Warming Up for Successful Training

Whenever I work with somebody I always take them through a thorough warm-up based on the individuals or needs.

There are a few parts to a succesful warm-up that I will discuss.

First, is foam rolling. If you don't know what this is, search youtube for a ton of video's on the topic. If you are serious about your training you will foam roll your legs, butt, hips and calves at least 2 times a week.

Next, is a general warm-up. This can consist of a number of things, like jogging, biking or GPP drills. Personally, I like jumping rope. I do a routine I got from elitefts co-founder Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 ebook:

100 2 leg
50 right leg
50 left leg
100 alternating
50 high knees
100 2 leg

This will break a sweat, which is exactly what we want from the general warm-up.

The next thing is something that is highly debated: Stretching.

Here is my view on the topic
- if you are tight (can't touch there toes), you should stretch.
- if you feel better about training when you stretch, you should stretch.

Basically, if flexibility is something that prohibits you from doing exercises correctly, or if it just increases your readiness to train, stretch, but keep it to a few minutes so that you don't lose the affect of the general warm-up. If I have an athlete or client that needs to stretch, I will usually do some type of assisted stretching with them, which usually works better than self-stretching. A few area's I always stretch before training is my hip flexors, glutes, calves and chest.

Next is the dynamic warm-up or mobility work. What I like to do and what I like to have my athletes and clients do is hurdle step overs to the side, forward, backward and then hurdle duck unders going to the side and even forward and backward. Another good way to get your hip mobility work in is to get on your hands and knees and make circles with your knees, first by bringing your knee to your elbow, up and over toward the back of your body, and straight out behind you.

Last is the general warm-up, where you look at what it is you will be doing for your training and do a similar movement or activate a certain muscle group. Many times this will be glute activation since most training that I do with people is full body and all of us do so much sitting around that we need to wake the glutes up before we squat or deadlift. I also like bodyweight squats, lunges and pushups to get the body ready for the training that lies ahead.

I know all of this may seem like a lot, but taking 10-15 minutes to warm-up will help get you mentally and physically prepared for training.
What I want you to take from this post is some ideas of what you could do. Everybody will want to warm-up a different way, so just tinker around with some things until you find out what works best for you.

If you would like some more examples of warm-up routines just leave a comment or email me at bobby.fisk@yahoo.com. Or, stop by NHaFC for a more personal example!