Why spend a lot of time Designing a good warm up? Yes, I realize it is not very fun. It is probably about as sexy as doing laundry and taxes for some. It is not nearly as glamorous as squat progressions, acceleration training, a density circuit or getting someone to do a full squat snatch. Everything in the program development has its place, and a warmup is just another segment that should be given a ton of attention. I feel it should be even given more attention than the weights. I feel strongly that weightlifting and other forms of progressive strength training are second in the sports performance word. I feel the acquisition of movement skill, proper kinetic linking, and injury reduction are far more important for sport. If you can squat 500lbs but get hurt landing from a grabbing a basketball off the board then you are not useful to your team. So what does make a good warmup?
A good warmup serves 3 big purposes. First it serves a physiological purpose, 2nd a performance enhancement purpose , and finally 3rd an injury reduction purpose. I say reduction because it is a weaker word. If I could PREVENT all injuries, I would be making a lot more money than I do now. The physiological portion of the warmup is the bread and butter of the entire process. A warmup increases core body temperature, increases blood circulation to muscles, increase elastic and contractile muscle action, stimulate the nervous system, and increase joint mobility. As the bodies core temperature increases, the viscosity of muscle, tendons and ligaments increases. An increase temperature in muscle also allows it to contract with more force and in less time. BIG DEAL! It is a HUGE deal my dear readers! The change in muscular viscosity is going to facilitate greater ranges of motion. This is going to optimize movement mechanics and increase force production to create better movement. All of this good stuff is going to help create an optimal environment for the movement training that is going to be just ahead, and finally the strength training that will supplement and bring the entire workout full circle.
The first thing on the list of designing a warmup is general thermogenic work. 5mins of an easy jog, jumping jacks, jumping rope, even basic ladder drills. As long as it creates a slight perspiration, the body is ready to progress to the next phase. This next phase should be muscle activation. This is a revision of my old concept of warming up(which was activation at end) , but I picked it up will interning at API. The trunk muscles and the glute muscles should be “turned on” or the nomenclature is activated. The reason this is so important is your body is a very complex smart computer system, and sometimes it just forgets how to innervate and use muscles in a non compensatory fashion. It really just needs to be reminded. So doing a lot of glute bridge, monster walks, planks, side blanks, will sort of jar the memory of your CNS and get you to use those muscles. The third phase is going to be general mobility and some rudimentary strength. This is going to prepare the body for the more dynamic movement coming up, as well as work on asymmetry issues that are sure to arise from playing sport. A few examples in this category would be squats, lateral squat, crossover squat, hip circles. Anything that will start to globally mobilize a joint and turn on a lot of muscles and helping to increase core body temperature further. After this section I would start to put in basic movement skills. Anything that will help to pattern a new movement pattern is great. I like skips, Askips, linear skips, crossovers, cariocas. All of these movements can and should evolve into more complex movement as the warmup and your entire program progesses.. An example of more advance movement prep skills would be double A skips, Bskips, Fast leg alternates, skip and scoops, scoop and pivot, lunge scoop and pivot etc etc. Just adding more layers as the athlete advances. Starting simple to complex is the best method. The brain will also become cognitively active from the novelty of these new more advance movements. This will help stimulate a lot more nueral synapses and in general make a better athlete. Finally I like to do neural activation. Which would be a series of fast feet, 2 inch runs, anything to get the muscles firing at top speed. This would normally top of the Warmup, the athlete will have gotten some ESD ( energy system work) and the athletes CNS is firing on all cylinders. This will help to create a good environment to start with your plyometric and speed program and then finish up in the weight room.
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