Why Warm Up? What are the Most Effective Ways to Warm Up for Sport?

The most important part of any sports performance program is the warm up.  This is because we want our athletes to be injury free, ready for the workout ahead and work on the corrective work they need to that showed up on their Fitness Evaluation that is booked on our website. The evaluation really leads into how we warm up our athletes. A warm up should be functional in nature working from the ground up and in a slow to fast manor. There are 6 main steps to an effective warm up:

• SMR
• Static flexibility
• Mobility
• Correctives
• Dynamic flexibility
• Cns activation
• Movement preparation for linear or lateral movements

These 6 foundations of a proper warm up ensures the athlete is getting enough blood flow to the muscles that injuries is greatly reduced, body is prepared for the workout of the day and the athlete feels prepared as well mentally for the workout.

1. SMR – Self Myofacial Release is a technique we use with the foam rollers. The foam rollers are used to elongate the muscle, relive the muscle of waste products and to increase blood flow into the muscles.
2. Static Flexibility – Works on the muscles and elongating them into a stretch and holding that stretch for a period of time. An example would be our table stretches we do. We stretch our hamstrings, adductors and glutes for a period of 20-30 seconds. This allows us to open the muscle up even more and work on flexibility as that is a huge part of being a great athlete.
3. Mobility- we work on bringing Range of Motion (ROM) to the body. ROM in the joints and muscles are crucial to prepping the body for movement that will take place during the rest of the warm up and the workout. Mobility also is important for injury prevention as it allows the body to work through its ROM in a controlled manor, not forced.
4. Correctives- these are what we give the athletes as we see fit based off their FMS screen the performed on the first day of their program. It is important we incorporate them when they’re fresher. This will help them because they have the energy and the mental capacity of not being tired yet.
5. Dynamic Flexibility – Moving the muscles in a rhythmic fashion across the body. Dynamic flexibility is important because it preps the body for increasing blood- flow, waking up the CNS and getting flexibility through ROM.
6. CNS Activation– The Central Nervous System is important for getting the muscles firing in a proper pattern for movement. The way we prep the CNS is working on the agility ladder. The movement patterns on the ladder really help fire the muscles and also work on spatial awareness.

These 6 steps in your warm up will help you get prepped for the workout ahead for the day. You should feel warm, a little sweat and loses when the actual workout begins. The flow of the warm up is essential and in a certain way because we have to hit every link in the body in order to be fully prepared for an intense workout.