The Importance of Warming Up and Cooling Down

I just had my first back-to-back running days in years and it felt really good. Though my legs are sore after the run, I know that it feels quite normal and tolerable. I'm sure my basic knowledge of warming up and cooling down helped a lot and that's what I will share now with you.

Let's think of our running sessions (whether it's easy runs, intervals or even long runs) as sandwiches. Our runs should be sandwiched by Warm Ups on top and Cool Downs on the other end.

Warm Ups

First, I'd like to set this one straight: It's not recommended to do stretching (specifically static stretching) pre-run without warming up. Studies have shown that it can increase the risk of injuries when we stretch our 'cold' muscles. For now, let's save the stretching for after the run.

Now, Warm Ups to simply put it is just preparing our body for the high intensity activity we are about to do. The goal is to raise the body's temperature and get more blood flowing to the muscles. We want our muscles to loosen up so that it could perform the activity (in our case, Running) at it's best.

As simple as a 5 to 10 minutes of walking, jogging or any light movements that will raise the temperature without putting stress on our bodies will do as our warm up.

Cool Downs

This is just as important as the Warm Ups. Instead of stopping our run suddenly that may cause your blood pressure and heart rate to drop, we should gradually slow down the pace to a walk or a light jog of about 5 to 10 minutes.

Right after your cool down, this is when we do our stretching. Our muscles are warm enough which will make stretching easy and effective. Stretch the muscles that were most stressed by your running and be careful not to overdo it. Stretching should not in any case feel painful.

It vary individually but the common areas to stretch for most runners are the Calf, Quads, and Hamstring muscles. Practice holding each stretch for about 10 to 30 seconds and repeat the stretch 2 to 3 times for each muscle group.

Doing the Warm Ups and Cool Downs will not guarantee that you will perform excellently on your run or you won't feel any soreness after. But doing these practices will surely help our bodies to recover properly.

So, enjoy your every sandwich!

If you have more tips or questions on properly warming up and cooling down, please feel free to drop me a comment!