How safe is your warm up routine?

Kila

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about the exercises in our warmup, and in the warmups of many other clubs (different sports, and different styles of martial arts) that I've been privy to over my general sports/martial arts career.

And it occurs to me that in another club/class/sport, you have to do their warmup, and sometimes their warmup includes exercises that are bad for you, and bad for your body. Exercises that have been discredited in more recent sources. (e.g. windmills - legs in a standing straddle, touch right hand to left toe, left hand to right toe, in a windmill type motion, or full rotations of the neck instead of just semi-circles)

I realise that people do the warmup they were taught, and then when they begin to teach, probably teach that warmup. And it occured to me that, as far as I can see, there's no central database or easy source of this information. There's no way for someone to know if what they're teaching could be damaging their students. And inless somebody points it out, or unless they go on some sort of sports qualification course, they'll never know to update their warm up.

I personally have some materials with details, from previous sports courses and general reading material. So I'm going to put together such a database, and I'd invite anyone who knows of any exercises that were once used but have now been recognised as bad for the body, to post them up, so that everyone can be better informed.

I'll reply here soon when I have the lists I already know typed up.

Dave Joyce

Hey Kila, this is a great thread you've started and one which I think all people here could benefit from. I've been fairly lucky with a sister who always been on the edge of sports medicine for over 15 years and has been a constant advisor in terms of whats good/not good. We also had an excellant Osteopath who was that interested in treating people he wanted to come down to the club one night to see our range of movements etc. And on top of that my wife qualified as a gym instructor/personal trainer/fitness and swimming instructor about 3 years ago and she has to keep up to date with current proferred practises. However, funnily enough some of the fitness organisations practises are novice, dangerous even and in fact have their people doing contra indicated exercises. Right now, I use aerobics (without the Mr Motivator lycra mind you:D) to warm up most of the classes I teach as its a full-body efficent warm-up, its quite fast compared to some and most importantly it works peoples co-ordination. The one common thing I think thats daft is the idea of static stretching before going into the class proper and I still think this is a wide spread practise.

Michael O Leary

Hi Kila,

Interesting post. I qualilfied as a fitness instructor years ago and am very interested in the subject. As far as I know the warm up is only there to serve as a bridge between doing your chosen activity and sitting on your arse and that it is sports specific. To make an extreme point, it would be foolish for a golfer to do skipping as a warm up as it would be more intensive than the activity itself however a boxer would find it useful.

The main point about warm ups is that it should prepair you physically and mentally for your activity. Physically it should raise the your heart rate and body temperture and also lubricate your joints and stretch the muscles.

I have questioned the best way to do this with my Wing Tsun classes over the years and have come to the conclusion that the Wing Tsun class itself is a type of gradual warm up. For example in our first and main form the "Siu-Nim-Tau" the movements are performed at a slow speed and there is a lot of active stretching of the muscles. When we take individual movements from the "Siu-Nim-Tau" and practise the self-defence "applications" then the body is worked a bit harder, it gets warmer, etc. The applications are practised in the Chi-Sau exercise which makes them more instinctive and distributes synovial flued around the joints. We then increase the intensity by putting all of it into our sparring exercise, "Lat-Sau" which significently increase the heart rate.

Anyway I know that I have rambled on a bit but I just wanted to put forward my ideas on warm-ups and how it relates to my martial art in particular.

Regards,

Michael O'Leary
www.wingtsun-escrima.ie

ninjaburr

Cool thread.I would be a bit of of a warm up freak.I think it should be intergrill with your taining and not just the thing you do to pass time before training begins as is far too common.
It doesnt need to be boring either. In any good clubs i have been in there is allways a bit of a slagging going on as to who isnt putting the effort in and why!!
Its not just up to the instructors though.There are allways those who continually turn up towards the end of the warm up because they just not arsed.
A good 15min warm down at the end of a class makes a huge difference to you the next day.

