Warm-up with dynamic stretches

Research has shown that adequate time to warm-up your body leads to improved performance, and evidence also suggests that it may decrease the risk of injury. Prior to exercise, dynamic stretching as a warm-up (as opposed to passive stretching) has been shown to facilitate performance, as you are introducing your body to the motions of the exercise.

Specifically, dynamic stretching implements active movements of your muscles in a full range. In order to accustom your body to the motions involved in running, try some of these dynamic stretches before you hit the road:

• leg swings
  • lateral (for abductor and adductors)
  • forward (for hamstring and hip flexor)
• glute activation
  • lateral lunge
  • reverse lunge and twist
• controlled articular rotations (CARs)
• bodyweight exercises
  • glute kicks
  • A-skips
  • jumping jacks

Spending 5-10 minutes on a circuit of dynamic stretches will pay-off, both in your current run as well as your recovery.

Do a running workout

It’s difficult to stay motivated or improve your running without a plan. Although you don’t need to follow a strict training plan, just switching up the type of run you’re going on may result in substantial improvement.

Start with a base run, which is a moderate-length run at a natural pace that feels comfortable for you. When people “go for a run”, usually they are just doing a base run. Keep a moderate tempo throughout and don’t start too fast; if you do these frequently enough, can be foundational for your running.

Then, surprise your body with various speeds. Intervals are a great way challenge yourself by alternating short bursts of intense efforts and recovery periods. For the fast intervals, try to maintain a constant speed. For example, alternate 60 seconds of fast running at your 1K pace and 60 seconds of recovery running at a slow job (but try not to walk).

To be even more surprised, try fartleks (Swedish for “speed play”), which sound just as funny as they are fun to run. Fartleks are intervals except the distance and duration are constantly changing. You never know how long or how short the fast interval is, so your body has to constantly adapt to different speeds.

Finally, hill runs are a great mix of both cardio and strength training. Running on an incline increases resistance, thus building muscle strength. If you’re limited by the number of hills, a simple hill run workout is to scale the hill and timing your laps. You can also map out a running route that incorporate different incline grades to sprint up.

Try these runs out! A great place to start is Nike Run Club, an app with a large repertoire of workouts and customizable training plans.

Optimizing strength training and running

You may already be familiar with delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), in which the targeted muscles get really sore 24-72 hours after a workout. Personally, after a heavy weightlifting day, I usually have very little strength and a limited range of motion because of DOMs. Torturing my sore muscles further by going on a long run is not ideal, but light exercise can be an effective treatment for DOMS.

So, you just hit a heavy weightlifting day - when is the most optimal time to run?

• 1 day after strength day: low-to-moderate intensity cardio (think slow jog, or walk). You won’t be gaining anything if you do intensive training days and running days back to back - if anything, you’re more prone to injury).
• 2 days after strength day: moderate-to-high intensity (think hill runs, intervals, speed runs). It may take 24 hours or more to recover from DOMS after leg day. The more recovery time you give your lower body, the more effective your cardio and strength training will be.

If you have strength training and running scheduled for one day, aim for the run to be at a low-to-moderate intensity. To build muscle, run first as part of your warm-up after dynamic stretching, but don’t run for an extended distance. To build endurance, do a short run after your workout as a finisher. There’s no “right” order, as it depends on your training goal (and the final say is still out on this one).

As a rule of thumb, the higher the intensity of strength and resistance training, the more recovery is needed before high intensity running.