RETHINK YOUR WARM UP
You come in, you hop on a rower, or maybe you absentmindedly pedal an Airdyne while scrolling Instagram. Then you walk over, grab a PVC pipe and do some borderline terrible dislocates, a few half range of motion squats, and then it's time to get to work, right? Does this sound familiar?
You might be tempted to skip the warm up when you work out or do what probably sounds familiar above π. After all, you only have so much time to exercise—“Let’s just get on with it already! I’m in a hurry!”
Right?
EHHH!! WRONG!
Warming up is a critical component of your fitness routine, and skipping it could have unpleasant and even dangerous results—such as muscle strain, muscle injury and pain.
Oh yeah, and a proper warm-up will actually IMPROVE your workout performance!
Our warm up is known as
R - range of motion
A - activation
M - movement
P - preparation
There's a lot more to warming up than just arbitrarily moving around. Instead of wasting 10-15 minutes of your sessions every day, you could start using this valuable time to build your work capacity and increase your technical proficiency and coordination—this is especially important for beginners.
Here are some basic examples of some warm-up variations from my buddy Michael Hulcher, Expert Coach and brother out at our GYM JONES family in Salt Lake City, Utah that you can use if you train yourself or others and have found yourself sticking to the same 1-2 basic (and boring) upper or lower body warm-ups.
Warm Up 1
Three rounds, not for time, at around 50-60% intensity.
• 400m run
• 60m bear crawl
• 3 burpee pull-ups
• 60m farmer's carry
Warm Up 2
Two rounds, not for time, at around 50-60% intensity with 30 seconds of rest between rounds.
• 150m run
• 5 burpees
• 10 ski erg cals
• 5 kettlebell swings
• 10 Airdyne cals
• 5 goblet squats
Warm Up 3
Three rounds, increasing intensity each round (50%, 60%, 70%) with 1 min rest between each round
• 250m row
• 30m walking lunges
• 10 push ups
• 30m bear crawl
• 5 pull-ups
Warm Up 4
• 2000m ski erg with a 150m run every other minute on the minute (EOMOM)
Make Your Warm-Up Count
As you can see, these are full body warm-ups, done well below maximum intensity. This provides an opportunity to practice technical skills (ski, row, kettlebell swing), build some work capacity (squats, pull-ups, cardiovascular endurance), and improve coordination (bear crawls, swings, kettlebells, ski, row, running).
These warm-ups are easy to scale this down for beginners—decrease loading, increase rest times, remove or change movements, etc. This should get you breathing (but not too hard), sweaty, and prepared for the work to follow. But, it can't be so hard that it interferes with the day's workout. There's a line there, and the line gets thinner if you're not so fit. If you're very fit, then there's more room to play with warm-ups.
If you're writing your own warm-ups, this is a good place to insert skills and movements you want to work on while not under large amounts of cardiovascular duress. You can't really learn a skill while under the stress of a workout for time. You need to really focus on the skill to improve that skill. Rethink your warm up and design it so it makes you better.
Or.....
Just do the wise thing and get yourself an experienced coach such as the ones at HIT FITNESS WAREHOUSE who can put you through a Functional Movement Screening to see your imbalances and asymmetries so that the expert coach can design a proper warm-up for you.
Any wise coach will integrate exercises that you had trouble with during this functional movement screening. To learn more about where you can get your functional movement screening contact me at kevin@hitfitnesswarehouse.com or call 754-444-8348 to get you set up!
Referenced:
https://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/rethink-your-warm-up
https://breakingmuscle.com/workouts/workouts-in-a-box-anytime-anywhere-exercise-routines
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