Odysseus

ninjaburr wrote:

There are always those who continually turn up towards the end of the warm up because they just not arsed.

A good warm up can be quite draining in my understanding. I hate putting the work in to see someone join in at the end, fresh as a daisy. A non-martial arts example is I'm currently training for a ultra-marathon, I have to take a day of work to do my long runs. Often after I have been running for up to 10hrs someone will pass me, and look at me like I'm been a slow f**k. I'm left thinking you have just finished work and are out on a f**ing fun run mate. Sorry rant over:D However, there is nothing worse than pushing yourself to see others coast it, I'm finished now I promise:) However, I am really intersted in how out people warm up, so please post.

Millionaire

3 x 5 min rounds of shadowing boxing (punch, kick, knee, elbow) does me nicely!

FiannaGym.com

What Millionare said.

But also I think people should be very careful about "discrediting" exercises. For example many exercises that I "believed" were bad for you I do today. One such example is the deep squat. I always deep squat into the bottoming out position. This is a big "no-no", it has been discredited. But in virtually every sport your knee goes through that range of motion. Now I understand that if you run a gym you don't want the average person doing olypic lifts and deep squats and leg raises. But honestly, once you become an athlete these, more difficult to insure, moves have their place.

More than specific exercises I think it is down to simple things like posture (Just like fighting), sense and developing an awarness of what your body can or can't do. Again just like MMA (where you tap) in training you have to be aware of your limits and push them as far as is safe.

Peace

Kila

I guess one of the things I've foud in my research into it is that you can pretty much discredit every exercise, because no exercise will suit everyone who does it.

That said, some are just bad for you, no matter what your level of training. And some are only bad for you if you are a novice, or if you're not taught the exact correct movement and supervised properly doing them.

So I guess discredited and "risky" are good terms to use. And what I'm hoping to do is put together some lists of things that should never be used, things that should only be used after completing other portions of the warm up, things that should only be used with higher level athletes, etc.

Make sense?

Michael O Leary

FiannaGym.com wrote:

But also I think people should be very careful about "discrediting" exercises.

Hi Pearse,

I knew that if I waited long enough I would agree with you on something. Actually I agree with you on quite a lot of things but that is work for another thread.

Anyway I agree with your point. For example I was taught in fitness instruction that you should not teach people to tip their toes while standing as the same muscles you are stretching, hamstrings, calves etc, you are also contracting by standing and this is dangerous.

However this was a regular posture when I did Yoga but then there is a big difference in 40 people tipping their toes in an Aerobics class and a small class of Yoga practitioners doing it skillfully under close supervision. So what may not be good for a beginner is fine for an athlete.

Regards all,

Michael O'Leary
www.wingtsun-escrima.ie

Unpossible

Im really curious about this "Bad for Beginner ok for Athlete" idea. Can someone expand on it and tell me how it is ok for an athlete? Do we have different muscles built up do we heal better? Does it depend on the field you train in? ie will a compeditive swimmer and a compeditive martial artist be able to do the same exercises without problems?

Kila

Well, when I say it, I'm thinking in particular about exercises that are thought to place excessive strain on the lower back. For a beginner, in any sport, they should probably be avoided. But if, in said sport, you tend to build up stronger back muscles as you progress, then once you've attained a certain level, its likely that these exercises would not be as risky, and may in fact be beneficial.

Does that make sense?

FiannaGym.com

I look at it alot like submissions.

In general beginners aren't shown heel-hooks. And when rolling with a beginner advanced guys rarely use them. Similarly, beginners (in my opinion) are better off working arm bar escapes that involve keeping the arm bent and then maybe stacking the oponent. HOwever, as you progress other escapes work, like allowing ht earm to straighten and then "swithing" your body (Clive seems to be deadly at this).

Generally an athlete will have a higher degree of awarness of what is going on with his body. I hate to sound repetitive but crossfit.com go into this in detail. If you walked into your local gym and started doing the O-lifts many instructors would have a freak attack and the owners (paying insurance) would too... rightly so for the beginner but not for the aware, focused athlete.

