The newbies guide to warmups
Too often people walk into the gym, throw 60kg on the bench and just start repping. Skipping your warmup is a good way to injure yourself and restrict your mobility and strength in your lifts.
Contrary to popular belief a warmup & stretching are not the same thing. The purpose of a warmup is too increase your core body temperature, making your muscles more pliable and increasing your range of motion around your joints. This will allow better performance in all strength and plyometric movements as well as decreasing the risk of injury.
A warmup can include static & dynamic stretches however you want to be efficient with your time. Doing a full mobility session before your workout can lead to hours in the gym or having to cut your workout short. You should be treating mobility as its own session, programming it in to your rest day if you don’t have the time throughout the week.
You should begin your warmup spending a few minutes foam rolling your calves, quads, groin, IT band, glutes, upper back and lats. Then you should select warmup exercises that activate the muscle fibers you’re about to use whilst being hard enough to elevate your heart rate.
A good example of a prehab workout is as follows:
Hip flexor stretch Duration: 30 seconds (each side)
Get on one knee with your feet inline and place your rear foot on top of a bench behind you. Squeeze the glute of your rear leg, push your hips forward, and feel a deep stretch through the front of your hips and quads. Switch sides. You can also do this on the floor.
Hip bridge Reps: 10
Lie on your back and bend your knees about 90-degrees. Squeeze your glutes, drive through your heels, and lift your hips. Avoid using your hamstrings or lower back. Keep heels on floor the entire time.
Wall slides Reps: 10
Stand with your head, shoulders, and glutes against a wall. Press your forearms flush against the wall. (There should be no space between your skin and the wall). Squeeze your glutes and press your lower back against the wall while sliding your forearms up and down the wall.
Spider-man lunge with overhead reach Reps: 6 (each side)
With your left leg, lunge forward and left about 30-degrees. Place both hands on the ground while keeping your elbows locked and press your trailing knee to the ground. Squeeze the glute of the rear leg and extend your right arm straight overhead towards the ceiling while watching your hand with your eyes. Maintain a neutral arch in your lower back throughout. Stand up and switch sides.
Bear crawl Distance: 15 yards
Get on all fours with your hands under shoulders and your knees under your hips; keep your knees an inch above the ground. Crawl forward by taking a small step with your right arm and left leg at the same time and alternate. Keep your hips low and your head up.
Turkish get-up Reps: 3 (each side)
Lie on the ground with right knee bent, right foot flat on the floor, right arm holding a weight above you, and left arm and left leg at your side. Drive through right foot and straighten left arm, using it as a post to drive hips straight up. Pull left leg underneath and behind body, move torso straight up, then lunge to a stand. Reverse the sequence to descend. Do all your reps on one side. Repeat on other side. Keep chest up and watch the weight the entire time.
Koben Moore
Team ASF