Get The Juices Flowin’

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of interesting antics in the gym…

Being in a commercial gym atmosphere for some of my week, I see a wide variety of people.  In  this wide variety of people, I’d say that a small percentage actually warms up.  And no, I’m not talking about grabbing a ten pound weight and swinging it around a few times. No, I’m not talking about doing that classic cross body shoulder stretch either. I’m talking about taking 10-12 minutes and actually getting that blood flowing! Don’t be that guy that throws 225 pounds on the bench press as soon as you walk in the gym. Your workout will go to shit, and you’ll probably get hurt (seen it happen). Get those juices flowing prior to throwing that weight around and trust me, you’ll see a huge difference.

 

 

A proper warm-up will prepare you or your athletes for maximum efforts necessary to dominate your workout and come closer to your training goals. Performing a proper warm up will benefit your workout progress tremendously. A general warm up consists of 5-10 minutes of slow activity such as jogging or skipping. Stick to slow and simple movements and gradually work your way up to quicker, more complex movements. During this phase of the warm up we are looking to raise your core body temperature and to increase heart rate, blood flow, respiration rate, and perspiration among others.

 

Following the general warm-up, especially when working with athletes, we will move to the specific warm up. During the specific warm up, we will do more sports specific movements. This part of the warm-up is the dynamic stretching portion. This can be 8-12 minutes of dynamic stretching focusing on movements that work through the range of motion required for the sport. Dynamic stretching increases the ROM in the body parts you will be using, as well as stimulating the nervous system. Whatever you do, focus on various mobility drills and isometric holds for injury prone areas. I personally like to focus extra on my shoulders and hips prior to every workout.

Here is how I recommend your plan of attack:

Begin with 5 minutes on the treadmill, bike, jog, ergometer, etc

Foam Roll/LAX ball your entire body, examples:

IT Band, calves, glute, pirformis, hamstrings, low back, upper back, lats, etc.

( I will go into further detail about foam rolling, lacrosse balls, and myofascial release in the future. )

Below is a wide variety of warm-up exercises that I use throughout my training, pick and choose from this list and use what works for you and stick with it. Notice: the rep ranges could vary from what is listed.

Shoulder Dislocates with a broomstick or resistance band x 20

Inchworm x 10 yards

Rollovers into V-Sits x10 reps

Scorpions x5 each

Iron Cross x5 each

Front to Back Leg Swings x 5ea

Side to Side Leg Swings x5ea

Fire hydrant circles – 10 forward circles/10 backward circles each leg

Prisoner Squats- 10 reps

X-Band Walks x 10

Prone Lateral Walks

Birddog x30 seconds

Donkey Kicks x 5 each

Band Pull aparts 2 sets of 15

Push ups

Planks 60 seconds

Arm Circles (each direction) x 20

External Rotation x 10

YTWLs – x8 each

Static hip flexor stretch – 3 sets of 10 seconds

Perform each of these for 20 yards

Knee Hugs

Foot Grabs

Shin Grabs

Hamstring Marches

Walking Lunges (variations)

Lateral Lunges

High Knees

Butt Kicks

Skip (variations)

Lateral Shuffle

Karaoke

Light Jog

Medium paced jog

Run 75%

 

In summary: Spend 5-10 minutes doing your general warm-up (jogging, skipping, low intensity exercise. The purpose of this is to get the heart rate up. Then, spend 8-12 minutes on dynamic stretching. Focus on sports specific or exercise specific movements that work your range of motion. Make sure your warm up is created according to your specific needs, use it to attack your weak points and strive to strengthen them.

 

Hopefully this helped you guys, even those stubborn meatheads out there.

 

I definitely recommend you check out the  AMPED warm-up DVD by Joe Defranco and Jim Smith to maximize your warm-up even more.