Strain on the lower back is generally the main thing that discredits and exercise but you need to train for your sport, as such developing a strong core to allow a stronger back (and vice versa) may be the answer.

When is Zen gonna get on here and tells us all how it is done?

Peace

Boru.

Two things to chip in.

I was posting in another thread and mentioned Bill Superfoot Wallace, and realised it may also be pertinent here. Wallace and I had a long conversation on the nature of warm ups in the martial arts. He commented that at the time when he trained that martial artists did all sorts of things warming up, jogging, jumping jacks, lunges etc. Comapred to rowers, weight lifters and other sports or exercises it was unusual, a rower warms up by lighly rowing, a weight lifter lifts light wieghts. They were using specific warm ups as mentioned above.

These days many martial artsist warm up incorporating the movemetns they will be practicing like Millionaire suggested above - (shadowboxing etc). In RDPP we warm up reinforcing the principals of the system. For eaxmple each movement will be based on the primary diredtions of an attack.

Secondly as a fitness instructor I recognize the importance of the warm up in injury prevention and preparing the mind and body for movment. That said as a RB Martial artist and instructor I also realize the benefits of a "cold-start".

For instance during knife training I won't do a warm up with my students - I launch straight into a full contact knife assault. The reason is to correctly the develop the bodys response both physical and pyschological. In a realistic scenario you won't have the luxury of having warmed up before you are attaked. You may be just getting out of your car and be stiff so I will occasionaly train students when they are stiff and cold.

It won't apply to the majority of MA practioners but if you do have an intrest in RDSD it may be useful to consider for the odd class.

Iss hogai

GalwayorBust

No need to warm up, try it. Make sure you stretch after your training session.

Scott

Michael O Leary

With respect Scott it depends on what you are trying to achieve with your training session. For example if you are doing an activity to improve your cardiovascular endurance you want your heart rate to reach a certain level for a particular amount of time. By doing your activity as a lower intensity (warming up) you increase your ability to achieve your target heart rate and maintain it.

Regards,:)

Michael O'Leary
www.wingtsun-escrima.ie

Clive

Kila wrote:

I'd invite anyone who knows of any exercises that were once used but have now been recognised as bad for the body, to post them up, so that everyone can be better informed.

Jump up, bring your knees to your chest, keep them there so you land in a squat position, stand up and repeat.

I'm no scientist, but I don't think that was the best for my knees!

GalwayorBust

Stand up straight, then fall forward with your hands at your sides. Your heart rate will increase with out a warm. Or you will be knocked out.

Next time I'm mugged I will ask for a couple minutes to warm up first.

Unpossible

But if, in said sport, you tend to build up stronger back muscles as you progress, then once you've attained a certain level, its likely that these exercises would not be as risky, and may in fact be beneficial.

ok makes more sense now

Michael O Leary

GalwayorBust wrote:

Next time I'm mugged I will ask for a couple minutes to warm up first.

Hey Scott,

But there are other reasons to train in martial arts such as sport, fitness, healthy mindset, etc. After all what are the realistic chances of you getting mugged when statistically you have a greater chance of injuring yourself through training without a proper warmup.

Regards,

Michael O'Leary
www.wingtsun-escrima.ie

ninjaburr

Michael O Leary wrote:

Hey Scott,

But there are other reasons to train in martial arts such as sport, fitness, healthy mindset, etc. After all what are the realistic chances of you getting mugged when statistically you have a greater chance of injuring yourself through training without a proper warmup.

Man...i just laughed so much i think i pulled a muscle:)

Michael O Leary

ninjaburr wrote:

Man...i just laughed so much i think i pulled a muscle:)

You should have warmed up with a light giggle.

To help you, have a look at post number 7 on the thread "Zambian Judo visit".

Regards,

Michael O'Leary
www.wingtsun-escrima.ie