I’ve been helping coach my daughter’s track team and have noticed something. Our athletes are beating a lot of the other runners. Sometimes, it is because our athletes are genuinely faster. Other times it is something entirely different. One of the big reasons our girls are winning is this:

Their opponents aren’t warming up properly before their events.

There are rare cases where an athlete can just step on a track and beat an opponent. Most athletes though aren’t this rare case, but they are fast. But, if these athletes don’t warmup properly they end up losing a race that on paper they should have easily won.

First example: Two athletes are anchoring a 4×200 relay. Athlete A has the fastest time in the league in the 200 by almost 3 seconds over Athlete B. It is cold and rainy and Athlete B did a proper warmup. Athlete A warmed up, but that was 45 minutes ago at the start of the meet.

The baton is given to both athletes about the same time, but Athlete B wins the race and her split is about a second faster than Athlete A.

Second example: Athlete A and Athlete B are running a 50M dash and also competing in the 200M dash which is the very next event. Athlete A is the league leader in both events. In the 50M dash, Athlete A barely beats Athlete B, winning by .25 of a second. Athlete A hadn’t warmed up prior to the 50M.

Now that she has run the 50M, her body has warmed up and when she runs the 200M some 15-20 minutes later, she wins by over 2 seconds against athlete B. Potentially, if you take her victory in the 50M (.25) and multiply it by 4 that is 1 second. That could have been the difference if the 200M had been her first race. Or maybe it could have been a loss.

Warming up is HUGE not just in track, but in all sports. Something I get from my athletes is, “I just came from practice do I have to do the warmup?”

My usual response is “YES”, but let’s examine WHY.

First off, it could be winter time and cold outside. You are bundled up and then sitting in a car not moving for X amount of minutes to get to my facility. You’re telling me you can stay warmed up like that?

Secondly, is your rest or that car trip over longer than 15 minutes? Then you need to re-warm your body up. That is too long for your body to go without activity to start firing efficiently the same way it was. How bench players do it in sports, I have no clue. Sprinters will rest between 10-15 minutes inbetween reps sometimes, but never longer than 15 minutes.

What should your warmup consist of?

  • First, do something that will get your blood flowing. A light jog, jump rope, jumping jacks, etc. Do this for anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes.
  • Now that the blood is flowing, you want to do a dynamic warmup – high knees, butt kicks, walking toe touches, inchworms, duckwalks, power skips, for example.
  • Static stretching can be done now if you are extremely tight.
  • Once you have done the above, you want to progress into your sport specific warm-up. That means, if you are a basketball player, doing your layup line and series of dribbles and shots. A track runner, should start doing some buildups or fartlek runs. A tennis player starts his/her serves and series of forehand/backhand shots.

Now, you should be warmed up. Your warmup is going to take you between 10 – 20 minutes. Don’t sell this short. If you need to re-warm up after starting your activity (halftime of a game or a long wait in between events), then you can minimize your warmup, but don’t neglect it.

The point of the warmup is to get your body physically ready to perform in that day’s sport. If done right, your body temperature is rising, you have broken a light sweat, and your muscles are loose and ready to go.

To sum up, don’t skip the warmup. As mentioned earlier, just because you warmed up at the beginning of a game or event, doesn’t mean you don’t need to warmup anymore after that. If you’ve been lying around for awhile or sitting on the bench, then your earlier warmup is moot. Warm yourself back up and play well.

Now I’ve let the secret out of the bag. Let’s see if the other track teams in our league will take note. If they don’t, well that is just fine with me and my athletes.