Do your hardest exercises all the time get off to a nasty begin?
Once I first began working, the primary repeat of each exercise—and the primary half mile of each race—felt like a horrible shock to my system.
“There’s no manner I can maintain this up for 3 miles,” I’d assume to myself at first of a race. After a couple of minutes, I’d be feeling higher, however I all the time thought it was unusual that I felt so unhealthy originally of exercises and races.
It wasn’t till a lot later that I realized there’s a scientific rationalization for why I all the time felt sluggish originally of a tough effort—and even higher, there’s a scientific technique to keep away from that sensation and enhance your efficiency.
What’s the trick? It’s referred to as a priming bout.
On this article, we’re going to dig deep into the science on…
- What’s a priming bout
- The analysis on how and why it improves efficiency
- The how and when to include it into your coaching and racing
What’s a priming bout, and why does it assist enhance efficiency?
The fundamentals of doing a priming bout are easy: after doing a regular warmup, you run for 4 to 6 minutes, at about 8k–10k effort, aiming to complete this priming bout round 10–20 minutes earlier than beginning your precise exercise or race.
To know why priming train works, although, we have to again up a bit and have a look at what occurs inside your physique once you begin working.
First, let’s take the instance of a simple run.
Within the first two to a few minutes, your coronary heart charge and oxygen consumption rise sharply, then plateau.
If you happen to’re working at a fair tempo (and on a day with cool temperatures), each of those metrics will stay unchanged, even ten or 20 minutes into your run.
The story is just a little totally different at greater intensities.
While you begin a 5k, for instance, your coronary heart charge and oxygen consumption rise rapidly for the primary two or three minutes of the race, then nearly plateau—however as a substitute of flattening out fully, each metrics proceed to float upward extra regularly.
By ten or quarter-hour into the race, they’ve drifted all the way in which as much as their most values: your coronary heart charge is at your HRmax, and your oxygen consumption is at VO2max.
This sluggish rise in oxygen consumption (which drives the guts charge enhance) known as the sluggish element of oxygen kinetics, and it’s the primary issue behind why priming bouts work [1].
Priming works as a result of it hurries up this sluggish element of oxygen consumption.
In different phrases, your oxygen consumption rises quicker, and sooner, throughout a tough effort if you happen to’ve carried out a priming bout.
As a result of your tissues are getting extra oxygen earlier into your exercise or race, you don’t have to dig into your anaerobic vitality reserves when you wait on your oxygen consumption to “catch up.”
Necessities for an efficient priming bout
Since priming depends on accelerating your physique’s sluggish element of oxygen kinetics, a priming bout wants to really goal this mechanism to be efficient.
The science behind priming places a couple of necessities on the construction of an efficient priming bout.
First, priming must be at a metabolically unsustainable depth: straightforward to average working gained’t do the trick.
In follow, this implies it’s best to run at about 8k to 10k effort on your priming bout.
Second, your priming bout must be lengthy sufficient to permit the sluggish element of oxygen kinetics to develop.
So, the bout ought to ideally final 4 to 6 minutes—any much less and your physique gained’t have sufficient time to completely ramp up the sluggish element (although shorter priming bouts do nonetheless have some profit).
Third, you want sufficient time between your priming bout and the beginning of your exercise or race to get better.
Keep in mind, you’re burning via anaerobic vitality through the priming bout, so that you need to regenerate that vitality earlier than the primary occasion!
The optimum construction of a priming bout: 4-6 minutes, ending 10-20 minutes earlier than your race
An in depth examine from the College of Exeter examined a number of mixtures of priming bout depth and restoration in a bunch of cyclists [2].
The outcomes confirmed simply what we’d anticipate: there’s a trade-off the place extra intense priming bouts speed up oxygen uptake extra sharply, however at the price of consuming into your anaerobic vitality reserves.
Essentially the most excessive protocol (6 minutes of laborious train, a 3 minute relaxation, then a high-intensity experience to exhaustion) diminished endurance in comparison with no priming train in any respect.
Nevertheless, the best protocols—which concerned 9 or 20 minutes of relaxation between the priming bout and the experience to exhaustion—led to a 20% enchancment in time to exhaustion.
Although this examine and far of the opposite foundational analysis on priming used biking, the identical advantages have been present in working, even with shorter bouts of priming earlier than an 800m time trial [3].
When must you keep away from priming train?
The mechanisms behind priming additionally counsel there are some instances the place it doesn’t make sense to make use of—or at the very least the place the advantages can be smaller.
Much less-fit runners could not profit as a lot from priming, for 2 causes.
First, they’re much less in a position to get better from the preliminary hit to their anaerobic vitality reserves. Second, due to their decrease VO2max, the magnitude of the profit from accelerating oxygen kinetics simply isn’t as giant.
Priming can also be much less helpful for longer races just like the half marathon or the marathon (and exercises at MP or HMP) [4].
In these occasions, oxygen consumption reaches a plateau finally, and the hit to your anaerobic vitality shops within the interim earlier than that plateau isn’t very large, neither is it a significant factor within the improvement of fatigue.
Lastly, if you happen to’re injury-prone or attempting to maintain your mileage low, tacking on a full priming bout may not be a good suggestion due to the added mechanical stress in your physique.
Quicker working is extra damaging to bone and tendons per mile of working [5], so that you need to watch out with including further depth—and 4 to 6 minutes at a tough effort might be fairly a bit, particularly on prime of an already-challenging exercise or race.
Recap
Priming is a good addition to your warm-up earlier than a race or high-intensity exercise.
An efficient priming bout consists of 4–6 minutes of working at 8k to 10k effort. It’s best to do that priming bout after your typical warm-up run and strides, however end it 10–20 minutes earlier than the beginning of your race.
In exercises, this lengthy delay is usually a bit burdensome, so it’s possible you’ll need to lower down on the size of the priming bout (and the restoration afterwards), even when this saps a number of the advantages. Even 200 meters of priming train exhibits some profit in runners [3].
Priming is much less helpful for longer races or exercises—something slower than threshold tempo or thereabouts tends to see little profit from priming.
So, save this warm-up method for shorter races and extra intense exercises.
