 All right, today's topic is should I warm up before my run? When is it important to do a warm-up? Why do we do a warm-up and how do we do a warm-up? Let's get into it. So speaking of warm-ups, I just got out ready to go for a run and now I'm gonna make this video before I go for run and it's pretty cold outside, so I'm looking forward to warming up literally, but you know, the typical warm-up routine where essentially you're preparing your body for what's to come How do we do it? When do we do it and why do we do it? Let's start with the why. There's two reasons for it One of them is injury prevention and the other one is performance enhancement, so Injury prevention When a tissue, like your tendon or your muscle specifically, when a tendon or a muscle is cold It's a little bit more rigid and when something is more rigid It's more likely to break because it's not able to accommodate the movement. So if you imagine having an elastic band, if that elastic band is pretty tight and it needs to do this, it might break. On the other hand, if it's flexible and supple, it can accommodate the movement and it won't break. So a little bit of a higher temperature in the muscle and tendon is beneficial to allowing better range of movement and decreasing the likelihood of anything breaking. The second reason is performance enhancement. So inside of the muscle, there are these mitochondria and inside those mitochondria there's a chemical reaction happening where your body turns fuel into energy to produce movement. In order to do this there are certain enzymes involved. An enzyme is a protein that helps a reaction along, essentially. And these enzymes are very sensitive to temperature and pH. And as your temperature goes up, these enzymes are able to work a little faster. And this means you're able to produce more energy a little faster than you normally are and therefore perform better. So a little bit of a higher temperature means a little bit faster enzyme reactions and that means better performance. There's also things like, you know, the heart getting comfortable with beating a little faster. There's also the nervous system, the brain to muscle connection. It's just sort of activating the system, so to speak. So there's a lot of different things that going on, but generally racing the core temperature a little bit and getting moving is going to be beneficial when you want to perform. So that's the why. Now when do you do a warm-up? Do you need to do a warm-up before heading out for an easier run? No, you don't. You don't have to think of it as a warm-up when you're just going for an easier run or a long run. Although it's good to keep in mind that for the first few kilometers you can maintain an extra easy pace. There's no need to sort of rush into a fast pace immediately. And that means even if you're pretty fit and you're able to run a pretty steady pace and it's still an easy intensity for you. Even though your, you know, your engine is able to do that, your structural system, your muscles and tendons, etc, they need some time to warm up again for the injury prevention point of view. So even if you are a fast runner like Elliot Kipchogi, one of the fastest, well, the fastest marathoner of all time, even him will start his easy runs and his long runs at a fairly easy pace. The pace that even I could comfortably run. So that's not a formal warm-up, but it is good to keep it in the back of your mind when you're starting out. Start a little bit on the easy side. However, a thorough formal warm-up is something that you will do typically before quality workout like an interval session. Perhaps you're doing threshold reps or or VO2 max intervals at the track. Or perhaps we were talking before a race, right? In this situation, you want to be fully warmed up before you start your fast portion of the training because of the injury risk, but also because of those performance principles that I just mentioned. So if you're on the track, if you're doing a structured workout, or if you're preparing for a race, you definitely want to do a formal warm-up, which leads us to the last question, which is how to do a warm-up. Well, there are many ways to do it, but we'll keep it pretty simple. I would say that the absolute minimum time for a warm-up is 10 minutes, okay? But actually it takes closer to 20 minutes to fully get that core temperature up a little bit and get your muscles fully ready for what's to come. It takes about 20 minutes. So I would say 15 to 30 minutes, that's a good time for a warm-up, okay? 20 minutes is probably spot-on, more or less ideal. How do you structure those 20 minutes? Well, probably for at least the first half of it, you can just jog easily. It's just about jogging around at an easy intensity. It doesn't have to be hard at all. It shouldn't be hard. It should be easy and relaxed. Just to up that metabolism, burn those calories and as you burn the fuel, heat is released and your body temperature goes up, which is what a warm-up is. So after 10 minutes of that, maybe 15, you could definitely increase the pace a little bit. Perhaps throw in a few strides where you do quick 10 seconds pace increases up to a pretty fast pace, but then stop. Just relax. So it's controlled. It's not super super fast, but it's pretty fast. And it's just about getting that leg turnover and really raising that temperature, leaving a little bit more and getting ready for the pace that you are going to do. Sort of giving your body a taste of what's to come. And at the end of it, you might even want to throw in some, you know, some sort of shaking, loose, a little bit stretching, dynamic stretching routines, maybe some drills, you know, where you do certain running drills in order to just move through the full range of motion, activate your nervous system and that sort of thing. But even if you don't do any of those fancy techniques that I just mentioned, just an easy jog for 20 minutes can still be, you know, probably get you to 80 or 90% to where you want to be before starting the actual workout. I'm very cold now. That's why I'm kind of stressed in the way I'm speaking, but let's wrap it up. Warmups are important to prevent injury and enhanced performance. We should do them before structured workouts. They're not necessary before easy runs, although the first kilometers should still be fairly easy. And last but not least, how to do it. 20 minutes, easy jogging, a few strides, some drills, some stretching if you want, and you're good to go. That's it. If you're interested in coaching, I offer customized training plans, online coaching as a month by month type of deal where I'll follow you up with your training. We'll have consultations. We'll talk about things. And if you're just interested in asking me some questions, maybe talking about warmups or workouts or stretching or any sort of topic that you're wondering about and maybe have questions about, we can also set up a standalone consultation. So check out my website. There's a link in the description where you can read more about my coaching. And please subscribe, of course, at any questions you may have about warming up. Please post them in the comment section below and I'll answer them as soon as I can. Thanks for watching. It's about time that I get moving now because I am in serious need of warming up. It's probably about zero degrees Celsius. I think maybe two degrees Celsius, something like that. It's on the cold side of things. All right. Thanks for watching. Bye.