After some inactivity on writing I decided to get a bit more active: And I decided that I want to start with, wait for it, the Warm Up! Why? Because in my opinion it is one of the most overlooked bits, especially in the gym. I regularly see persons going from the locker room straight to the heavy weights, doing 3 to 4 arm circles and going directly to the high intensity sets of benching. Most of them get away with no injuries, but probably they also don’t get out the most of their bench that day or their overall performance in general. I admit that sometimes it is tempting to skip the preparation for the training session because it’s more “satisfying” to move around the heavy weights. Still, a proper warm up is the first part of a training session and should treated with the same priority as the rest for multiple reasons: It gets your body ready for physical work, it gets your mind focused and it is a great place to work in prehab exercises, weaknesses or skills.

This post goes through the different steps of a warm up and guides me (and maybe you as well) to plan a proper, time effective warming up session.

 

Step 1: The “Vision”

As said, the warm up is the first part of the training, so it sets the tone for the whole. What you do here should get you ready (and better); it makes sense to ask yourself how your training will look like and reverse engineer how you want it to start. Just because the warm up is the first thing in the training doesn’t mean it has to be the first thing to be planned. There are many points that influence how it will look like: Will you have a weight training, a running session, a technical/tactical sport practice or something else? Is it an individual or a team warm up? Is there a coach leading the warm up, or are the athletes on their own? Is it the competition warmup? What is your athletes (training) age and how good are their movement skills?

The general structure of the warm up remains the same, but the way how you approach it and what you do can be different depending on what the outlines are. Knowing your sport and the athletes (or yourself if you are self-planning) is crucial to prepare a helpful warm up.

Just to give you an example: If the athletes must be able to do the warm up without a coach, having a fixed routine they do every single time helps: You can introduce the routine(s) at the beginning of the season/month/cycle and then the athletes can do the warm up on their own while you as a coach can shift the focus to other things, like skill training with another group. On the other hand, if you can lead every warm up, you basically could change things every session as you are available to instruct, observe and correct. This would give you the opportunity to tailor the warm up better to the actual training session.

 

Step 2: Structure

Over the whole warm up the intensity and specificity should gradually increase so that the athlete gets from resting state to ready state. That means you start easy and work up to the intensity and movements you want to have for your session. I often use the mnemonic CRAMP (Cardio, Range of Motion, Activation, Movement Prep) or RAMP (Raise, Activate, Mobilize, Perform) to not forget an important part of the warm up. Following the letters try to keep in mind what said in Step 1: It’s not just throwing in random exercises you saw on Youtube; think about what you want to achieve in every block and how it is affecting your training. How do you want to organize the single blocks and the connection to be effective and don’t lose to much of your “actual” time of training? Where does the prehab part fit best? Where do I need more, where less?

The different blocks each have a separate focus where the main attention lies on: The following list is simplified but might help to understand what we want to address:

  • Cardio/Raise                                   Cardiovascular prep (Heart Rate, Breathing, Blood flow)
  • Range of Motion/Mobilize               Joint function (Suppleness, Mobility)
  • Activation/Activate                           Muscle function (Firing pattern, Stability)
  • Movement Prep/Perform                Overall Function (Movements, Coordination, Specificity)

Step 3: Filling the Blocks

3.1: Cardio/Raise

It’s time to get the machine started: We want to get the body out of resting state, so we opt for an increase in heart rate and body temperature up as well as an elevated breathing.

The response of the body to work is fast, so in as little as 5 min you can get warm for the next step. The content can be either general, like jogging around a field, or more specific: You can already replicate movements of the sport like shuffling etc. with a low intensity. Especially when you stay general, you have many possibilities: Cardio machines in gym setting, running/jogging on the court/field or use implements like a jump rope or things that also include some brainwork (e.g. counting while running in a group but leave out every 5th number etc.)

If you warm up a team, you also can include little low impact games: nothing wrong about being creative here especially when you work with kids; if everyone is moving around you are accomplishing the main goal and are ready to move on. If the movements are close to your sport, even better! Once everyone is warm you are ready to go to the next step. Keep in mind that we want to keep the elevated body temperature for the rest of the training!

In breve: The Joint by Joint Approach

Before we go to the next step though, a little insert to better understand what comes up in the following two parts when the focus is on mobility and stability: The Joint by Joint approach has been popularized by Gray Cook and Michael Boyle, both well known in the training and movement world. Their theory says that the body consists of joints stacked over each other and that each joint has a different role in contributing to movement and a different risk to develop dysfunctions. In general, some joints tend to restrict movement when they shouldn’t and other tend to allow movement, when they should provide stability. If you want to know more visit Mike Boyle’s Blog.

