Wasted warm up?

What do you do for your warm up? Are you even warming up? What’s the point of warming up?

A ‘warm up’ should do exactly what it says – it should warm you up. If you aren’t sweating when you finish, then something is missing. When you are sweating, it is a sign that your body temperature has increased, which also means that your muscles, joints, and attachments are warm and able to move better. Warm muscles and joints work better and are less prone to injury than cold muscles.

Is it just about sweating? Absolutely not! The sweating only means that your body temperature has increased. What else should you do in your warm up? That’s a good question! If you are smart in your warm ups, you can make your warm ups just as important (if not more!) than the main part of the WOD.

Mobility – flexibility is a huge issue in performing well. Think about your squat: do you have trouble holding your lumbar arch? Does your butt ‘wink’? Does getting into the bottom of the squat feel hard or tight? Now look at your overhead work: does getting into an ‘active shoulder’ position feel awkward? Do you feel resistance when you put your arms straight overhead? If you’re reading this article, chances are, you need help in one, if not both, of those movements. Those are just two of the many movements that we do. What about the rack position for front squats or cleans? What about when you are on the rings doing dips? The bottom of the pull up? There are many, many more. During your warm up, work on your mobility and flexibility. Foam roll tight areas to get muscles to relax and lengthen. Do dynamic movements to get the joints and muscles moving in a wide range of motion to get your body prepped. Leg swings, lunges, air squats, overhead squats with a PVC pipe, overhead squats with a close grip, kipping, and many other movements are good for working on mobility. Avoid static stretching (holding a stretch for long periods of time) aside from the Samson stretch, since static stretching reduces muscular strength temporarily.

Skill work – this is where a well planned and implemented warm up can be of great use. What skills do you need for the WOD? Use the time to practice those skills. Not feeling so solid in your snatches before hitting ‘Isabel’? Warm up with some light snatches. How about muscle ups? There are many drills that you can do as a warm up to get ready for that movement as well. Light-weight versions of all weighted movements make for good warm ups: squats, deadlifts, cleans, jerks, KB swings, snatches, etc. When do you practice your gymnastic movements? How are your handstands? Planche? L-sit? Front/back levers? You know how hard these moves are to master, and they are even harder to find time to do, right? You also know how much they will help with warming up your joints and raising your body temperature.

The standard CrossFit warm up is a good starting place:

3 rounds of:

Samson stretch (30 seconds per leg)

10~15 squats

10~15 push ups

10~15 sit ups

10~15 back extensions

10~15 pull ups

10~15 dips (ring or stationary)

This is a good starting point, but this will become dull very shortly. Incorporating different gymnastic movements and skill movements will warm you up and get you ready for your workout. Take one of our favorite workouts, ‘Grace’. Here might be some things you can do to get ready for the WOD while incorporating some skill work and gymnastic development:

3 rounds of:

10~15 kipping swings (this is not a full pull up, just the kipping portion)

10 overhead lunges (PVC pipe up to an olympic bar)

10~15 box jumps

5~10 handstand push ups (handstand hold for beginners, partial range of motion for intermediates, full range for those who find HSPUs to be easy)

5~10 full squat cleans (Medicine ball, training bar, olympic bar, all the way up to 95#, choose one that most closely suits your needs)

As you can see with this warm up, the person participating in this will get some skill development (kipping swings, handstand push ups, full squat cleans), will warm up the body sufficiently, will gain mobility (kipping swings are great for opening up the shoulders, lunges and full squat cleans will get the lower extremities warmed up), and the box jumps will get the body ready for explosive movements. You will be sweating, your joints will be happy, and you will have spent some time practicing the movement you need for the WOD.

Just to give another example of a warm up that can be done for another WOD, I’ll post the one that I’m doing for today’s workout: Elizabeth. Elizabeth consists of squat cleans and ring dips, 21-15-9 for time.

Warm up:

3 rounds of:

10~15 overhead squats (PVC/training bar/olympic bar)

3~5 skin the cats

10~15 shoulder pass throughs

5~10 full/hang squat cleans (PVC/training bar/olympic bar/all the way up to 95#, choose what suits your needs)

10~15 push ups

15~20 rolls on the foam roller (focusing on parts that are restricted)

This warm up includes activities that either prepare the body for the movements required within the WOD (squatting, pressing, pulling), works on mobility (overhead squats, skin the cats, shoulder pass throughs, and foam rolling), and gives an opportunity for skill development (overhead squats). You will definitely be warm, your joints and muscles will be ready, and you will have prepared yourself for the work you need to do.

ONE NOTE OF CAUTION: your warm up is a warm up; it is not the full workout. A good warm up can take anywhere from 10~15 minutes to do, but it should not tire you out so thoroughly that you cannot do well within the WOD itself. Warming up for Fran should include some pull ups, but don’t do so many that you can’t do the workout itself. Do some light weight thrusters, build up to the full 95#, but don’t do so many that you are fatigued and cannot perform during the WOD. Your warm up should get you ready and put you in the best place, physically, technically, and mentally, to do the WOD. It should not tear you down before you even do your workout.

Try mixing up your workouts, building on skills, and keeping things interesting. You don’t want your warm up to be boring, and you know that your warm up could be a great place to kill some of your goats (Handstand push ups for me, overhead squats for Coach J ).

Coach ‘Be-efficient’ A

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