How to Warm-up
In general, warming up for 5-10 minutes on a piece of cardio equipment is a waste of time (unless it is for special populations, injured client, overweight, etc). If this is your warm-up, stop now. If your trainer warms you up this way, find a new trainer. If you are a trainer warming up your clients this way, SHAME ON YOU!! I hope you are not charging them for those 5-10 minutes. If you are, your a thief.
People need to move, stretch, and activate the muscles they are going to be using in their workout and in their sport. Warm-ups should start with slower movements that are a bit more static in nature. Progressively the movements should become more dynamic. Really, with a good warm-up, you should not be able to tell when the warm-up ends and where the workout begins.
Here is how we warm-up our athletes and clients:
Activation: We spend a few minutes with some mini-band walking and small exercises to turn on muscles that tend to be asleep. For most, this is the hips and scap stabilizers.
Movement Preparation: From activation, we get a little more dynamic and will roll right into some movement prep. This consists of lunging, squatting and crawling variations.
Movement Skills: Again, we get even more dynamic and progress into things like skipping, shuffling, cariocas, speed ladder work, etc.
That is pretty much what our warm-up consists of. From there we move into power work, with plyos, med balls, olympic lifts and variations of the olympic lifts. And next would be our strength work.
Warm-ups should always have a rhyme and a reason. Ask yourself, what, why and how. What needs to be warmed up? And what would be the best way to accomplish that? Hopefully your answer is not a treadmill.
DN
So well put. I couldn’t agree more. Anyone can warm up by moving around – good trainers earn their fees with purposeful preparation for the workout ahead. The information is all out there as to the whys and hows. This guy Dewey is a perfect example of someone so willing to teach the ‘right way’ he’s taken the time and effort to put what’s in his head out to the world… for free. It’s quite admirable. Thanks, and keep up the great work.