Professional Athletes Pre-Race Warm up??

Oooo good post, I'd like to know this as well. I always take ice baths the night before but I do wonder what the pros do in terms of icing up

saw a few pros running backwards and then high knees at the trials

15 minutes of jogging
Drills - start with slower/light drills, slowly get more intense to get heart rate up
1-2 minute tempo
Change to spikes/racing shoes
Strides until legs feel ready

15min jog and strides

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RunnaBlahBlahbaaa wrote:

I'm trying to find athletes warm up routine for races 10k & below (so not marathon). All the specifics of drills and strides etc, not just "15min jog and strides." Not to blindly mimic their routines, just to compare. It always seems like they do a bunch of strides and I've only just done like 6x100m and called it good. Anyways, does anyone know of any article online of a pro runner sharing this? Thank you.

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Sub 4 guy but not necessarily professional

~50 mins before race:

appx 20 minute run to warmup, with 2 mins at tempo after about 2 miles.

Light dynamic stretching if anything feels tight. I havent done drills in years...

chew run gum ~15 mins before race

2-3 strides with trainers and sweats on, not pushing it too much just trying to feel relaxed and strong, activate speedy muscles. Sometimes I do a bounding stride or two if I am very early on my warmup or looks like the meet is running behind.

with less than 10 mins to go I take off my pants and spike up (warm up top still on) and do a couple more strides closer to race effort, smooth.

strip down to racing gear for last few strides. maybe one of them first 50m normal last 50m pick up kind of hard.

I think they range from extremely complex to extremely simple.

A local global top 10 1500m runner in my area does 3 or so miles jogging, a few basic drills (A-skip, B-skip, fish lines, etc.) and some strides. Other pros seem to do a ton of complicated stretches and more drills, various phases of warm-up running. FloTrack workout videos may be a good source.

Have coached/advised many elite and sub slite athletes. Make sure you now the purpose of the warm-up! Raise body temp to optimal level for use of glycolytic enzymes, blood flow, etc. This can vary betweeen 8 minutes and 15 minutes, (also depends on temp. at race time). Let your CNS know what you are going to ask it to do by doing a few strides at race pace or faster. Anything else done by the elites is a matter of routine and psychological comfort.

I have seen the Ingebrigtsens warmup routine before a local 800m race at Bislett stadium a couple of years ago.

- 20min jog at an uptempo pace (maybe just their easy pace but it was pretty freaking fast, like 5:40-6min pace)
- Stretching and drills
- 3-5 1min intervals at what looked like 3k-5k pace (wasn't able to time it exactly)
- strides and one longer race-effort stride at the end.

I think what is crucial is the intervals, or at least that is what differed from me and my clubmates warmup, the other stuff is pretty standard.

I remember there being a story years ago about Michael Rimmer supposedly doing one minute at 800m pace as part of the warm up for 800m. This sounds absolutely nuts to me. I searched for it and found this article:

https://www.athleticsweekly.com/performance/should-you-do-an-extended-warm-up-57815/

So apparently there are some people who advocate this.

I think strides of approximately 100-150m should be fine for 800m and up though. Run them at race pace.

Read this:
https://www.runnerstribe.com/blogs/craig-mottram-one-special-day/

A few years ago at competitive 10k, Elite African runners simply jogged really slow men and women together. I watched as the guy who won (Patrick Cheptoek) visited the Dunkin' Donut booth (one of the sponsors of the event) and downed two donuts about 30 minutes before the start .....then ran 29:18.

Whatever you choose to do, just don't wait until race day to try it out.

I use the exact same warm-up routine before race-specific workouts as I do before a race.

lunge matrix
light jog
skips
hops
karaoke
some leg swings
hip mobilization
some strides, sometimes at race pace

Top 10 men's distance runners at warming up, all time:

1. Augustine Choge
2. Bernard Lagat
3. Hicham El Guerrouj
4. Abdelati Iguider
5. Noureddine Morceli
6. Sydney Maree
7. Dieter Baumann
8. Laban Rotich
9. Steve Scott
10. John Walker

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formerbosox9yo wrote:

Top 10 men's distance runners at warming up, all time:

1. Augustine Choge
2. Bernard Lagat
3. Hicham El Guerrouj
4. Abdelati Iguider
5. Noureddine Morceli
6. Sydney Maree
7. Dieter Baumann
8. Laban Rotich
9. Steve Scott
10. John Walker

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i am sorry but WTF wrote:

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formerbosox9yo wrote:

Top 10 men's distance runners at warming up, all time:

1. Augustine Choge
2. Bernard Lagat
3. Hicham El Guerrouj
4. Abdelati Iguider
5. Noureddine Morceli
6. Sydney Maree
7. Dieter Baumann
8. Laban Rotich
9. Steve Scott
10. John Walker

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How do you quantify this? Have they done research in warming up or something? To answer the OP, just jog around a little, avoid stretching and do some strides and drills.

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10 minutes of jumping jacks, then they call it good.

Hello all, I appreciate the posts. However, it seems like some misunderstood my question. I'm interesting in pro runner's specific routines, for curiosity. I have a very well thought out warm up routine obtained from my well-versed d1 coach. Not looking to change it, it just seems like all the top dogs (NOP, Bowerman, etc) have some EXTENSIVE stride routines. Also, 9/10 of you have basically said the classic "15min and strides" which, as stated, I am not interested in such a post.

15min and strides