What percentage of runners don't stop after their warm up?

Strides and silly little drills before workouts is completely unnecessary. You can even do workouts without warming up. Before you hate, try it yourself. I usually hit the same paces in workouts without warm ups as I do with them. The first rep usually doesn’t feel as good, but who cares.

I had a period of time where I had to keep my weekday workouts to 1 hour because of time constraints. 15-20 minute warmup, 15-20 minute cooldown, and the remaining 20-30 mins as some kind of tempo run. Even when I was doing that, I'd find 3 or 4 minutes for some drills to put some pop in my legs and a stride or two.

Definitely agree with the time thing as well. A "short on time" staple of mine is a 4 mile tempo with a half mile warmup and cool down. Total time is usually around 28 minutes, and it seems to be a pretty good workout for 5k-8k race distances. It can be made into a fartlek workout too, but I usually just do the straight tempo effort.

For track workouts when I am short on time, I usually give myself a quick 2-4 minutes of drills and 4x100 meter strides.

A side benefit of the short warmup/no warmup workouts is that I don't feel all that thrown off if my race warmup doesn't go as planned.

Are you not supposed to warm up before work out? Do you mean they skipped drills? I don't know, drills seem fairly good for putting your joints and muscles through a ROM. But if pressed for time, I would 100% recommend warm up over drills. Now if we are talking true speedwork I would add runouts (strides). But skipping drills seems innocuous. I don't feel a strong 100% need for drills/strides before threshold work, long intervals or pretty much anything slower than 800 pace?

What physiological benefit could there possibly be to standing around for 15 minutes before starting your workout? For a race you do want to get your HR down and cool off a bit, but for a workout the whole point is to get your HR up. I think it's just a mental thing, those of us who trained with a team are used to the routine of meeting at the workout spot, changing into faster shoes, doing strides, etc. while we steel up for the workout.

I definitely see a benefit for the first one or two repeats from doing strides beforehand, but you could just as easily incorporate those into the end of your warm-up. Not necessary to change shoes anymore, there are plenty of super trainers now that are great for both the warm up and the workout. If you're just doing a workout on your own and have a fixed window of time, you're probably much better off adding a mile or two to your warm up/cool down than using that time just to stand around.

Recreational runners are fitting their running into busy personal lives. Runs are usually on a trail or somewhere where there isn't another pair of shoes or time to wait between a warmup and the workout.

Because they are recreational runner not trying to optimize their performance, but instead their time. What does it matter if they optimize their workout? They are trying to stay healthy and have some fun.

When I am doing fartleks, where the workout is based on effort, not pace, I just go straight in from my warmup.

Also, I don't care how "elite" you are, the only reason you should change into different shoes for working out is if that workout involves wearing spikes.

Exactly. Even if you're trying to optimize your performance, you're usually operating under time constraints. I have three kids and a full time job. I am BUSY. Many other rec runners are younger (no kids) but trying to build their careers and working a lot. Or maybe running isn't their only hobby. My habit is to run a warmup, stop and stand for a minute or two and ponder the meaning of life, then launch into my workout. No drills, no shoe change, no strides. Definitely not optimal, but I've had great success gradually pulling my times down.

Garmin's workouts do this. Guessing some percentage of runners are just following their watch's recommendation.

I don't stop after the warmup, and I hate running with people who do. What a waste of time. Pee before you begin the run, and wear your workout shoes. All the starting and stopping will turn a 75 minute workout into 1 hr 45. If you want to run high mileage and also have a solid work/home life, get rid of all the unnecessary stuff. I also stopped stretching and foam rolling with no impact. It's all about running and staying healthy by not over doing it each day. Stopping after the warmup is for high school and college runners.

For a tempo, cruise intervals, or marathon pace workout, sure I'll roll right into it.

For faster intervals and similar speedwork, and obviously for races, I'll stop before going into it.

I am recreational for sure. You might argue i'm more a jogger than a runner, though.

I don't use spikes, i don't use supershoes, so i don't see a need to change shoes between warmup and workout or even race.

I can do drills just fine without stoping or even slowing noticeably from my admittedly sloggish warmup pace. My "intervals" are only defined by effort level and duration so i don't see a need to optimize the pace of the first interval or whatever stopping, going to the bathroom, changing shoes, etc are supposed to achieve. In fact i don't see a need to optimize whatever, because after all i'm just a recreational something.

Also you won't notice from my strava, cause i don't see a need to share every single step i make with the whole world. Does that answer your question?

I spent many years through college and beyond doing the standard warm-up, drills, strides, and socializing before workouts. It was nice. Workouts typically took a couple of hours.

These days, I don't have time for that. Even when I'm meeting a group for workouts, we agree on what time the intervals will start, and I show up right before, ready to roll into the intervals. Would I have a better workout if I spent 10-15 minutes doing drills and strides? The first rep or two would probably feel easier, but the difference is marginal. I do think strides are a useful long-term play to maintain your speed, especially if you're doing mostly threshold or endurance-based training. But it's a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have.

As others in the thread have pointed out, if I'm choosing between having time for another rep or two versus having time for a bunch of high-knees and so on, it's the former every time. Maybe that's sacrificing some quality... but I think it's a much smaller sacrifice than I might have imagined back the olden days when I thought it was impossible to run a workout without doing strides first.

Correction: i try to optimize recreation, and stpooing, going to the bathroom and changing shoes don't seem to be optimizing that.

Been running 100+mpw with a full time job for a while now. Stopped wasting time stopping before every workout and foam rolling everyday. Have found that stuff has no impact on how good my workouts go or how healthy I am. Any muscle you need to activate to run the workout is probably ready to go from running for 15-20 minutes with a pickup or two thrown in. I'd rather get 20 extra minutes of sleep than foam roll for 20 minutes as well.

As others have said it is this primarily. I do this today because I have a family and a job and need some reasonable amount of sleep per day, I don't have 2 hours to do a proper workout like I did when I ran collegiately or when I was just out of school trying to make money on the road racing circuit. I have maybe an hour or 1:15 so I do a warmup jog and towards the end may throw in some strides but I just go right to the workout, there is some part of that that is also the compulsion aspect because I value volume in my running. Not optimal I know but best I can do with the time I have allotted myself.

Definitely agree with all the posters saying time, time, time. I used to really struggle with fitting in consistent running and then would just scrap running entirely for whole seasons. 2024 has been an awesome year for me in terms of consistency, and I'm realizing it's because of this one practice: fitting all my runs into roughly the exact same time window. Every morning I go out the door, and my spouse knows within about 5 minutes when I'll be back, without having to ask. I don't do long runs. I don't do workouts in the sense of anything that requires a break in the run. Of course it's not "optimal" in the way that's usually talked about. But in my actual life, I'm the fastest I've been in about 8 years, so...

0/10. A warmup prepares you for your workout. Stopping after your warmup is dumb. You cooldown and then you really have to warmup again to have a good workout.

strides, drills, and going to the bathroom(!) should all be done before you even start your warmup.

In summary, recreational runners are doing it right. You are doing it wrong.