I don’t appreciate my warmups until I’m injured. The particular sequence of drills I’ve settled on before track practices isn’t solely for preparing my body to sprint.

It prepares my mind for maximum effort. It prepares my nervous system for large range-of-motion, elastic movement.

And, apparently, it’s a painfully honest assessment of how ready I really am to go.

Sprint Warmup Sequence

I start every track practice the same way, doing each drill for 30 meters, then walking back.

• easy skip
• backward skip
• lateral skip R
• lateral skip L
• A march
• A skip
• high knees (5 sec max cadence, still walk to 30 mark)
• 5 tuck broad jumps (then walk)
• 5 1-leg jumps R + 5 1-leg jumps L (walk)
• 6 split jumps in place (walk)
• straight leg run (5 sec max cadence)
• straight leg bound, 6 steps
• bound, 6 steps
• 8-step acceleration from standing
• 8-step acceleration from 3-point start

I think of this sequence in blocks: 4 drills, 3 drills, 3 drills, 3 drills, and 2 accels.

Insights From Warmup Blocks

The first block of 4 drills tells the truth about my recovery habits. If I haven’t done my foam rolling, ankle ABCs, and hip stretches at night for a day or two, I’m stiff and crunchy throughout those skips. I can usually push through that by doing a little joint work then repeating the block before continuing on, but it’s a reminder to stay disciplined at night. I have too many old injuries to take my recovery for granted.

The second block of 3 drills is the answer to whether I should run that day at all. There are two situations. In the first, my posture is so disrupted by training and life that I can’t hit a strong Hard Z position, so I have no business trying to sprint. In the second, my Achilles tendons are so impacted by prior track work that I can’t hit it hard, meaning there’s no elastic response. In either case, doing A drills poorly means I’m going to sprint poorly and I don’t have enough training time to spend it on bad posture or power habits on the track.

The third block of 3 drills shows me what distance to accelerate over, which defines my training distance and start type for the day. If I’m jumping high and bouncing off the ground, I know I can work from a crouch or blocks and I know I can do “pure” speed work with short ground contact times. If I’m stomping flat-footed and can’t get a coordinated arm swing, I know I’m better off from a build-up start and should focus on form running, perhaps over mini-hurdles or up stairs. This is auto-regulation – I go fast when my body shows me it’s ready to go fast; I back off otherwise.

The fourth block of 3 drills is a sanity check and a hint about my accessory work for the day. If coordination is falling apart during bounds, I can’t push far with each step, or a pain emerges, I kill the session. These are meant to bulletproof my hamstrings and hips, which means their performance quality is also a direct indicator of how much intention and intensity I can bring to speed work. If these aren’t okay, I’m not okay.

And the fifth block of 2 accelerations wakes things up for timed sprints. I’ve never made it to this point still uncertain about my capacity that day.

A Case Study In (Un)Readiness

The first track practice of the middle school season, I kicked a hurdle while demonstrating a drill. I noticed immediately that something bad had happened to the top of my lead leg foot, but it wouldn’t be obvious for a few hours that I had badly bruised a tiny bone at the outside of my ankle.

The next three days of swelling, sensitivity, and stiffness told that story thoroughly. But on day 5, the day of this writing actually, I felt mobile enough (and desperate enough) to get on the track for a session. Sure, there was still stiffness, but I trusted my warmup to loosen things up.

At every step of the warmup, I felt fear. I carried doubt into every drill – would I be able to push off, land, or bounce without pain? Would this drill be the one that made it all worse?

1-leg jumps were so asymmetric that I knew immediately I couldn’t accelerate hard today. Bounds were so uncoordinated that I could tell my running rhythm would be garbage at full effort.

But rather than bail, I took advantage of what capacity I had – I could form run on tight spacing and I could “bring the ground to me” by running up stairs. I don’t endorse tempo runs for sprinters, but I like form runs over idle rest. So I did what I could today and moved on.

Test-Retest Is Part Of Training

What actually makes it okay is that my warmup today was a test of my readiness to train.

Even though I wasn’t, in fact, ready, my next warmup will be the retest. I won’t be looking for an amazing speed session, but I will be looking for symmetry in my 1-leg jumps and coordination in my bounds. I will be looking for a little less fear at each step of the warmup. And I’ll be looking for a little improvement in my run form, from the extra practice I got on an unplanned “light” day.

All of that together means I’m eagerly looking forward to my next warmup. I just don’t appreciate it enough until I get hurt.

Look at your own warmups. Does every exercise do something for you? Does every exercise point to an element of your sport skill or the training you’re doing that day in a way that tells you go/no-go?

If not, evaluate your warmup. Because your warmup should evaluate your readiness at the same time it gets you ready.