The warm up is a crucial activity to prep your muscles for the demanding run/workout ahead. By increasing your core body temperature, a warmup speeds up the supply of oxygen to your hardworking muscles, promoting optimal performance. Additionally, this procedure boosts blood flow to the working muscles, priming them for the effort and effectively reducing the risk of injury.

The Science Behind Warm-Ups

Increased body temperature

By completing an active warm up before you begin the important part of your running (the race or workout itself), your body raises the temperature in your muscles, thus causing your body temperature to rise.

This in turn speeds up your metabolic processes (which is especially important if you are trying to lose weight) and your energy supply.

Enhanced muscle performance

The increased muscle temperature lowers muscular resistance (viscosity). This allows your muscles to contract faster and stronger, which is important if you want to race well!

Increased cardio performance

Warming up also leads to increased cardiac output and a higher respiratory minute volume, which are needed for higher oxygen uptake.

Better joint load distribution

Another positive factor is that even short-term loads cause the cartilage layer in your joints to thicken, thereby widening the bearing surface and thus achieving a better distribution of loads.

Injury prevention

A number of research studies have shown that a proper warm-up can reduce the risk of injury.

Particularly in the case of fast and explosive muscular contractions and movements that require good flexibility like hill sprints or finishing a race with a kick.

Warmed-up body tissue has been shown to be more resilient. Warming up can also help prevent injuries by improving your attention and increasing your ability to react.

*Last tip: If you’re warming up before a race by running, run enough before the race to hit your race pace off the start line.