When warm ups leave you cold
If you are like most of the runners I speak to, you’ll only do a warm up selectively – usually before a race. The rest of the time you just get out and run. Now, I’m not here to pass judgement, and in fact there is very little hard evidence that supports the standard type of warm up most of us would do in terms of reducing your injury risk or improving your performance. The key is personalised neural primers.
That’s not to say your standard warm up is not doing anything at all – you’ll find some runners swear by a warm up where others say it does nothing for them. Interestingly, part of the reason for this polarity in results is the effect of prediction. Your brain gets good at what you do most, and starts to expect it in certain contexts. So, if you’ve always done a warm up and then you suddenly stop, your brain may see that as a threat and is wondering why you’re not doing it. As a result, you don’t get to feel as good as normal and may be more tense, not quite feel balanced or just a little off. The same goes for those runners who don’t normally do a warm up: they suddenly do a warm up and their brain is going “what’s going on – this is strange”.
In both cases, there will be runners who benefit from not doing a warm up who used to do one, and runners who’ll benefit from doing a warm up when they never used to do them – such is the uniqueness of your nervous system. Either way though, doing something before you run can be thought of as a neural primer.
As the name suggests, a neural primer is getting you ready for what’s coming next. To take full advantage of the power of neural primers, it’s best to design them purposefully. So while any old warm up could possibly help to some extent, if it’s not designed specifically for your nervous system and for the aims of the race or session you are about to do, it could set you back before you’ve even started. How could that be the case?
The problem with ‘generic’
We live in a world of personalisation, from tailored social media feeds to glucose monitor-based diets and of course, personalised feedback and recommendations from your favourite running watch and apps.
It’s widely recognised that personalised services are more effective than their generic counterparts, if the data used and the algorithms are accurate of course. However, when it comes to warming up and preparing for a running session or race, the closest most of us get to a personalised warm up is making it run-specific rather than for a different sport. But is settling for a generic warm up setting you back?
Generic is easy; much easier than tailoring services and advice for an individual. However, there is a trade-off in that the generic solutions simply won’t be as effective for 30% to 50% of people. This is not a scientific figure I admit, but it’s a rough split based on all my clients over the years and from discussions and observations from and with other professionals in this space.
You have most likely experienced this yourself as well. In a group fitness class there are some people who’ll love it and do really well and there will be others who just don’t get on with it at all. How about that mobility course you bought online – how did that work out for you? Maybe you’ve done some Yoga and have tried several different types of Yoga before you found one you got benefit from.
When it comes to warm ups and neural primers, personalisation is the way to go if you want to enjoy your running more, reduce pain and improve performance. But why?
Your uniqueness
Just like your fingerprints, your nervous system is unique to you. In fact, it’s even more unique than finger prints because even identical twins with identical DNA will have different nervous systems because they’ve had different variations in their experiences throughout their life, no matter how small those variations may have been.
You see, your nervous system is being shaped and moulded in every moment of every day. Every experience you have at any given moment in time results in changes in how your brain is wired. Sometimes these are very small changes and sometimes they can be large changes – but change is guaranteed and is a continuous process. This is what creates the uniqueness of your nervous system: it has been shaped and moulded like no other nervous system.
This uniqueness is what you can target to improve your performance, reduce your pain and increase your enjoyment of running.
There are, of course, some baseline similarities between your nervous system and everyone else’s. There are some generic exercises and drills that most people seem to benefit from, and there is a general process by which you can improve your nervous system’s performance. It’s a bit like lifting weights will make most people stronger and achieve bigger muscles (if that’s their goal), but if you really want to perform then you need to tailor those muscle-building exercises for you.
And just like tailoring what you do to improve your running is important, tailoring what you don’t do is just as important – perhaps more so. And this is often why generic solutions just don’t work for many of us.
Performance, Neutral, Rehab
Whenever I design a session or exercise stack for someone, whether it’s to help them get out of pain, improve their performance or to enhance their enjoyment of sport and life, I always look to categorise the exercises for them. The categories I use are:
| Category | Description |
Performance | Improves one or more of the following:Range of movementSpeedQuality of movementReduction in pain |
Neutral | May not improve on the points above, but is useful for helping to keep the brain-body maps clear and up to date. |
Rehab | Makes one or more of the points worse:Range of movementSpeedQuality of movementIncrease in pain |
The only way I can help categorise the drills and exercises for you is to assess them with your nervous system. A performance drill for someone else may be a rehab drill for you. For example, leg swings in a running warm up may make one runner feel loose and amazing. But when you do them they stiffen your hamstrings up, and you start your race with slightly wooden legs and feel terrible.
This is why a generic warm up may make you worse before you even start your session or race.
I’m sure you’ll agree that if most of the exercises you are currently including in your running warm up are either neutral or rehab exercises for you, then at best you’re not doing much to positively prime yourself, and at worst are negatively impacting how you move and run before you even cross the start line.
The same goes for pain. Well-meaning friends, family and even some professionals often give out advice and exercises that have worked for them or clients of theirs, but could make you worse! If they are not taking the time to assess and re-assess the impact of those exercises on your nervous system, then they don’t really know that those drills and exercises aren’t holding you back instead of helping you.
Designer warm ups
So the only way to improve your running and reduce your pain is to use solutions that work for you. And this is the power of a personalised warm up with neural primers designed to work with your nervous system and not against it.
In the next article we’ll get into some of the base neural primers that most people get a good return from. But of course, I’ll show you easy ways to assess and re-assess so you can be sure. Sometimes, just a small variation to an exercise or drill is all that’s needed to move it from one category to another.
An important note: Even though the rehab exercises and drills can make you worse, these are often the ones you need to do in a controlled environment and at an appropriate time if you really want to improve. But you need to make sure the timing of these matches your goals. The last thing you want to do is a rehab exercise and then go and race. But you might sandwich a rehab exercise between two performance exercises on a rest day, after a run or even a couple of hours before an easy run.
This is such an exciting area where you can make real gains in performance and enjoyment as well as pain modulation. I’ve been blown away by some of the results I’ve personally experienced and seen from my clients from well-designed routines and exercise stacks including tailored versions of base neural primers.
To find out more about pain and how individualised it really is, click here.
