Unlike stretching, a dynamic warm-up routine prior to exercise is essential to properly warming up for a marathon training run (or any activity) AND helps prevent run training injuries.  A dynamic warm-up routine will not only increases blood flow throughout the body and activates your nervous system, but it also will best prepares your muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joints prior to your training or event.

This blog post highlights five dynamic warm-up exercises to do before marathon training runs–or any other sports and physical fitness activities.  These are exercises that can be done anywhere and do not require special equipment.  Furthermore, they engage your whole body and not just one part of it.

While there are plenty of other dynamic warm-up exercises, by doing 1-2 sets of each of these will provide you with a wonderful warm-up for your marathon training run.  A good rule of thumb to follow is to do enough dynamic warm-up exercises to get you to the point of perspiration.

Jumping Jacks

• Stand with arms at your sides, feet straight and close together
• Bend knees and jump up while spreading arms and legs at the same time
• Lift arms to ears so that your hands over your head and open your feet to wider than shoulder width
• As you return from jumping up bring your arms back down to your sides and at the same time bring your feet back together
• Perform 25 basic jumping jacks

Pillar Bridge

• Support your upper body weight on your elbows & tuck chin so head is in line with body (elbows approximately shoulder width apart)
• Maintain a straight line from ears to ankle
• Feet shoulder width apart
• Hold for 30-60 seconds

Glute Bridge

• Lay on your back with knees bent
• Lift hips to create a line through knees, hips & shoulders
• Keep back flat & torso engaged throughout the movement (imagine a string pulling you up towards the sky from your waist line)
• Keep toes pulled up to your shins
• Hold for 30-60 seconds

High Knees

• Stand with feet slightly wider than shoulder width and hands at waist level
• Begin gradually running in place
• Gradually increase the height of the knees and exercise tempo
• To increase difficulty, bring knees as high as possible
• Use personal judgment on how many to do; do not over-exert yourself.

Squat Jumps

• Stand with feet slight wider than shoulder width apart
• Squat down to a comfortable depth, but not further than a 90-degree knee bend
• Jump straight upwards
• Focus on performing proper technique, not the height of jump or number of repetitions
• When you land, land with “soft knees” which will reduce the impact of landing
• Use personal judgment on how many to do; do not over-exert yourself