 

To stay practical here come the “needs” of joints to better contribute to movement:

  • Mobility: Ankle, Hip, Thoracic Spine, Elbow
  • Stability: Knee, Lumbar Spine, Shoulder

 

Sure, this approach is simplistic and there is not “the” universally perfect warm up that fits it all. Athletes are different and the more mature an athlete is, the more he or she knows what and how much of it he/she needs and the more freedom they can have. Still the Joint-by-joint approach is very helpful because it addresses issues that many persons have in common.

 

3.2*) Range of Motion/Mobilize

In the Mobilization part we take care of the elements of our bodies that restrict movement and/or prepare our body in a controlled way to reach more extreme Range of Motions (ROM). Sporting action often takes place outside of the ROM we use in our daily life: If you take football as an example, you sprint to get a long pass, the amplitude of the angle at the Hip is more than double that of normal walking movement. The Range of motion is given by different factors like anatomy (the form of a specific joint), the Muscles/Tendons/Ligaments acting on that joint, sex, age and several other factors. While you can’t change things like joint structure and age some others such as stretch tolerance can be influenced. While scientifically it is still unclear what static stretching does to subsequent performance, dynamic stretching has found its place in the warm up. It combines potential benefits of stretching (e.g. ROM-work) with keeping elevated temperature as you actively move a joint trough its ROM. Dynamic stretching is an integral part of the mobilization part of a warm up. As a Coach you have a large amount of possibilities to include both, sport specific ROM as well as the “needs” of the joints according to the joint by joint approach. You can also combine different joints into one dynamic movement (e.g. “The World’s Greatest Stretch”). It doesn’t matter if you do the stretches in place (e.g. 5 Lunges per leg) or walking (e.g. 20m Lunge walk) the ROM and intensity should gradually increase each repetition or set especially if you want to reach somewhat extreme positions in practice. I also like to include the foam roller or a ball in this part to release some tight muscles that might restrict proper movement. Especially the area around the hips or shoulder can need such a treatment. Take around 5-10 minutes for the mobilization part, depending on the sport and athletes needs even a bit longer.

 

3.3*) Activate/Activation

In the Activation part we want to get the muscles firing: Mostly I use this part to work the core (Including muscles around hip and shoulder) and the legs. Many sports take part with the feet contacting the ground plus need an active core to connect the legs/ground to the upper body to apply fore on stuff (where “stuff” may be e.g. a ball). Depending on the Mobilization exercises the legs may have done some work before already and you can focus on the core more. I like to cover different functions of the core, especially anti-rotation, anti-flexion and anti-extension patterns with plank and bridge variations but also some exercises where the core has to move. At the shoulder the muscles need to be activated because other to the most other joints they are providing the stability to the joint, so also do some exercises to warm up the rotator cuff and work existing imbalances to help shoulder health and longevity: A resistance band is very helpful here! The hip region, according to the joint by joint approach is a joint that needs mobility; still I what to work some muscles in the hip region. Why? The knee axis is highly depending on what happens in the hip region (and the ankles) so to have a stable knee the hip rotators adductors and abductors must work correctly. In addition to the more general exercises and the sport specific exercises the activation part is the best to put in the work on individual weaknesses. Another 5-10 minutes, where some of them are meant to be individual.

*) the order of activation and mobilization is not so clear, in reality it is often a mix of both as dynamic mobilization needs also activation of muscles and vice versa.

 

3.4) Movement Prep/Perform

The last part of the warm up is the most open when it comes to content. Either you get very specific and intense (e.g. Warm up sets of Squats before Squats) or you use the time to address other requirements of your sport like speed, agility, jumps, coordination etc. like a training in the training. When you chose the second option you might need more time but the investment of it might pay off in the long term. As with the whole process of designing the warm up part of training, keep your goal in mind: If you have a competition, the performance aspect is the only thing you care about in this part: you want to be at your best physiologically and psychologically, so you should be specific and intense and only think about what makes your athlete better now! If you have a normal training session you might consider spending the time for more long-term oriented training goals: For example, you have a youth basketball team and teach proper jumping and landing mechanisms. You will not have an immediate effect in the subsequent training, but over time all these short “mini-practices” accumulate and make your athletes better in the long run. Especially if you don’t work the requirements of sport in separate sessions I highly suggest that you take approx. 10 minutes every time to work on the “basics” of sporting movement.

If you add up all 4 parts, a normal warm up takes about 15-25 minutes. As time is valuable good planning helps to be efficient. Prepare the material you use ahead of time, think about how you make the transition between the blocks and follow your plan.

 

Step 4: Progress over time

If you see the warm up as a part of training, you should also treat it like one. A Body adapts to the stimulus, so over time either the stimulus should increase or change. Especially when you work with a long-term goal in the last part of the Warm Up you should have a plan or idea where you want to go and slightly adjust to get there. This is not a real step but rather a reminder that to what the warm up should serve: getting athletes better!

 

I hope I gave you a useful insight on how I plan a workout. This article will have a follow up with examples how to put into practice, so stay tuned for it.

Alex