Viking Muscle
Eat - Train - Pillage
Why your Warm Up Sucks!
What is the point of a Warm Up?
When you warm up your goal is to increase muscle and tendon flexibility, stimulate blood flow, increase body temperature, and increase skill specific body movement.
When you walk into a gym, you see hoards of people standing against a wall stretching their calves, locked forward in a deep “V” hamstring stretch, or standing with their foot in their hand in an attempt to achieve the goals mention above…
IT’S – NOT – WORKING!
In fact your are most likely doing yourself a huge disservice! Whether it be biking, running, swimming, fighting, or lifting weights, your body has an incredible ability to store energy within your tendons and muscles. Think of your tendons and muscles as a tightly coiled spring ready to fire free and be set loose in a millisecond. Your Tendon / Muscle springs provide an estimated 50% of the energy required to take your next step or perform any motion. When you decrease that ‘stiffness’ in the muscle you are actually making it hard to store and re-utilize that energy. As proof, a 2010 study by Jacob Wilson monitored a selection of runners to measure running efficiency. He had the runners run 30 minutes at a set pace followed by 30 minutes at the fastest they could run. He had one group perform 16 minutes of traditional ‘static’ stretching before the test, they would stretch the muscle to its maximum range of motion then hold for 30 seconds and repeat. As it turned out, the group that did not stretch before the test burned 5% less calories in the first 30 minutes and were able to run 5% farther during the second! While this demonstrates the results in endurance style movements, similar result have been well documented in power and ‘short burst’ activity as well.
Great! No more warm up for me right?
Wrong! You just need to warm up smart… In comes the Viking Muscle Dynamic Warm Up Routine:
To start, take off your shoes. we are priming your body to work at it peak level so we must prepare all the muscles in your legs including the essential support tendons and muscles that are in your feet. A barefoot warm up will force you to focus on balance and form throughout. Secondly, wear your hoodie. If you recall above, one of the goals of the warm up is to increase body temperature. We can make it easier by starting in your hoodie and getting a sweat going before we get to your actual workout.
Now, lets go through what an Ideal warm up should look like, there are many variations and warm up routines out there. I like Defranco’s Agile Eight:
- Foam roll your IT band — Start just below your hip and roll up and down to your (outer) mid-thigh ten to fifteen times, focusing on any tight spots. Then perform ten to fifteen “rolls” starting at your (outer) mid-thigh and rolling all the way down to the outside of your knee. Again, focus on the tight areas.
- Foam roll your adductors — Start just below the crease of your hip and roll up and down your (inner) mid-thigh ten to fifteen times, focusing on any tight spots. Then perform ten to fifteen “rolls” starting at your (inner) mid-thigh and rolling down to the inside of your knee. Again, focus on the tight areas.
- Glute/piriformis myofacsial release with a tennis ball — Take the tennis ball and sit on one your left butt cheek with a slight tilt. Cross your left leg. Roll for 30 seconds or so. Switch cheeks and repeat. Feel free to cry.
- Rollovers into “V” sits — Perform ten reps.
- Fire hydrant circles — Perform ten forward circles and ten backward circles with each leg.
- Mountain climbers — 20 total reps.
- Groiners — Perform ten reps. Hold the last rep for ten seconds. Make sure to push your knees out with your upper arms while dropping your butt down.
- Hip flexor stretch — Perform 3 sets of 10 seconds on each leg. Complete all three sets on one side before moving to the other.
With this new dynamic warm up you should feel limber, but still coiled and ready for optimal performance. Make sure you do this every day even if your not working out that day.
Hail!