Tayte Pollmann’s Tuesday Trail Tips series of articles are supported by American Trail Running Association corporate member Nike Trail Running. Tayte is currently running over the mountains and through the woods somewhere in Utah. Photos & video by Tayte Pollmann.
Since I’ve started running, I’ve not had much of a prerun routine. I enjoy getting up out of bed and hitting the trails. Many nights I’ll go to bed in my running clothes and in morning I’ll wake up, put shoes on and go run. No check for bed head.
But I’m beginning to appreciate the significance of a prerun routine for injury prevention. Many long-lasting elite runners, such as Meb Keflezighi, advocate for some kind of pre-run exercises. The past several weeks, I’ve been inspired by these long-lasting runners to create a set of pre-run exercises that can help me improve some of the lingering injuries or imbalances I’ve come to know in my own body. For me, that means improving my ankle mobile and dorsiflexion, fixing my duck walk, and aligning my pelvis for better running economy, to name a few. I’ve researched some exercises I can do before my runs to promote these goals and hopefully keep me running more efficiently and more injury free. I’ve included a short video so you can see what exercises I’ve found work for me.
I advise taking a closer look at your own running imbalances or commonly tweaked areas of your body. Doing some exercises to target your specific imbalances or injuries before your run will help to ensure that while you run, your body is staying in correct alignment and helping you stay injury free.
