Warm Up in Winter

by Coach Matt Russ

The great thing about winter training is that your body does not have to expend a lot of energy cooling itself. Core body temperatures stay lower when compared to training in the heat and sweat rate is reduced. The downside is that it takes longer to warm up. Starting a training session without a proper warm up in cold temperatures can lead to injury. This is a good time to get in the habit of warming up.

A proper warm up can be as easy as gradually bringing up your work out pace. For a run you may want to fast walk for 10-15 minutes before starting a slow run that proceeds to work out pace. I am not a proponent of extended stretching prior to a work out but a few minutes of dynamic callisthenic stretches are a good way to get blood flow to the joints, tendons, and ligaments.