The warm-up is an often overlooked and forgotten part of a training session. A good warm-up sets the tone for training by prepping the body and mind. Doing a few static stretches or hopping on a treadmill for a couple minutes may be a way to save time and get going, but it’s not helping you truly get ready for what’s ahead. In order to prepare for training, the warm-up should build up to intensities seen in the session.
Long warm-ups kill motivation and if you’re on a time crunch, they’ll also cut into your routine. How do you improve your warm-up while still keeping total time low? The simple 4-step order below should help keep things focused and concise.
1. Foam Roll. ~3-5 Minutes. This is simple muscle/tissue preparation. Rolling out prior to training can help improve movement quality and can also give you quick feedback on which areas in the body are tight or sore. 15 seconds per site can allow you to get through total body in a very short amount of time, but (for example) if you have a “lower body day” you can allot the total time to only glutes/hamstrings/quads/calves.
2. Targeted Mobility. ~3-5 Minutes. Choose a few exercises specifically designed to improve joint range of motion. An example from my YouTube Channel: Hip CARs, which is obviously for hip mobility. Doing a total body session? Hit the big ones: Ankle, Hip, T-Spine, Shoulder. Completing bench press, rows, etc. in your lift? Spend more time working on shoulder and spine. Fit it to your needs. If you’re looking to save even more time, mobility could be included in the next bullet point.
3. Dynamic Movement. ~2-4 Minutes. Find a distance of 10-20 yards and get moving. This part is going to work on increasing blood flow to your muscles and raise core body temperature. How can mobility be combined into the dynamic movement portion? It may sound obvious- but a wide variety of movement is going to work on mobility just like the targeted exercises previous mentioned. Bear Crawls are commonly incorporated into dynamic warm-ups and have been shown to build strong, mobile shoulders. Below is a simple list of movements you can do in your dynamic portion that should take little time
Lunge + Twist
Bear Crawl
Lateral Squat
Single Leg RDL + Reach
A-Skips
B-Skips
Shuffles
4. Explosive Movement. ~2-4 Minutes. This is where we finish our build-up and match the intensities of the training session. Squats, sprints, Olympic lifting, you name it. If any of these are in your training session, including some explosive movement in the warm-up can do wonders for you. This part is all about priming the central nervous system for the activity ahead. I love to use med ball throws and plyometrics here. They are short, max effort movements. Below is a two-set, two exercise routine you can add.
Med ball Slam 2x3
DB Squat Jumps 2x3
Adjust exercises, total time, and whatever else to meet your personal needs. As you can see by the time estimates of each step, this can be done within 10 minutes and provide a great prep for your workout.
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