How should you warm up before a run?
A warm-up should raise your heart rate and body temperature with easy movement, then move your muscles through the same patterns the run will use: dynamic stretches such as leg swings and high knees. Behm and Chaouachi's 2011 review in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found dynamic stretching left performance unchanged or improved it in the studies they covered. Static stretching studies were mixed: many found impairment, but a substantial number found none, and the review notes that lack of impairment may be tied to keeping the static stretch short (under 90 seconds total) and below the point of discomfort. An easy run needs only a few minutes of walking or light jogging. A hard workout or race calls for a longer, more structured sequence, covered in the table below.
A warm-up by run type
How long a warm-up should run, and what to fill it with, depends on what's coming next. The table below is Runked's own scaled illustration, built on the race warm-up sequence coach Sarah Crouch uses, as described by Jeff Gaudette of RunnersConnect: an easy jog, a set of dynamic drills, then strides. Neither Crouch nor Gaudette publishes a shortened version for easy days or quality sessions. The easy-run and quality-session rows below are Runked's own scaling of that same structure; Crouch and Gaudette describe only the full race-day version above.
| Run type | Warm-up length | What to include |
|---|---|---|
| Easy or recovery run | 5–10 min | Walking or light jogging only; skip the drills and strides below |
| Quality session (tempo, intervals, hills) | 15–20 min | 8–10 min easy jog, a shortened drill set (leg swings, high knees, butt kicks), 3–4 short strides |
| Race day | ~45–50 min | Crouch's full sequence: a 24-min jog with surges in the final mile, then leg swings, ankling, lateral steps and high-knees-plus-butt-kicks drills, then 12 strides building from 10K to 1500m effort |
Source: RunnersConnect, "How to Warm-up for a Race: An In-depth Look at the Routine of an Elite Runner," describing coach Sarah Crouch's routine.
What the stretching review actually found
David Behm and Anis Chaouachi's 2011 review in the European Journal of Applied Physiology looked across the stretching-and-performance literature and found a consistent split. Studies of dynamic stretching, moves that keep a joint moving continuously through its range, reported either no change in performance or an improvement. Studies of static stretching, holding a stretch still, were mixed: many found it impaired performance afterward, but a substantial number found no detrimental effect. Behm and Chaouachi note the lack of impairment in those studies may be related to several factors, among them keeping the stretch short, under 90 seconds total, at an intensity below the point of discomfort. Their own recommended sequence: light aerobic activity first, then large-range dynamic stretching, then movement specific to the sport about to be performed, the same order the table above follows.
What a warm-up measurably changes
David Bishop's two-part 2003 review in Sports Medicine covers what a warm-up actually changes in the body. Raising muscle and core temperature, the first part of the review explains, is linked to decreased muscle stiffness, a faster nerve-conduction rate, a shifted force-velocity relationship, more available anaerobic energy, and, past a point, more thermoregulatory strain working against you. The second part of the review found active warm-up tends to produce slightly larger improvements in short-term performance (under 10 seconds) than passive heating alone, though short-term performance can be impaired if the warm-up is too intense or doesn't allow enough recovery. For intermediate (10 seconds to 5 minutes) and long-term (5 minutes or more) efforts, the review found active warm-up helps when it lets the athlete begin in a relatively non-fatigued state but with baseline oxygen consumption already elevated; for endurance performance specifically, the review notes a warm-up can also backfire if it raises thermoregulatory strain too much.
How to apply it
Start moving before you stretch. A few minutes of walking or light jogging raises muscle temperature before anything else in the sequence does useful work, per Bishop's review above. From there, move into dynamic drills, high knees, butt kicks, a heel-to-toe walk, the same family of moves USA Triathlon coach Reem Jishi's pre-run warm-up routine uses, covering the muscle groups a run relies on: calves, quads, hamstrings, hip flexors, glutes, core, chest and feet. Save static stretches, holding a hamstring or calf stretch still, for outside the pre-run warm-up; Behm and Chaouachi's review places static stretching in a separate training session, where they report it can provide health-related range-of-motion benefits.
Compare your warm-up to your own last run, not to anyone else's; in Runked the rank starts everyone at Bronze and only moves on your own runs. See how the running rank works.
Common mistakes with a running warm-up
- Static stretching cold muscles. Holding a stretch before you've moved skips the temperature-raising step Bishop's review ties to decreased stiffness and faster nerve conduction. Behm and Chaouachi's review found the static-stretching studies with no detrimental effect tended to keep the stretch under 90 seconds total and below the point of discomfort.
- Skipping the warm-up on easy days because it feels unnecessary. A shorter version still counts. Five to ten minutes of walking or light jogging is enough for an easy run; it doesn't need Crouch's full race sequence.
- Making the warm-up itself the hard part. Bishop's review found an active warm-up that runs too intense or doesn't allow enough recovery can leave you fatigued before the session that mattered even starts.
What to do next
The warm-up sets up the session. If the plan for the day is a structured speed session, the running workouts that build speed covers what a tempo run, interval session or fartlek actually is before you warm up for one. If the goal behind those hard sessions is a faster 5K, how to get faster at 5K covers the training side. And if the strides in the table above raised the question of turnover, running cadence covers what a reasonable steps-per-minute range looks like.
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Download on App StoreFrequently asked questions
Do I need to warm up before an easy run?
Some warm-up is worth doing even on an easy day, but it does not need to be long. A few minutes of walking or light jogging raises muscle and core temperature, the change David Bishop's 2003 review in Sports Medicine links to decreased stiffness and faster nerve conduction, before you settle into easy pace. Five to ten minutes covers it; save the fuller drill-and-stride sequence for a hard workout or race.
What's the difference between dynamic and static stretching before a run?
Dynamic stretching keeps a joint moving through its range, leg swings, high knees, walking lunges, while static stretching holds a position still. Behm and Chaouachi's 2011 review in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found dynamic stretching left performance unchanged or improved it in the studies they covered. Static stretching studies were mixed: many found impairment, but a substantial number found none, and the review notes that lack of impairment may be tied to keeping the static stretch short (under 90 seconds total) and below the point of discomfort. Their recommended order was light aerobic activity, then dynamic stretching, then sport-specific movement, with static stretching placed in a separate training session.
How long should a running warm-up be?
It depends what's next. Runked's own scaled version of coach Sarah Crouch's race warm-up, as described by RunnersConnect's Jeff Gaudette, runs 5 to 10 minutes for an easy run, 15 to 20 minutes for a tempo, interval or hill session, and close to 45 to 50 minutes for Crouch's full race-day sequence of a jog, drills and strides.
Does Runked's training plan build in warm-up time?
Runked PRO's training plans set the workout itself, an easy run, a tempo session, a long run, across phases from Foundation through Race Prep and Taper, but the warm-up before it is yours to add using the table above; the plan doesn't prescribe a specific drill sequence.