Personal Training 14a: Warm ups

This post is part of an ongoing series about my learning process as I train to become a personal trainer.  In this post, I’m going to consider the ubiquitous warm up, as covered in my course materials, as I understand they are done in the real world and how I intend to do them myself.

***

The official recommendation

My course materials recommend that a warm up should achieve two purposes:

1. To prepare the body for strenuous exercise; and
2. To improve mobility at the joints by stimulating the production of synovial fluid within the joint.

***

How the official warm up is made up

My course materials make the warm up into three parts, in the following order:

1. Pulse raiser
2. Mobility
3. Static stretching

The pulse raiser is typically recommended to be 5 minutes of a machine-based endurance exercise.  The mobility improvement is typically achieved through certain basic movements, such as shoulder circles.  The static stretches cover the whole body and are done for short periods of time and standing.

For me, these prescriptions raises a few questions, which are:

1. Should static stretching be in the warm up?
2. How should the mobility be achieved?
3. Do we not need specific lifting warm ups for the weights room?
4. Is 5 minutes of machine-based exercise as a pulse raiser appropriate for any and/or all populations?

***

#1: Static stretching in the warm up

To expand my question slightly, as I see it, there are two issues regarding static stretching:

1. Should it be done at all?
2. Should it be done pre- or post- workout?

So I see four groups of people who have the following views:

1. Static stretching is the only way to improve flexibility, right? – The general population still follows the dogma that if a muscle is tight it needs to be stretched.  Like many fitness professionals, I react strongly against this position, because I see so many amateur runners stretching themselves into uncomfortable positions when it is palpably obvious that what they need is more stability and not more flexibility.
2. Static stretching can be useful and may be done pre-workout – Mike Boyle uses static stretching with his athletes after his pulse raiser and dynamic warm ups but pre-workout.  When someone with Mike’s pedigree nails his colours to the mast, it is worth listening too.  For a full discussion of Mike’s position and full discussion of the relevant issues, see Gray Cook.
3. Static stretching can be useful but only post workout because it makes you temporarily weaker – The use of static stretching only post-workout is well-argued by the bodyweight strength training guru, Steven Low.  I do find that I am weaker after static stretching so I incline towards this view.
4. Static stretching should not be done ever – For an intelligent presentation of the position that static stretching should not be done ever, but particularly not pre-workout, see Phil Maffetone.  For an argument that sets out the alternative, see Mike T Nelson.

I am currently happiest with view #3 but I’m always happy to discuss the issue and be persuaded otherwise!

***

#2: Mobility improvement

I initially thought that not many people would have written much about warming up but it turns out I was wrong!  There is loads of great material out there on warm ups and much of it is very specific advice that can be taken away and put into practice immediately.  Here is a selection of resources:

• Aaron Schwenzfeier - in this very carefully considered post, Aaron investigates the key aims of the warm up.  He boils it down to four main points: (1) the warm up should raise body temperature, (2) the movement preparation should proceed from general to specific, (3) the movement preparation should take time – it is harmful to go too fast, too fast, (4) the movement preparation should be used to help teach lifts or movements that will come later in the programme.  Aaron also makes the point that lack of proper warm ups can make an athlete “age” faster, as cold structures are more easily stressed than warm ones.
• Nick Grantham -  Nick criticises the old-fashioned approach to warm ups, which tend to involve a couple of laps of the pitch for athletes or 5 minutes on the stationary bike for personal training clients.  Nick says it isn’t good enough and I am inclined to agree.  We are better than that.  We can add more value.  Nick takes time to explain the physiological and pyschological factors that are developed by proper movement preparation and then suggests using Olympic lifting variations and drills as part of the warm up to achieve the best development.
• Lyle McDonald – Lyle presents an interestingly different perspective in this article.  Lyle’s general warm up contains a pulse raiser, stretching and foam rolling.  Lyle also discusses the contentious issue of stretching pre-workout and notes that in some cases there may be a flexibility requirement for stretching pre-workout for certain movements, such as squats, to be performed correctly.  In principle, I completely agree with this concept but I think that some people dive in and assume that their problem is “tight muscles” when it is actually a lack of stability, or strength in the postural muscles.  And since I feel weak after I do static stretches, I would only do them pre-workout if I absolutely have to.  Alwyn Cosgrove takes a long, hard look at when apparent lack of mobility is actually a lack of stability in this article.
• Maximum Strength - when I opened the warm up section of Eric Cressey’s Maximum Strength, my world-view changed.  At first, I couldn’t understand what the movements were intended to achieve.  Later, as I actually took the time to do the drills every day, I gradually realised why they were so important.  In my view, a dynamic mobility warm up is so much more effective and beneficial for people who are capable of doing them that I would never do anything else ever again.
• Matthew Brown at Elite FTS - Matthew expounds the principles behind the dynamic mobility warm up and the importance of doing prehabilitation work at Elite FTS.  If you can’t spring for Eric’s book then this article is a good second best
• Nick Tumminello at T-Nation - in this great article, Nick discuses some big lower-back errors that many personal trainers use and points out a few things to beware of introducing into your warm ups.  Nick explains why you shouldn’t do Scorpion Twists, prone alternating supermans (supermen?), windshield wipers (I guess that rules out the 300 workout?) and the leg cradle.
• Brijesh Patel - Brijesh discusses how he puts together a pre-game warm-up, which is interesting but obviously not directly comparable to a mobility warm-up prior to a workout.

***

#3: Specific lifting warm ups

• Lyle McDonald – Lyle discusses the specific warm up routines that can assist in preparing the body for the weight room.  Of particular interest is Lyle’s coverage of activation exercises, such as glute bridges, which are intended to help the body use the correct muscles for the right job in the main part of the workout.  Lyle also discusses the two basic approaches to specific lift warm ups, which are the high rep warm up and the low rep warm up.  In  the high rep warm up, the lifter uses sets of high reps with light weights and, in the low rep warm up, the lifter uses low rep sets of higher weights.  The latter is more common now and is the method I use.
• Chris Cooper at Elite FTS - Chris takes the principles of warming up for specific lifts and applies them directly to the three powerlifts for achieving new 1RM PRs.  Chris makes the point that a warm up doesn’t have to look like a string of sets working up to your PR.  You can use other means of exiting the CNS, including box jumps and speed squats.

***

#4: Pulse raiser

Ideally, I think that it is better to do a dynamic mobility warm up that includes the goals of a pulse raiser.  However, in the event that the client is overweight, a short walking warm up might be appropriate, as Mike Boyle recommends.

And getting warm might also be achieved, as Nick Tumminello points out, by wearing more clothes during the warm-up.

***

How my proposed warm up is made up

Having looked at my three questions, here are my own thoughts on a more appropriate warm up, which  might fall into three parts, two of which can be combined for more advanced lifters:

1. Pulse raiser – for people who would find anything more strenuous a workout, I would use a walking pulse raiser.
2. Dynamic mobility warm up – for everyone else, I would generate a mobility-based warm-up based on the prescriptions of Assess and Correct and drawing on the great resources noted above.
3. Specific lifting warm up – I tend to aim for about five warm up sets with fairly low reps, usually 1 – 3.  I will sometimes repeat a weight if it feels heavy the first time or if I don’t like my form at that weight.  I often find that my second warm up set with the same weight is the best form I am capable of.

***

How do you do your warm ups?  Do they differ depending on what you are training that day?