Warming Up. How much? Maybe there is a better option than strides, Dirtbags!

This is a nice little study from 2012 I just came across (see below). The authors looked at varying the warm up before a simulated 800m race. These were well trained athletes (7 men, 4 women). The hypothesis was that a harder warm up would improve race times.

Often before a race or a hard workout we are concerned about doing too much...about tiring ourselves out prematurely.

In this study, everyone did around 10 mins of jogging and drills, then instead of the usual warm up of 6 strides of 50m, they replaced it with 2 x 50m and 1 x 200m hard (800m race pace).

They completed the 800m time trial 5 minutes later.

Race times improved significantly with the second warm up. Oxygen consumption was also higher after the harder warm up. Splits for the first 400m were similar, and most of the advantage came about in the second half.

It seems like this harder effort somehow primed the aerobic system. The aerobic engine was revved, so to speak.

I think the take away is that if you feel terrible on the first rep of an interval style workout (me!!), but then get into it by rep 3 or 4, then it may be worth experimenting with a different warm up, particularly one that involves some longer and harder race style efforts.

Just a thought.