What is the first thing you do when you go to a gym? Is it hop on the treadmill like everyone else
and then grab your 10lb weights and crank out endless reps with no sense of
control for the movement? If so then you
your warm up sucks and so does your programming, but no worries I am going to
tell you how you can fix it. Yes walking
on a treadmill can be healthy for some people, but it does nothing to prepare
your body for the workout you are about to perform. The only thing a treadmill will do is assist
you in walking or running since it pulls you along and depending on the fitness
level of the person it may increase your heart rate. After people get off the treadmill they
immediately go into a workout of squats or some kind of weird thing on a bosu
ball with a shake weight.
Think about the joints in your body and the way they bend
and move. At any time on the treadmill
did your hips, knees, and ankles experience full ranges of motion? No they did not. What about the joints in your arms, back, and
neck did they experience any full ranges of motion? Once again the answer is no. A warm up should include full ranges of
motion to all the joints in your body this is how you properly prepare the body
for the workout it is about to perform and prevent injury. Joints need blood in order to perform
properly and the best way to get blood flowing to the joints is by using
movements that require full ranges of motion.
Focus on joint mobility movements and movement flow which is constantly
moving your body freely in just about any range of motion you can think of.
Warm ups are also a time to work on your weak areas such as
being tight in certain joints. Can you
do an overhead squat holding a stick overhead with your feet right against the
wall going all the way down thighs to calves without the elbows bending, back
bending, knees calving in, heels coming off the ground or falling backwards? If not guess what you are an average American
and your mobility sucks and needs work.
So why not take time in warm up to work on your mobility and improve
your range motion. Your body will be
better prepared for the workout and you will also notice that your lifts will
be better as well. By taking time to
work on your mobility in the beginning of each training session, your joints
are going to feel better and you will also increase the longevity of your life
by constantly working your joints through full ranges of motion. Remember joints crave blood and the only way
to do that is with movements that create full ranges of motion. Otherwise the joint gets stiff and sore and
that is when problems occur, hence why sitting all day is terrible. If we were a smart health conscious society
we would get rid of all the chairs, put are beds on the floor, and lower the
toilet seats down to the floor as well.
This would force us to go through full ranges of motion each day without
even thinking about it and it would be much better for our health.
So what joint mobility exercises should you be doing for
your warm ups? Well there are a lot of
people with some great information about joint mobility movements. Two people I highly recommend looking up is
Steve Maxwell and Max Shank. I listed some links on here to both of them below. So in your
warm ups take time and work on improving your mobility and if you do this on a
consistent basis over time you will start to see your range of motion improve
as well as having joints that feel better as well. Treat joint mobility the same as flossing
make it a habit of doing it every day!
Here is a link to one
of Steve’s articles about the daily mobility exercises he does: http://www.maxwellsc.com/articles.cfm?art_id=3000&startrow=51
Here is a link to a video of Max explaining about his 5
minute movement flow method: https://youtu.be/6oaJ_mnuzPc
