By Elizabeth Towe
So, you’ve signed up to do a relay run with a team? Sounds like a fun day of running with friends, as long as you remind each other to do a dynamic warm-up and cool-down stretch before and after each leg of the relay! It will reduce the tightness and groaning factor as you get in and out of the van throughout the race.
One of my favorite multi-joint exercises is also a great dynamic warm-up, the walking lunge with torso rotation in a single leg stance. In this multi-joint exercise you are using all of the muscles that cross the hip, knee and ankle joint, which warms a lot of muscles at once and makes this a very functional exercise for strength and stability in running and cycling, or any other activity that requires weight shift from one leg to the other.
It is perfect for a dynamic warm-up because it moves you through at least two planes of motion, sagittal and transverse (moving forward or backward and rotation), both of which are directly pertinent to running.
Exercise:
- Begin by standing on one leg, holding the opposite knee at hip level. Rotate the torso so that you bring the opposite elbow to the lifted knee.
- Bring the torso back to the center and reach both arms overhead as you step forward and lunge.
- Shift your weight onto your front leg (without letting your knee go past your toe) and come into single leg balance on that leg while simultaneously rotating the torso (and opposite elbow) toward the lifted knee.
- Repeat this motion, alternating legs, 10-15 times. Inhale as you lunge forward and reach overhead to open the front of the body; exhale as you rotate.
# # #
Elizabeth Towe is a runner and a cyclist and the owner of Balanced Movement Studio in Carrboro. She graduated from East Carolina with a degree in exercise and sports science and has been personal training for over 20 years. Her ultimate goal for all of her clients is to help them realize and achieve the optimal quality in their life – and to remember to have fun doing it.
