Training: Warm Up & Cool Down

Benefits of a Warm-Up

The role of the warm-up is to prepare your body to run at higher intensities. When you accelerate to race pace after the starting pistol sounds, the physiological and psychological demands on your body increase suddenly and dramatically.

Muscle stiffness is directly related to muscle injury and therefore the warm-up should be aimed at reducing muscle stiffness before workouts, as well as races. Performance may be improved, as an appropriate warm-up will:

  1. Increase speed of contraction and relaxation of warmed muscles,
  2. Improve economy of movement because of lowered viscous resistance within warmed muscles,
  3. Increase blood flow through active tissues as local vascular beds dilate, increasing metabolism and muscles temperatures,
  4. Facilitate oxygen utilization by warmed muscles because hemoglobin releases oxygen more readily at higher muscle temperatures, and
  5. Utilize the warm-up as a time to mentally prepare for the task at hand.

 

What About Longer Races?

Before a marathon, the need to warm up is counterbalanced by the need to conserve your carbohydrate reserves, which are a limiting factor in marathon performance. Fortunately, your warm-up only needs to prepare you to run at marathon pace, and that can be accomplished by running easily for about 5 minutes, gradually increasing your speed up to marathon pace, followed by some gentle stretching. Finish by performing 1 to 3 sprints at race pace.

The Cool-Down

Before starting your cool-down, you should have a drink containing carbohydrates. Hard running and carbohydrate depletion have both been shown to depress your immune system. By taking in a carbohydrate drink soon after your workout or race, you will maintain your blood sugar level and may help reduce this temporary immune system suppression.

Your cool-down should start with easy running for 10 to 20 minute (if you're too tired to run, then walk for an equivalent amount of time). The optimal clearance of lactate, adrenaline, etc. occurs if you start your cool-down run at 60 to 70% of your maximum heart rate and slow down to a slow jog or walk for the last 5 minutes.

Benefits of A Cool-Down

  1. When you run, the contraction of your muscles pumps blood back up to your heart, which prevents blood pooling in your legs. When you finish a race or a hard workout and just stand around, blood pools in your legs so less blood is able to return to your heart. This can lead to reduced blood pressure and dizziness. Cooling down by running slowly or walking activates the "muscle pump" to keep blood circulating back to your heart.

  2. An important role of the cool-down is to remove the lactate that has accumulated in your muscles and blood. Let's say that at the end of a workout your blood lactate increased to 11 mmol. After 20 minutes of cooling down by easy running, your blood lactate would likely be back down to about 3 mmol, whereas if he just sat around for 20 minutes his blood lactate would still be about 7 mmol. Blood lactate decreases much more quickly when you do a cool-down run because blood flow is maintained at a higher level, which increases both movement of lactate out of your muscles and the rate at which your muscles utilize lactate.

  3. Adrenaline and noradrenaline are hormones released by your adrenal glands that increase the rate and force at which your heart contracts, increase blood pressure, increase your rate and depth of breathing, increase the rate at which your muscles break down glycogen, etc. Adrenaline and noradrenaline levels in your blood increase rapidly when you run at greater than 85% of your maximum heart rate. The harder you run, the more of these hormones that gets dumped into your bloodstream. Adrenaline levels typically decrease to resting levels in less than an hour, but noradrenaline levels can take several hours to return to resting levels. An active cool-down helps get these hormones out of your system, which helps your body recover more quickly.