Tag: warmup

  • Quick and Simple Full Body Warm Up

    Time to stop considering a jog on a treadmill as a warm up. It just doesn’t cut it, no matter how good it might look:

    1229f25b16d70998_brad-pitt.xxxlarge source focus feature Source: Focus Features

    Full disclosure: I stole the base idea of this from Brad Kaczmarski and then utilized some hacks introduced by Mike Boyle before adding couple of my favorite reset exercises from Original Strength and DNS to cap it off. This is the most efficient way of warming up and prepping the whole body for training session that I’ve come across so far. Best part is that it is done with absolute minimum equipment, all you need is a resistance band.

    Here’s the rundown:
    Start with a foam rolling by spending 30-60 seconds on any knots that you might have. If you are pressed for time just do thoracic extensions on roller and roll adductors, lats, quads.

    1. Supine Leg Press
    3 repetitions of 5 second exhales each leg alternating, hold the bottom position. Opposite knee bent and hip flexed to a minimum of 90 degrees.
    Make the exercise harder by using a band on your feet for resistance. Make it easier by holding the bent leg with your hands.

    2. Cook Hip lift
    3×5 seconds exhales each leg, hold the top position. Press through the heel and have the opposite knee bent and hip flexed to a minimum of 90 degrees. Avoid forcefully jerking your butt off the ground.
    Make it easier by holding the bent leg with your hands.

    3. Supine Shoulder Flexion
    3×5 second exhales with feet flat on the ground reach arms overhead and keep lower back flat on the ground.
    Note: if you are unable to get arms overhead in this position without losing the ground contact with you lower back it’s worth spending some extra time on breathing drills and also releasing lats and upper back with the foam roller. To be safe avoid any overhead work until you can get the full range (arms overhead) with this exercise.

    4. Quadruped Back Rock
    3×10 reps rocking your butt to your heels.

    5. Crawl. Baby/leopard/spider-man, depending on your level. When in doubt do baby crawl such as what I do in the video.
    20 steps forward and back

    6. Lateral Band Walk
    10 steps to both directions. Hinge your hips back and avoid swinging your body from side to side. Think of it as Moonwalk (LINK) sideways, if I would only see you upper body it would look like you are gliding.

    7. Sphinx Pose
    3×5 seconds exhale and hold at the top. Remember to look straight ahead and feel the spot between and below your shoulder blades.
    Make it harder by performing alternating arm slides or reaches to the side.

    *Depending on a person’s results in the Functional Movement Screen, I might add a specific corrective in the beginning or at the end..

    What ya think? Is it good or absolute crap? What do you do as a warm up?

  • How To Warm Up And Be Less Like Britney

    Yes, warming up can seem like an annoyance at times. Especially when you’re in a hurry and just want to get into it.

    But skipping the warm up, or worse, doing it like a sloth means leaving some of the potential results hanging uncollected on the hooks of missed opportunities.

    The purpose of a warm up

    Get more out of the workout

    Cold muscles don’t contract as well as warm ones do. By warming up you increase the blood flow into the muscles making them, and I risk sounding like a car mechanic working on an adult movie set, lubricated and ready to contract.

    More oxygen in the muscles allows them to contract and relax quicker. You’ll perform better and milk more benefits from your workout.

    Possibly lower the risk of injuries

    Although science isn’t conclusive on this, it would make sense that injuries are more likely to happen with cold muscles. Purely based on the slowness of contraction and relaxation when compared with warm muscles.

    Let’s focus on the fact that training injuries happen when the force applied exceeds the tissue tolerance. It would make sense then that as warm muscles contract better, they are more likely to counteract the force demands.

    Excite the nervous system

    Warming up the muscles and joints is one thing. “Warming up” the nervous system is another. Again leading to a better muscle contraction.

    Get in the right headspace

    This is the brain content of a typical adult on any given day:

    “I am soooooooo over Simon sitting next to me at work. What’s his deal anyway?!? Does he really need that much cologne? Smells like he got it from the discount bucket in Target.”
    “Did little Timmy remember to take his lunch box to school? Gosh, I hope he eats his peeled apple slices.”
    “We really need to find a solution to get our company through this merger. Maybe I should call Melinda…”
    “What should I make for dinner?”
    “How good are these pants!”
    “I wonder if my wife wants more woolly socks for her birthday?”
    “Ok, what was I doing again…?”

    Ideally a thorough warm up will allow you to bring your focus to this:

    “Fuck Simon. Time to train.”

    How to warm up

    The purpose is to start easy and gradually ramp up so you’re ready to get after it when it counts. I like to think of the warm up as a gradual progress of reducing ground contact. Start on the ground, progress to standing and finish with locomotion before adding power and speed.

    It could be as simple as this:

    1. 9090 breathing
    2. Kneeling heel rock
    3. Snoop Dog steps into rotation
    4. Squat to stand
    5. Lateral squat
    6. Single leg hip swing
    7. Carry variation

    This could also be much longer. A warm up for someone in their 60s might take 25 minutes and include a variety of movement work. For someone deconditioned returning to fitness the whole workout might look like a warm up.

    Then comes the power and core work.

    I really see this part of the program still part of the ramping up. We are now taking movements and making them more explosive. One for the upper body, one for the lower body, plus a core exercise thrown in the mix.

    8. Kettlebell swing
    9. Wall power push up
    10. Side plank to rotation

    Again, adjust these to what’s right for you and your setting. Med ball slams and throws are brilliant choices when training in a gym. Not so much when training on the third floor of an apartment block at 4am.

    Technically your first one or two sets of each exercise in the strength training session are still part of the warm up.

    You’re practising the movements of the training. Start with a lighter weight and build up to a one or two work sets where you really push it.

    You can’t really tell where the warm up finished and the training started

    The whole warm up should feel like you seamlessly transition from warm up to training. In terms of gradually ramping up from awful to awesome, think transitioning from Britney to Batman.