Perfecting the Warm Up (and Down)

The “perfect” warm up and warm down should include the following components in the following order:

1. Dynamic Joint Mobility and other neural warm up drills to get the nervous system and body communicating clearly. Most warm ups neglect this and go straight to elevating the heart rate.

2. Dynamic Movements that increase in skill required which ultimately mimic the athletic activity that is going to take place.

3. Athletic Activity – This is when your workout or sport is performed. If you are just doing skill practice or some heavy lifts, then you can even repeat 1 and 2 between sets to help fine tune your movement. If you are doing a WoD for time, then not so much!

4. “Cool Down” aka “Warm Down” – I like to include some very basic joint mobility, or basic (easy) skill practice in my cool down prior to stretching. Skills are best learned when fresh so you want to leave the skill development to pre-workout.

Every time you skip the cool down you are passing up a perfectly good opportunity to stretch! Stretching is a bit of a misnomer as it is less about actually stretching tissue and much more about convincing your nervous system that the new position you are in is safe, so it is OK to relax the muscle.

Stretching should only be done at the conclusion of a workout and should be light.

Written by: Troy Dodson