A Just Ask Tante Pia column
By Pia Johansson
Do you think the pre-run warm-up is a bit of a time-waster, and running slow for the first kilometer is as far as you’ll ever go? I sometimes feel like that, too, but I also feel like maybe I should, especially for the sake of preventing injury. I did some research into this and the outcome may surprise you!
Does warm-up prevent injuries?
The first study I looked at (from 1993) was a large sixteen-week study where 300 runners were divided into two groups. One group stretched, warmed-up, and cooled down, and were generally good. The other group didn’t. There was no effect on injury incidents during the four months. In a review examining reasons for running injuries, the authors mention one study that followed 1600 athletes, and even though the multifactorial nature of this study could have slightly affected the outcome, there was no obvious correlation between lack of warm-up and injury incidence. The authors do say that some evidence in favor of warm-up exists in other sports but end with saying, “The literature at this point (2010, author’s comments) simply does not have enough high-quality research to determine whether warm-up helps prevent running injury.”
Word cloud woman: Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay
What about performance?
One small study with thirteen athletes compared a long warm-up with a short warm-up to see if it affected performance and running parameters during a three-minute run. It did not. But another study compared types of warm-up and found that a plyometric warm-up (squat jumps, scissor jumps) increased running economy compared to a control (short sprints) warm-up. In one study on time to exhaustion, they compared general warm-up and general warm-up plus dynamic stretches and found that adding dynamic stretches actually decreased time to exhaustion. Another, smaller, study aptly named Warm-Up Exercises May Not Be So Important for Enhancing Submaximal Running Performance, measured time to exhaustion in submaximal running with and without warm-up and found no difference. They did find some changes in physiological measurements like muscle temperature, but this did not affect performance. Funnily enough, the one study that did see an effect on performance did not involve warming up legs or heart muscles, but inspiratory muscles (using a resisted breathing trainer), shaving an average of 20 seconds off the test subjects’ runs.
Silhouette; Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay
Conclusions
Surprising as it might seem, warm-ups seem to not protect you from injury (be reasonable here, super-sprint from ice-cold sofa-sitting might be silly). It might slightly improve running economy, but most studies suggest no real effect on performance, either.
Now, I would indeed like to add a note of caution here: if warming up works for you, don’t stop just because the research says it might not be necessary. We are all different and the overall conclusion is not true for everyone! But if you, like me, felt that maybe you should start to do proper drills or warm-up routines, maybe you don’t have to. I will stick to my run-the-first-kilometer-slower warm-up, and maybe spend the extra time on post-exercise stretches instead.
Bibliography
Strength Cond Res, 2019 Jan 10. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000002974.
J Strength Cond Res, 2018 May;32(5):1383-1390. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000001970.
Res Q Exerc Sport, 2019 Dec;90(4):527-533. doi: 10.1080/02701367.2019.1630700
Current Sports Medicine Reports: 2010 9 (3):176-182 doi: 10.1249/JSR.0b013e3181de7ec5
Am J Sports Med, Sep-Oct 1993;21(5):711-9. DOI: 10.1177/036354659302100513
J Strength Cond Res, 2017 Jan;31(1):37-44. 10.1519/JSC.0000000000001489
Pia Johansson
Pia Johansson is a research scientist in neurobiology, mother of two and working mum. She was an expat for almost twenty years, in Australia and Munich and a short wild stint in Dublin many many years ago. She is in the throes of being repatriated to Sweden with her Australian husband. She likes talking, running and talking about running. And chocolate (although mostly 85% these days, as crazy as that sounds). In addition to staying fit and eating healthy, and raising happy healthy children, she dreams of doing something a little bit creative like writing or becoming a photographer. Or at least organizing her photos soon.