All our athletes who train at Breakaway Fitness and Performance, begin with a proper warmup.  No, I do not have them jump on a treadmill or rower for 5 minutes and then follow up with some stretches and call that a warm-up.  The warm up for our athletes consist of foam rolling, mobility/stability work, dynamic based movements, and maybe a quick game.  I stress the importance of warming up with a purpose!  It’s easy to coast through a warm up, but it plays a big role when we look at the big picture of training.  Most people can agree, getting the heart rate elevated and muscles warm is all good, but I have 5 reasons why I think a warm-up is important for an athlete.    

1)  First off, it develops good habits that carry over into the training session.  If someone “loafs” during a warm up, more than likely the training session is not gonna be done 100%.  I want my athletes to be the best they can individually and being “lazy” on the warm-up will not help them reach their goals.  

2)  I need my athletes to be focused, especially if our training that day consists of some heavy lifts.  I want their minds “turned on,” that’s why sometimes I will incorporate a game.  An athletic game incorporated in the warm-up helps wake them up and get’s them present.  

3)  It raises the core temperature, which secretly works out the”soreness”.  Hmmmm.  Wonder how that happens?  Well, once we get the blood pumping to our extremities and start moving around, most the time we can diminish the soreness by creating some heat in the muscles.  We also stimulate joint lubrication, which helps with those achy joints.  As you start to move, synovial fluid helps lubricate the joints and cartilage, which aids in big movements.           

4)  It primes the nervous system to do it’s job.  In a sense, we want to wake up those nerve-to-muscle pathways to be ready to work, especially when we add a load or do any power work.  This is a big reason we ramp up during the big lifts (squat, deadlift, bench/overhead press, cleans).  This pertains to doing a few warm-up sets with a gradual increase in weight, to get at the working weight for that set. 

5)  It will help with injury prevention.  This is very important!  If I can get my athletes to work for 5-6 minutes on some mobility/stability exercises, then I can guarantee that a risk of an injury will go down.  I call this their homework.  Let’s imagine if I have an athlete who can squat below parallel and then an athlete who can only quarter squat before his/her form breaks down, who is going to get stronger?  Yes, the athlete that can get lower!  Being able to go through full range on each exercise will ultimately make the athlete stronger, perform movements safer, and help maximize his/her potential.  

Strength Coach, 

Silas Perreault