Getting Warmer

I was on my way out the gym when a group of high school boys came running up the stairs. They couldn’t have been no more than 16 and your typical “let’s go bench” high school boys. But as they were passing me, I couldn’t help but overhear one of them say “Yo, I’m gonna skip the warm-up.”

Why, oh why would you do such a silly thing like that boyo?

Of course I didn’t say that, but it was certainly running through my mind, along with “idiot”. Ok, idiot is a bit harsh, but skipping your warm-up is not a smart move. For one, here are a few benefits of the warm-up:

• ·         Increase body temperature (hence warm-up)

• ·         Improve mobility in the hips, shoulders, and thoracic spine

• ·         Perfecting movement patterns

• ·         Firing up the nervous system

• ·         Releasing tight muscles through foam rolling (or any other soft tissue “toys”)

Think of it this way: it’s a cold morning out and you’re getting ready for work. You start the car but you don’t put it into drive right away, you wait a few minutes to warm-up, get the engine running a bit and letting the fluids flow so the car can drive properly. Similar idea before your workout. You don’t want to go from zero to sixty at the snap of the finger, you want to gradually get to 60.

With all that said, why do people still skip the warm-up? Chalk it up to part laziness, part impatience, and partly not knowing what to do. The common thought is to jump on a piece of cardio machine and go at it for 5 min. Granted that’s better than nothing, but it only covers the first point in the benefits above. And running on a treadmill is pretty boring, so you can see why people are impatient and would rather go straight into the workout.

But I can show you a warm-up that can be done within 5 min and covers all the points above (sans releasing tight muscles). It’s a dynamic warm-up designed to activate the muscles and move the joints in a full range of motion. Check out the video below:

The video is a quick demo of 8 exercises, each performed 30 sec. You don't have to go fast, just make sure you're in control and activating the muscles that should be activated (ie the glutes in the glute bridge). Here are the exercises:

1) Glute Bridge

2) Spiderman Lunge

3) Downward Dog to Push-Up Position

4) Crawl Outs

5/6) Knee Grab to Reverse Lunge

7) Side Squat/Groin Stretch

8) Jumping Jacks

Include foam rolling work before the dynamic warm-up (about 5 min worth), and you’re ready to kill your workout in 10 min or less. If you’re really tight on time, you can just do the dynamic warm-up, but make sure to roll out your muscles at some point during the day.

Got questions? Drop me a line below.