I know what you’re thinking when I bring up the warm up- who needs it. Does a lion stretch before it chases down a gazelle? Of course not. Don’t get me wrong, sounds like a great case example, but a lion isn’t a human being, and has a completely different lifestyle than that of the modern day, typically sedentary human.
Now let’s think about this from an athletic perspective. Do you see pitchers throw in a game without warming up? Do basketball players play a game without a shoot-around? Then why would you perform a workout without warming up and prepping the body to go to work.
Possibly one of the things I see on a daily basis that stumps me the most in a gym is people walking in the door and going straight into their lift. Or my other favorite is I am going to hop on a treadmill and walk for 5 minutes or ride the bike without doing any true movement prep. Yes we are halfway their increasing blood flow but we need to get the body ready for the workout that we are looking to perform.
So why is the warm up important? What are the benefits of the warm up? The benefits of a good warm up are:
- Primes the nervous system
- Lowers viscous resistance in the myofascia
- Improves oxygen delivery
- Increases blood flow to working muscles
- Increase speed and force of muscle contraction
- Reduce risk of cardiac arrhythmias
- Increases joint lubrication
Along with the benefits listed above, in my own experience the warm up helps prepare the athlete or client mentally for the training session ahead of them. Just like the cologne sex panther says “60% of the time it works every time” I guarantee the warm up will give you a better workout. Personally it prepares me in two ways mentally. It gets me locked in and focused on the workout I’m about to go through and it helps make that mind muscle connection. For those of you unfamiliar with the mind muscle connection it is where you feel the muscle being used that is working.
We also have benefits in the warm up for an athlete or client from a coaching perspective. As a coach we often see common deficiencies with clientele on rotation so an easy way to work on it is to program T-spine rotation exercises or even some rotational medicine ball tosses in a CNS priming. The warm up not only can be beneficial to get loose and create the movement prep needed for the workout but it can allow you to address the things a client is weak at or deficient movements. Now one of my personal favorite warm ups that is out there is what is called the Wenning Warm up. In this warm up you pick 3 weak points in the main exercise and address them in the warm up. This style warm up would have 3 exercises addressing “the things you suck at” for that lift for 4 rounds of 25 reps and must be completed under 12 minutes. For example if our main lift is a squat that day and we have weak hamstrings, glutes and low back we could pick a hip thrust, back extension, and a RDL. So your warm up would be 4 circuits of 25 reps of hip thrust, back extension, and RDL’s in 12 minutes or under. With the Wenning warm up it would consistently rotate between 8 different warm ups with different exercise for the main exercise you are doing. This is just one of the great warm up possibilities out there.
Now let’s get down to business what makes a warm up a proper warm up. A warm up will be different for each and every person based off their fitness needs and the workout they are prepping for. Walking on a treadmill for 5-10 minutes might sound like a great way to get your muscle moving, but it isn’t going to prep you for a lift if you’re hitting the weights. A good workout needs to RAMP up the body for the work you are going to do. It should:
- Raise the body temperature, heart rate, respiration rate, blood flow, and joint viscosity
- Activate the muscles that are going to be used
- Mobilize the ranges you plan on working in
- Potentiate the activity you are going to perform
Knowing what we know, how do we check all these boxes for our warm up? Thinking back to our treadmill warmup- yes, it achieves the R in RAMP, but we have to ensure that what we are doing all addresses the other parts of RAMP. So we have to make sure we are raising our body temp and heart rate as we get moving in our prep work. We can check both boxes of A and M with movements that are going to be a part of the workout. For example, we are going to want to mobilize the ankles and hips before we get started, which can be achieved via some bodyweight reverse lunges and side lunges.
Finally we want to potentiate the movement we are going to do. If we are going to do squats we are going to want to do the movement with lighter or no weight to get in the ranges that we would be working in. By ensuring our warmup checks all 4 boxes of RAMP, we can decrease our chances of getting injured and increase our functionality in activities of daily life.
Example warm ups:
| Upper body | ||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
| Cat/Cow | 1 | 6 |
| Thread the needle | 1 | 6 |
| Bird dog | 1 | 6 |
| Y’s | 1 | 6 |
| T’s | 1 | 6 |
| Walkout to pushup | 1 | 6 |
| Lower body | ||
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
| Cat/Cow | 1 | 6 |
| Deadbug | 1 | 6 per side |
| Ankle rocks | 1 | 6 per side |
| Reverse Lunge | 1 | 6 per side |
| Side lunge | 1 | 6 per side |
| RDL reach | 1 | 6 |
| Spiderman lunge with worlds Greatest stretch | 1 | 6 per side |