Why You Might Not Be Warming Up Properly, And How To Fix It

Swim Night!  Register HERE!
Gymnastics Club!  8pm in Venice

Thursday June 4, 2014

Prehab:

Banded Lat Stretch
Hold assisted squat until class begins

Warm Up:

Run 400m
10 Lat Activations
5 Strict Pullups
:20s Ring Support
5 strict (ring) dips
20 Hollow Rocks
3 Wall walks w/ :10s hold

Gymnastics Strength:

3 rounds:
10 Strict Pull ups- Rest 60 seconds
10 Strict Dips- Rest 60 seconds
:30 second Handstand Hold- Rest 60 seconds

Notes:  Advanced athletes may perform movements weighted.  For strict pullups use bands and/or spotters as needed.  Boxes may be used for dips.  With both movements ensure full range of motion and complete lockout.  Handstand holds are facing the wall with only toes touching the wall and stomach and butt tight in hollow position.  For harder variations of the Handstand try freespace with spotter, freespace with forearms on a pad/box, or freespace no spotter.  

Conditioning:

15 min AMRAP for quality:
50 ft. Overhead Walking Lunge w/plate (45/25)
100 ft. Farmer’s Carry (55/35)
10 Inverted Burpees – demo

Notes:  Use Kettlebells or Dumbbells.  If you cannot perform the Inverted Burpee, sub 15 Deck Squats.  For both the inverted burpee or deck squats, the standard is to touch both hands on the ground behind your head.

Cool Down:

Alternate:
4x30s ME Hollow Rocks or 30s Hollow Hold
10 Cat Cow

I want to thank the participants who came out to the accelerated learning course this Saturday. It was great to see you engaged with the new information, and I am excited to see the progress you will make by utilizing the tools we discussed. For those who missed the course, I have created an official Unbroken Mindset program that includes the content from the course and will help you overcome nagging injuries, recover faster, and learn how to overcome your weaknesses. You can contact me for more info. 

I would like to leave you with a quick and effective tip for maximizing the time you spend acquiring a skill: create transitions. This applies both to creating a transition between your day’s habitual activities and the awesome fun time you are going to have in the gym, as well as your transition from movement to movement. You need to interrupt your pattern and, as we learned last week, bring all of your awareness into your training.

Most athletes already engage partly in this transition by going through the physical warm up (which includes prehab). I highly suggest adding a consistent practice to your physical warmup beyond what is on the whiteboard. Make it something that will address one of your weaknesses and signal to your body that it is time to move (better). My consistent practice involves ankle mobilization and sitting in an assisted and unassisted squat position for at least a cumulative 10 minutes.

The physical warm up is familiar territory. What many of us forget is the mental and emotional warm up. It might seem like adding two components to your warm up is a daunting task that will just increase the amount of time you have to spend on your training but the mental and emotional warm ups occur at the speed of thought. It might take you less than a minute, and the benefits are great.

To warm up emotionally, I like to take a second to visualize something that excites me about my training or something that motivates me. Try thinking back to the first time you realized you love submitting yourself to a workout that 99% of the population would consider torture. I used to watch the above video before practice every day to get myself ready and motivated. Rather than, or in addition to visualization, videos like this can be a helpful tool to get emotionally ready to give 100% of your awareness and effort to your training.

To warm up mentally, I suggest looking at the workout before arriving to class and visualizing yourself performing the workout before you ever start your physical warm up. Getting a few perfect mental reps in will ensure that the first physical attempt you make will be your best effort. I visualized myself performing each and every open workout on my 7 minute bike ride to Friday Night Lights. I believe this practice played a big role in improving my performance.

If you already have an emotional or mental warm up, please share in the comments so others may be inspired!

Author: Matthew Walrath