Quit Wasting your Warm up!

Stop Wasting the Warm-Up

How many of you can honestly say you enjoy doing the warmups we do before a workout? I will assume not many of you. I know for sure that I don’t enjoy doing the warmup prior to a workout! 

It’s very easy to cruise through this time absent-minded by socializing with those around you or just going through the motions. If you find yourself doing this, that is a mistake.

This time is precious and tends to not be appreciated enough. 

Here are three reasons why you should start to take your warm-ups more seriously.

1. Warming up prevents injury.
‍There’s no secret about what the warm-up is intended to do; it’s to warm up your body.

While it’s nice to think that your body is a well-oiled machine and can do anything on cue, have a dedicated warm-up will greatly decrease your chances of injuring yourself. 

We always begin class with some basic movement patterns to elevate your heart a little bit and generate a little bit of sweat. The movements chosen have similar ranges of motion to those in the workout. Over the course of the warm-up, you should slowly increase weight and intensity to help ensure your body is dialed in.

I can’t tell you how many times I see people immediately throw their workout weight on the bar without any warm-up reps in between. Perhaps one of my biggest pet peeves. While I know it might not be a lot of weight, be sure to do some more warmup reps at lighter weights. It will help your body tell how it’s feeling and what it can handle.

2. Helps to refine technique and develop skills
The warm-up and prep period is the time to help make progress on some more complex movement patterns as well as develop new and hard to grasp skills.

Do you think you are best suited to learn and improve on skills like pull-ups, cleans, or handstand walks while fatigued and at 90% of your max heart rate? I think the answer here is obvious.

Skills are best learned in a low stress, low fatigue environment, hence why we program progressions and prep pieces into warm-ups. Not only do they prep your body, but they allow you to practice skills in a controlled environment. This is how you develop new skills. 

Even if you already have some of these skills, use this time to get extra practice and refine your technique with the extra volume and work towards true virtuosity. 

3. Bulletproof your body
We like to include movements that target your midline stability and unilateral work in warm-ups. This focus helps to correct imbalances you may have between left and right and the midline work helps to strengthen your core. I know mountain climbers and hollow rocks and planks aren’t the most exciting things to do. But they benefit your body more than you think!

Focusing on having a good warm-up will give you all of the benefits of our hour-long classes. Over your next few classes, try tuning in on the prep work. Focus on moving well and through proper range of motion. Focus on refining your technique with each movement and challenge yourself to move better, not just quicker. This will all help to make you feel stronger, move better, and improve your workouts!

• Coach Matt

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