People always say you should walk before you run, but they never mention that you should do a dynamic warm-up before that.
I’ve been training for a half marathon for the past few months, and my training plan has mysterious words on it like “dynamic warm-up”... whatever that means. Until I took The Balanced Runner’s lesson on how to properly prepare to run, I used to walk for a few minutes and call it good. If I was really feeling dedicated (or really dragging my feet) I would sometimes stretch a little bit.
Now with these exercises I can get major muscles ready to go without irritating them or causing them harm. With only three major movements it’s easy to remember, and I can do them whether I’m going for run at lunch or hitting the trails on the weekend.
One of the most important things I learned from this lesson is to not do any static stretching before running because it causes micro-tears in the muscle and makes them weaker and more irritated (I guess I’m going to have to find another delay tactic). The best part? A gradual warm-up helps prevent post run soreness. Count me in!
