice on making those runs faster whilst also minimising your chances of picking up an injury.
