How To Stretch For Marathon Training Video

Stretching before training for running a marathon is very important because injuries can easily happen. Here are some stretching tips for runners that will help ensure a healthy and safe run.

Take Action

12-minute warm up run
Active stretching
Yoga after workouts to stretch
Never force yoga pose

About this Author

Dave has been an endurance athlete for over twenty years and is a swimmer , runner and cyclist that has finished the Iron Man triathlon. Additionally he has represented the US at the world championship. He coaches in Newport and has seen his team win the district title. He has a great passion for racing, training and coaching.

DAVE CAMPBELL: Hi, my name is Dave Campbell. I want to talk to you a little bit today about stretching for a marathon. After--I always do about 12 minutes of easy jogging to get your capillaries open, to warm up. And then before your hard workouts or before your endurance workouts, you can do some active stretching where you emphasize opening up the hip, some simple leg swings. Ten per leg is a good number, trying to get a little bit more out of each one. You can rotate one foot at 90 degrees to the other foot; opening the hip, 90-degree play in the other direction; some forward lunges, emphasizing knee lift. Again, try to get a little bit more height out of each one. And another simple drill is pawing to emphasize striking on the forward part of the foot and get that forward extension. Those are great active stretches for before the workout. After the workout, a real simple yoga routine we call the sun salutation where you start with just a simple tall stretch. Stretching afterwards can be really, really helpful for your recovery for the next day. Then dangle to stretch the hamstrings and it's real active so that you don't get that cold static stretching effect. Alligator pose, cobra, downward dog, focusing on lifting the hips, gently pushing back with the hands, bringing the heels down. It stretches the calf. This is called the pigeon pose. It's very effective at stretching the hip. Never force a pose, always just gradually let your body relax. As you do more and more of these, you'll be able to get more out of them. Then you can go from that to a lower back stretch. So you can really quickly and simply probably a 5-minute stretching routine. And I'm going through them quickly so you can see them all. You should hold them each for about 15 to 20 seconds. Then you can move into a hip stretch. You can get all the major muscle groups. Back to a downward dog, go through pigeon pose and lower-back stretch with the other side. In between these, you can do an alligator and a cobra to stretch the lower back. And then real quickly when you're done with those, you can do a groin stretch then a double quad. Again, allow 15 to 20 seconds on each one. Come out of them. Do some simple yoga poses, looking up, and then slowly roll up the spine back into a tall stretch. And hopefully, you're feeling a lot better and you're ready to train hard again the next day.

How to Stretch for Marathon Training Video

Take Action

About this Author

Member Comments