Category : Warm Up

Random Research Fact

Posted by admin at 2:20 pm

According to the (Journal of Science & Medicine in Sport 12(4): 480-484, 2009), When competitive runners ran to failure at about 105% of their max, there was no significant difference between time to exhaustion if they were cold or if they warmed up. Warm up being running, jogging or doing strides. The only thing that was different if they warmed up were some metabolic factors.

INTERESTING!

There has been a long withstanding debate on warm up verses non warm up. What do you think, and why???

I am a firm believer of a dynamic warm up. This is why:

In a study using 222 athletes from a Research Center of Sports Medicine in Finland called Tampere they tested to find out the difference between a dynamic warm up and a traditional warm up. They had the dynamic warm up group perform running drills, balance exercises and jumping 1-3x a week. After 6 months, the athletes in this group improved in their balance and lateral jumping than compared to the traditional warm up group.  The study also suggests that the results can lead to dynamic warm up group to have less implications and injures in the future. (British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2009.)

Dynamic Warm Ups

Posted by admin at 11:47 am

I am a huge advocate for dynamic/functional warm ups. What is a dynamic warmup you ask? Well in layman terms dynamic training is exercise that stimulates real life body movements and positions. Usually mimicking the exercises that will be performed in the main part of the workout. The movements are usually done against light to moderate resistance in order to improve upon functional strength, mobility, stability, balance and coordination. Dynamic warm up uses exercises that exaggerate our ability to stay balanced while moving or slightly resisting. This can be done by unilateral exercises (with one leg or one arm, unstable surfaces or even by closing eyes.

I feel that this warm up is beneficial because it can help you be fit to perform daily tasks on top of being able to perform sports with greater ease.

I believe that a dynamic warm up is better than a static one because with static stretching you lengthen the elasticity of the muscle. In doing so you decrease its ability to rebound as well and limit its ability to perform maximum strength output during the work out.

I usually start my dynamic warm up for clients with 5 minutes of a full body cardio machine if we are doing a full body workout, if we are doing a lower body I usually do cycling or running. If its Upper body I usually do rowing.

This is followed by different series of dynamic exercises. (REMEMBER EACH ATHLETE AND CLIENT IS DIFFERENT so the dynamic exercises should be sport specific and specific towards them as an individual!)

The following are some examples of a few different dynamic Circuits I have used. You can combined as many series as you want, and do them in any order you would like. Remember this isn’t the full workout, just part of the warm up. And some of the series are geared towards track and field runners. As I am a former athlete and a track coach. So I end up training a lot of athletes.

Series 1(20m)
Alt Arm Rotations Fwd
Alt Arm Rotations Backward
Alt Arm Rotations Fwd Acute
Alt Arm Rotations Backward Acute
Double Arm Rotations Fwd
Double Arm Rotations Backward
Double Arm Rotations Fwd Acute
Double Arm Rotations Backward Acute
Chest Flies Straight Arm
Chest Flies Acute Arm

Series 2 (10 Reps)
Wrist Circles
Trunk Twists
Hip Circles
Knee Circles
Ankle Circles
Sky Divers

Series 3 (10 Reps)
Scorpions
Scissors (Frontal & Sagittal)
Donkey Kicks
Trail Leg Against Wall
Lead Leg Plows
Fire Hydrants
Iron Cross

Series 4 (10 reps)
Hurdle Cross Over
Wall Attack
Inverted Bicycle
Hurdle Seat Change
Trail Leg
Lead Leg
Lead Leg/Trail Leg
Lunge Exchange

Series 5 (10 reps/20m)
Ground Sweep
Lunge Walk
Hamstring Jog/Stretch
Dynamic Hamstring Walk
Grapevine

Series 6(20m)
Same hand/leg(inside heel/outside)
Heel/Toe Walks (In/Out/straight)
Knee-Chest/Heel Butt
Inside/Inside/Outside/Outside
Carioka