Easy ways to warm up

For many of us, we roll out of bed to run or bolt out the door after work. In both those scenarios, and probably countless others, our bodies have been in a state of rest or static for a long period of time. Running is a jarring activity, thus, you want to ease your body into your run. A fast walk or slow jog works well. Do that for about 2 minutes or a few blocks and then pick it up.

If you feel like your legs are not turning over or if the run is a faster run, you will want to do a few extra exercises to warm up the body. Here are 2 of our favorites that are easy to implement and do as part of your mileage. Do each exercise 2x for 30 seconds (or 1 full city block).

High Knees

Butt Kicks

For a more complete warm up routine, check out our dynamic stretching for runners. Dynamic stretching is a great way to warm up before running because the movements take the joint and muscles through motions, getting them ready to fire, as opposed to static which is designed to relax muscles. We recommend this before any track or interval workout.

Strength Move of the Week: Dynamic Warm Up

As running coaches who promote long term, injury-free running, strength work is always a part of our recommended weekly routine for every runner out there. So, where to start? Start with just one move a week and build from there. Hot Bird Running has you covered with our Strength Move of the Week!

Move of the Week: Dynamic Warm Up
Why we love this? Before diving into a strength workout or a run, you need to warm up the body. Specifically, you want to perform a set of exercises that increases blood flow to your muscles, increases your heart rate and awakens the nervous system to improve neuro-muscular control during your workout. The benefit? A significant decrease in the likelihood of overuse injuries and muscles prepared to maximize the impending workout. 

Below is a video demonstrating our recommendation for a simple, yet effective, dynamic warm up to do before any run. Before beginning this routine, walk briskly, jog slowly or do some jumping jacks for a few minutes.  Also, remember to ease into each activity progressively.  For example, start with high knee marches and then transition into high knee runs. Lastly, as you do these exercises, actively control your movemens by contracting your muscles. This prevents forcing your joints to extend beyond their natural range of motion.  

Injury Prevention: Dynamic Warm Up Video

Risk of injury increases anytime you try new training techniques, ramp up the intensity of your training, or take on familiar, yet hard workouts on a weekly basis.  To reduce the risk of injury and give your body a chance to perform its best, make sure to include more than just a slow warm up jog before you pick up the pace.   By more, we mean include some dynamic warm up exercises to get the glutes, abdominals quads, hips flexors and hamstrings warmed up and ready for action in workouts such as hill training, track workout, strength exercises or even tempo runs.

A few of our favorite dynamic warmup exercises include high knees, butt kicks, side to side, karaoke and single leg swings.  Watch our video for demonstrations of each or read our descriptions below.  Either way, make sure to incorporate some sort of dynamic warm up before your high intensity workouts!

High Knees: Stand with your arms by your sides. Raise one knee up and forward, swing opposite arm.  Bring this foot down and raise the other.  Repeat movement coming forward. Continue for 30 seconds.

Butt Kicks: As you run, kick your heels to your butt. Goal is to kick your butt as many times as possible in 30 seconds. Keep back straight.

Side to Side:  Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and up on your toes.  Swing your arms up over your head opening up your abdominals and spine as you hop off one foot taking a wide step.   Let your arms swing down and back up again as you continue to slide side to side for 30 seconds up to one minute.  Repeat facing the opposite direction.

Karaoke:  Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, and cross your right foot in front of your left foot keeping your hips and upper body straight and facing out. Continue to cross the opposite foot in front of the other.  Continue for 30 seconds and then repeat facing the opposite direction for 30 seconds.

Straight Leg Swing:  Stand with feet hip-width apart.  Swing one leg straight in front of you and then swing back behind you keeping back straight and pelvic square.   Repeat for 30 seconds to one minute on each side.  Modified:  Find something on the same side as the leg you are swing to hold on to for balance.