Gone are the days 10 minutes on the bike, or star jumps, are suffice.
Warming up is essential for preventing injury, muscle growth, and fast results. By raising body temperature & increasing your heart rate blood flow increases, enabling oxygen to reach the muscles, providing energy for your workout.
But, is this enough?
Why do you exercise? To build strength, muscle, prevent injury, rid pains & niggles, increase flexibility?..
To do all of this we need to use the right muscles required for the specific exercises we choose.
Do you ever struggle to ‘feel’ your glutes working? Get headaches after shoulder day? Perhaps knee pain during or after squats?
It’s not necessarily the exercise that is the issue, it’s your movement patterns you have created from poor posture, sedentary lifestyle, or lack of mind-muscle connection.
The amount of hours we spend during the day not thinking about how we move, or hold ourselves, can affect our workouts, how we move, & our results!
A good warm up should improve movement patterns, not just raise body temperature.
Follow this guide before all of your workouts for optimum results:
RELEASE
Spend a few minutes foam rolling the muscles you are about to use eg. Squats (Spine, Quads & Glutes). Then trigger muscles inhibiting other muscles from working as well as they should eg. Hamstrings preventing glute activation.
ACTIVATE
Now, the tight, over-active muscles have been 'relaxed' the weaker muscles can move more freely, and we may be able to build better mind-muscle connection. Activate the muscles you feel you can’t control, aren’t growing, or that you need to work well during your workout.
Examples: Prone Hip Extension (Glute Max & Med), Banded Lower Trap Pulls (Lower Trap), Dead Bug (Core).
MOBILISE
Post activation, because we are re-iterating better movement patterns right? Perhaps some hips rocks for a deeper squat, or broomstick openers for a better row. Once you have mobilised the tight areas perform full body dynamic stretches to warm up the entire body eg. ‘The World’s Greatest Stretch’ (Yes, actually called that!).
POTENTIATE
Ok, so mind-muscle connection is good, we are warm, now we need to prepare for the ‘load’ we are about to lift. If you are doing deadlifts, kettlebell swings are a great way to prime the entire posterior chain. Max effort bear holds can also help you prepare & understand tension in the body. Then perform a few sets of your main lift with lighter weights, before your working sets.
There are many exercises you can use, but if you choose 1-2 exercises that fit in each of these categories you will be seeing results in no time!
If you would like to know more about a specific warm up suited to you and your needs our coaches are always available for advice.
Your FST Coach,
Skye x
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