Professional Athletes Pre-Race Warm up??

Option 1: About 35 to 40 minutes total time.

~800m very easy followed by leg swings + stretches of any other kinks

~800m easy -leg swings, hips

~1600m easy but quicker

(Typically ~ 15 minutes of running)

Rollout as needed, hip stretches with possible lacrosse ball roll (activate glutes/any other areas).

6x ~100m to ~200m

- 1st 2 focus on form/accelerating through the run. Full recovery (say 1 minute) after each 100m

- 2nd 2 focus on form and speed (overall these 2 are the fastest and faster than race pace

- 3rd 2 quick start and ease off last ~ 50m (start faster than race pace, ending ~ at race pace)

1x ~ 400m

At or just a bit faster than expected race pace. The first time running at race pace should not be in the race. The 100's were at faster than race pace. Race pace should feel very easy at this point.

3 or 4 Stride outs

Just to keep loose

By the end, heart rate has been elevated, legs/arms warm, lungs full, and

Option 2: About 45 seconds total time

Finish beer.

Snuff out cigarette.

3 or 4 arm swings.

Snort, spit, scratch, fart, and hike up the shorts while walking to the starting line.

A few hours before :

either do a light 10 minute jog or just walk around for a bit, then go through some dynamic stretching like leg swings, hip circles, knee to chest walks, quad stretch walks, hamstring sweep walks, walking lunges and a couple mini accelerations (20 meters ish of fast feet)

45 minutes before:

Use the bathroom

Have a scoop of honey or some GU

Sip of water

Chew 1-2 rungum

10-15 minute jog

Dynamic stretching (20 meters each): knee to chest, quad stretch, hamstring sweep, piriformis stretch, single leg bend overs, lunges, tinman leg walks)

Form drills (20 meters each): high knees, butt kickers, lead leg pull throughs, A-skips, toe tap straight leg joggies, A and C skips, high skips, karaoke, karaoke with high knee, side shuffle with swinging arms, backward jog, A skips very fast

Put on spikes

2-4 50-100m strides

keep doing mini strides and fast feet shuffles until it's time to go to the line and take sweats off

Around 1990 Carl Lewis was competing in meet held at Columbia University's track. He competed in the 100 meters. It was brutally hot. I watched him warming up. He wore sweat pants. He jogged, stretched, and did drills. About 15 min. before his race he went to the start. He took off his sweat pants. Underneath he wore tights. He adjusted his blocks and worked on starts. An official came over to him and said something to him. Lewis nodded and removed his tights. All the runners went to their blocks.

Just saying 15 min jog without stating how far before the race doesnt help.

As a 800m specialist who sometimes ran the 4 x400m I would do:

45 mins to hour before race

1 1/2 mile slow jog 7 min pace, followed by light streching, plyometrics, more streching, and 5 x80m moderate strides. Relax then 5-10 minutes before race light 3 -5x75 meter strides

1 hour before:

1- Participate in the FREE! group yoga session happening at the loudspeaker.

2- Wait 35min in line to take a number 2 in the dark porta potty

3- crush and snort at least 2 Run Gums and hit the Albuterol 2-3 times

4- punch the IT bands a couple times on each side and do 2-3 hops

5- Make sure to be the last person striding so you can stare down every hobby jogger on the line

6- Take off 30 seconds ahead of pace to avoid traffic and to outsprint the 9 year old wearing Beats

semi pro wrote:

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.

Nick Symmonds, is that you?!

I wouldn't say I'm a 'pro', but I've competed in the USATF Outdoor championships a couple times in the distance events and train with others at my level or better.

We do the same exact thing before a race as we do a workout. 2-3 miles of jogging followed with some dynamic stretches starting with the slow stuff like pulling the knee to chest, quads, that sort of stuff. Then the quicker movements like a variety of skipping movements or things similar to that. My favorite 'quicker' movement is a light jog where every fifth step or so is a very quick sort of exaggerated high-knee/high kick combination, it sort of looks like a hurdler drill. Then the strides. Some seem to do a ton of strides (like 10 or more) while others like me might keep it to 5 or so good ones.

Most runners at the usatf championships start the jog about 50 minutes before the race.

The dynamic stretching and that stuff starts about 20-25 minutes before the race and people really start breaking out the strides 10-15 minutes before the gun with a minute or two between each one.

interest3d wrote:

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

I always do karaoke before racing. Nothing gets me ready to roll like "don't stop believing." The problem is that a lot of western venues don't have the appropriate facilities. When I used to race in Asia, they had solo karaoke booths beneath the stadiums that the athletes could use.

runn wrote:

Email a runner, I'm sure they'd be happy to help.

lol

Don't know about pro, but last races 5k to half i switched from 2 miles jog & 4 strides to 4 miles jog/progression & 8-10 strides. It's a night and day difference.