You probably already know that if you don’t warm up before your workout, you could be setting yourself up for injury. But did you know that you warm-up can have as much of an impact? Case in point: doing a quick little leg stretch before you run doesn’t cut it. A study review presented to the American Chiropractic Association Rehab Council, which examined 116 research papers, found that static stretching doesn’t do much as a warm-up and that rather than prevent injuries, it could, in fact, hamper your performance. Eish. But the study authors also found that a dynamic warm-up (where you’re moving, not holding still) improved performance.
Warm Up The Dynamic Way
Dynamic stretching is personal trainer code for moving your joints and muscles through their full range of motion. For a great example of what an effective dynamic workout looks like, we borrowed this one from the pros at CrossFit District Six. The box’s Lushwill Rossouw and Thamar Houliston started a CrossFit Endurance routine that takes runners, cyclists, and swimmers through a custom set of CrossFit exercises, designed for endurance athletes. Lushwill, who will be taking the warm-up at Fit Night Out Cape Town this year, calls his dynamic routine “movement prep”. The point is, that when you warm up, you move in the way you’re expecting to move in the exercise itself, to get the heart rate up and the specific joints and muscles you need in gear and ready to go. The best part: you can do these moves absolutely anywhere. Ready? Let’s go.
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SETS: 4 REPS: 8, 6, 4, 2
Find a hill, any hill. Make it a fairly short one — the goal is to safely warm up your hamstrings, hips and calves — not chart a course to Mars. Start at the bottom, and run up, then jog back down; that’s one. Start off easy and increase your pace and intensity so that by the end of the four sets, you’re really going for it. These short sprints will give your heart rate a rev and get the big muscle groups in your legs ready to work. No ramp? Shuttle runs work just as well.
SETS: 1 REPS: 5
This is great to warm up tight hips on leg day. Stand up straight, then lunge forward with your right foot, drop onto your opposite knee and bring your hands to the floor on the inside of your right knee. Reach up with your right arm, pointing at the sky, then drop your hands back down, bring your feet together, and lift your bum into a downward dog pose. Repeat on the other leg. That’s one rep.
“This is one of my favourites,” says Coach Lushwill. That’s CrossFit code for tough as hell, and just as effective. “
These are all good things, no matter what you’ve got planned: “The
SETS: 2 REPS: 10 each side, alternating
In this more dynamic version of that pose you managed in the middle of the high hip complex — in a deep forward lunge with your arm raised to the ceiling — you’ll be walking yourself warm. By adding the forward movement, Coach Lushwill says, the move “
SETS: 1 REPS: 10 each way
Warm Up For The Gains
A parting word in support of dynamic warm-ups: Stretches that include dynamic movement can make you stronger and more flexible, say researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They had two groups stretch for 10 minutes before exercising; one group did static, motionless stretches while the other performed a dynamic warm-up with stretches like high-knee pulls, leg swings, skips, and shuffles. In a subsequent workout, the people who had stretched dynamically showed significantly greater quadriceps strength and hamstring flexibility.
