Fix your warm up for better workout

I do believe that warm up is one of the underrated portion in workout and butchered so badly that causing not only poor performance but also causing injuries. Lets say for example that you are working on your squat today.  Too many people are wasting too much time on foam rolling, stretching, and even running as a warm up.  When you look at the mechanics of squats does running has anything to do with movement pattern of squat?  I sometime see people doing carioca steps prior to squat. What does carioca steps has to do anything with squat? Are you planning to do carioca steps while squatting?

Plan your warm up according to what you are doing for your workout.

You should not be doing random thing for your warm up prior to your workout.  Make sure you know your workout then set your warm up routine.  I will give you an example later in this article.

3 things warm up should have.

1. Mechanical aspect - work on your mobility to get proper range of motion for your workout. Test your mobility according to your workout first then use PNF stretching to get your mobility (not flexibility) at your ideal level.

2. Physiological aspect - blood pressure and heart rate needs to be elevated or prepared to perform your workout.

3. Neurological aspect - prepare in neurological and psychological aspect to have better connection between brain and muscle.

So lets put these three things in practice and I will use squat as workout example and I'm planning to have you do 5 reps of 5 repetitions at 265lb

Initial portion of warm up should be 5 reps of squats with bar to check on your mobility.　　Few things to check are ankle and hip mobility and tension created in lats to support your spine.  If any of these are not at optimal performance for you then you want to use PNF stretching technique to prepare your muscle to move in those range. You may need to go through 3-4 sets of same process before starting to add those plates.

Then you should perform another 5 repetitions to see if your performance is better. After your mobility is at optimal I will have you go through following routine.

• 1 squat 160lb (60% of your working weight)

• 5 box jump (Heavy landing at top)

• 1 squat 185lb (70%)

• 5 box jump (Soft landing at top)

• 1 squat 215lb (80%)

•  5 box jump (Soft landing)

• 1 squat 240lb (90%)

• 5 box jump (soft landing)

• 1 squat 265lb (working weight)

Purpose of this example is to prepare your body to get warm by elevate heart rate and blood pressure, and ready for nerve and muscle to exert force.  Box jump is ideal since the exercise allows your nerve without adding stress to your joints. First hard landing is to give a shock to your system. Superset squat and box jump with resting period of no more than minute in between.

Once this is done give yourself 2 minutes then move on to work.

Depending on how strong you are, warm up can be longer however shouldn't last more than 10 minutes.

This warm up method is true for any sporting events.  I see soccer players jogging a mile and stretching way too much during their warm up before the game or practice and coaches are wondering why they can't perform well.  Well, sending wrong message to the body during warm up will lead to poor outcome in performance.   Long warm up will worn out the athletes when they should be at peak performance.

Re-visit your workout or sports activity and optimize your warm up following 3 aspects and see how your performance improve.

Enjoy!

Kota Shimada