Anatomy of a Great Warm-Up
Nova Health Club • November 5, 2019
It is common knowledge that warming up before physical exercise is a wise thing to do in order for our bodies to work optimally and to avoid injury. But what is the best way to warm up?
A commonly practiced warm up by most people is going onto a cardio training machine like a treadmill for five to ten minutes. But is this the best way to warm up? While any warm-up is better than no warm-up, there are a few things to consider to make your warm-up more specific to your workout and the unique needs of your body.
Warm Up Objectives:
Increase blood flow to the muscles that will be worked and increase body temperature
Increasing heart rate
Increase range of motion of the joints that will be used
Activate specific muscle groups that will make your body work better
Deactivate specific muscles that can impair optimal movement
Prime the nervous system to improve firing potential of muscles
Prep the body to move the exact way it will be required to move in the workout
Mental readiness
All of the above can be summarized in three phases:
Phase 1: Increase
Phase 2: Activate and Mobilize
Phase 3: Potentiation
PHASE 1: INCREASE
1) Increase Blood Flow to Muscles
This is an easy one that most of us know. Going from a rested to an active state requires muscles. The more your muscles begin to move, the more oxygen they require to make energy to sustain the demands of movement. Blood vessels dilate to allow more oxygenated blood, pumped by the heart to the working muscles.
2) Increasing Heart and Respiratory Rate
To increase the blood flow to your muscles, we must increase our heart rate and breathing rate. There is a tendency for us to rush our warmup to get the workout completed sooner. The result is that the heart and breathing rate becomes elevated very fast. If you have ever experienced a quick increase in breathing during a warm-up, it is likely due to higher exercise intensity that then creates an imbalance between the oxygen demand of the muscles and what can be provided by the heart and lungs. What we end up with is a spike in heart rate in order to provide that oxygen via the blood. The heart and lungs are muscles to be warmed up just like the rest of the muscles in our body. A slow and steady increase in heart and respiratory rate may pose less stress upon the body compared to a spike from sudden strenuous exercise.
3) Increase Joint Range of Motion
To exercise means to use our joints and the muscles that control them. Therefore it is important to consider the joints required for exercise and prep them accordingly. For example, large muscle groups like the hamstrings or lats have influence on the knee, hip and shoulder so prepping these joints (and the muscles) by exploring joint range of motion is an essential part of the warm-up. When doing range of motion exercises the objective is to go through the complete range of the joint. Shoulder range of motion, for example, can be completed by doing arm circles, swings and reaches. A warm muscle that has gone through range of motion exercises is less likely to become injured when the workout intensity increases.
PHASE 2: ACTIVATE & MOBILIZE
While Phase 1 can consist of generic exercises, Phase 2 starts to address the specific needs of the individual about to train. Both activation and mobilization exercises allow athletes to perform better and decrease the risk of injury.
1) Activation
Different needs require different activation exercises. A woman who has recently had a baby may require some core activation exercises to ‘turn on’ specific abdominal exercises. While important as a rehab exercise for re-strengthening her core post-pregnancy, it is also essential for her to activate her core as a prehab exercise so that the core does its job during the rest of the workout. By activating it at the start of the workout, the brain and nervous system are more likely to keep communication with that muscle for the duration of the workout to keep it ‘activated’.
2) Mobilization
Each individual has different joints and muscles needing to be mobilized that if not may impair functional movement of the body during exercise. A man with very tight chest and lat muscles will have restricted shoulder mobility. By doing specific mobilization exercises for this joint he can have improved movement in the shoulder to perform specific exercises.
PHASE 3: POTENTIATION
The goal of this part of the warm-up is to do exercises directly related to the following sport or workout activity. These can be considered warm-up sets just before the actual workout.
1) Nervous System Priming
Agility or plyometric exercises like jump squats or medicine ball slams can create the necessary nervous system firing needed to engage more muscle fibers and hence provide the required force output for the workout.
2) Workout Movement Prep
If the first intense sets of a workout consist of squats then doing squats in the warm-up is an essential part of the prep. It does not make sense to do push-ups to get the legs warmed up for squats. To prep for intense squats, do some warm-up sets of squats first.
In conclusion, a good warm-up will take a methodical approach to consist of exercises that consider physiology, prevent injury and be tailored to the individual and workout. For most of us, we exercise after long durations of doing something sedentary that has our attention on anything but the body. Therefore it is important to appreciate that a level of mental readiness is required to perform at our best. Warm-ups while essential for prepping the body also prep the mind by creating mind muscle connections and focus on the workout. As part of an athlete's physical prep, many have mental practices like meditation prior to workouts but we will explore that in another article.
Joshua Allen
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