Do you warm up before a workout? Personally, I’ve tried different training methods… such, where you open the door, enter the gym, load the maximum weights on the bar and immediately begin lifting; such, where you spend pointlessly, long time jumping and sweating around, trying to warm up; such, where you walk on the treadmill and read a magazine or watch a movie and so on.
What is the conclusion I made?
Even though there are a lot of logical and not so logical arguments for strength training without a warm up, my personal experience taught me that it is always better to warm up in an adequate way, that will prepare you for the big lifts.
For most people, a warm up is just a way to fluctuate your blood a little bit, before getting busy with your work sets. It doesn’t matter if you are gonna be walking on the treadmill and staring the space… the important thing is to rise up your pulse, right?
That’s what I thought back in the past, but not today!
Today I see a warm up, as a preparation for the real workout.
What would a good warm up look like, in my opinion:
1.Optimally short– you do not need to spend too much time warming up; doing a bunch of exercises; bending, stretching… after all do not forget that I am a fan of workouts that last between 40-50 minutes. If the warm up is too long, how would you expect to have time for your work sets?
Besides that if you over exaggerate the warm up, you might get tired before you actually start working out!
2.A warm up should assist, add to the movements, that you will incorporate in your workout on that particular day.
That means, that when you are gonna do some heavy squats, you could incorporate some body weights squats in your warm up.
If you do weighted lunges, Bulgarian squats and etc. you could do some bodyweight lunges or dynamic lunges in your warm up.
If you are gonna practice your juming, incorporate some step- ups or jumps on a rope.
3.A good warm up, doesn’t drain you, but it prepares you, so you could feel ready to lift some heavy weights.
If you do not “dose” your warm up appropriately; if you do it too intense, you are pretty much gonna exhaust yourself, before you’ve even started lifting.
Don’t forget that a warm up is the prelude to your workout, and as such, you should start easier, and not give it all out, as if I am standing beside you, with a stop watch, counting the last seconds, before you complete the standards for the Olympics.
Personally, I love warming up by using a combination of dynamic stretching, resistance bands and body weight movements. Here are some examples of a warm up:
3 rounds:
20 mountain climbers
10 air squats with a band overhead
5 burpees
5 warm walks
6 minutes, on the minute:
10 mountain climbers
10 dynamic lunges
5 push ups
3 rounds:
50 jumps on a rope
5 squats with a lunge after each squat
Side band Walks (10 each side)
5 burpees
3 rounds:
10 band stretches
20 mountain climbers
10 squats
5 pull ups
How do you usually warm up?
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