5K Warm Up Thoughts?!

My warm up routine:

20 min jog

bathroom break

drills

light jogging til about 3-5 min before the race starts

then strides to loosen up the legs

Total: 40 min

Pretty much the same, but I throw in some dynamic stretching in before the 20min jog.

NotAustin18 wrote:

My warm up routine:

20 min jog

bathroom break

drills

light jogging til about 3-5 min before the race starts

then strides to loosen up the legs

Total: 40 min

I run the course (3.1 mi) starting at about 3 mins /mi slower than race pace and ending at marathion pace. try to finish this about 10 min prior to race. 5 min prior to race, 4x 50m at race pace.

I have my athletes do the following:

1) Foam rolling and other soft tissue work

2) 15 mins easy

3) Dynamic drills, lunges, jumps, etc with short strides

4) 3-5 mins at Threshold finishing about 10 mins out

5) Short strides at varying paces to stay loose

madmandoc wrote:

I run the course (3.1 mi) starting at about 3 mins /mi slower than race pace and ending at marathion pace. try to finish this about 10 min prior to race. 5 min prior to race, 4x 50m at race pace.

I do something pretty similar.

In really hot weather, I might truncate the warmup and try to end it with more time left before the gun/horn.

This weekend i am running a 5k and have been tapering to PR this sub 19, preferably 18:3x

What I do:

20 minute easy jog 8:00/mi-8:30/mi pace

Dyanamic stretching any tight spots and to loosen up

2 20-50m strides 10 minutes before the race

You should do some brisk running (3 min at marathon pace) ending 10 minutes before the race to really "start the engine".

I agree with the 'start the engine' recs -

I run easy for 15 minutes, then do a 5-7 minute fartlek - ranging from 100 meters hard to 60 seconds at tempo pace or a little faster. I'll play games with my head too - just when I feel least like starting a fast piece of the fartlek I'll start that fast piece.

makes the start of the race easier - the first few hundred meters will feel like the start of another fartlek, then I can settle in.

Anyway, I think some hard running for longer than a 'stride' is a big help.

I have to say, I'm pretty surprised by the crappy responses so far.

There are 2 things that will keep you from running faster in a race: 1) Running out of energy, 2) Building up lactic acid faster than your body can remove it by running too fast.

Your body has enough energy stored in it to run for 90 minutes so #1 is a non-issue for the 5k. We also don't really need to worry about warming up too much since a long warm-up + 5k race still won't deplete energy stores. In order to do run your fastest in such a short race you need to make sure the lactic acid removal system in your body is running at 100% when the gun goes off. If it isn't then you will waste precious time warming that system up, or your body will get behind on lactic acid removal and never catch up.

The finer details of a warmup are up to you, but it should include a slow jog to get thing started anywhere from 15 - 30 minutes and later involve 3 - 5 x 2min at 90%+ effort and 4 - 6 x 100-150m strides at race pace. You should be sweating and your heart should be elevated after all of this. Shoot to finish your w/u about 5 minutes before the start so your body doesn't really have time to shut down lactic acid removal, but enough time to feel refreshed for the gun.

I used to do dynamic stretching and all that jazz, but for me it works better to do this:

1. 15-ish minute warmup jog

2. bathroom

3. static stretching

4. 6-ish 100m strides

This simply isn't true. (I don't want to reopen the debate about lactic acid, though it would at least be fair to say that "oxygen debt" is a limiting factor, and we know that blood lactate concentrations correlate with H+ concentrations.) To say that there are only two causes of fatigue is absolutely absurd. If that were the case, then marathoners could run the entire race at LT, as long as they took on enough fuel. But they can't. We don't yet understand all the mechanisms of fatigue, but there's no sports scientist who thinks that fuel storage and oxygen debt are the only limiting factors.

Again, if this were correct, then doubling or tripling in the same meet would be easy. You could run a mile PR and come back 30 minutes later and run a 5k PR. The previous mile would have no effect because your glycogen wouldn't be depleted and your oxygen debt would be "paid off."

While i agree with your thought process, you have to remember that the OP is probably a 18-20 min 5Ker at best. And the warm-up you described, while maybe good for a high mileage faster athlete, is most likely as hard as their actual workouts. So while it might be good to get them ready to run at race pace, i'd expect their wheels to fall off the second half as fatigue creeps in. 1-3x 2 mins @ 90% effort (which should be around their threshold) is a good idea for most trained athletes.

I listed threshold pace bc its a pretty easy pace while still achieving much of the desired results you are looking for and the slightly slower effort keeps people from going too hard on them as most will run too hard no matter what pace you tell them. Once an athlete becomes comfortable using threshold pace in their warm up, i would progress them to some higher quality effort mixed in as well.

High school routine: I usually jogged around very relaxed for about 15-20 minutes. After that I went into dynamic stretching followed by drills that roughly go from slower to faster cadence (i.e. skips --> high knees --> stride outs).

I would usually have a good amount of time before the race so that'd be my time to evacuate my bowels and eat something small/drink some coffee. I often sat down and relaxed while massaging my legs occasionally to promote blood flow. I would also hydrate throughout the entire thing.

About 30 minutes before race time I would warm up again for about 7-10 minutes. Then about 5 minutes before the gun went off I would stride out a couple of times for 60m-70m. I'm not a person who listens to music to get pumped. If that works for you, then I recommend it.

10 min to 2mi very easy jog

Dynamic stretches

Drink, bathroom, switch into racing shoes

1mi with strides

Bathroom, drink(if needed), get in corral.