Warming up prior to training can be an opportunity to raise your core temperature and get you moving better prior to your strength and conditioning session or even work shift. This is the place to practice good movement habits, technique for lifts/running, and/or combat focused drills.
With our Human Performance Program we always do some kind of warm up. This can be a few movements combined with an aerobic activity, or a dedicated dynamic warm up like you might see a track athlete do. Everyone is a little different and some might need a little more or less. With that said, there are still some principles that I have found will hold true for most people when warming up:
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Don’t skip it. (This should only take 10-15 minutes...tops)
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Start from the Ground with 2-3 movements, 8-10 Reps (some on our backs, others can be crawling)
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Work to a standing position (usually this means going from a kneeling position, then to standing)
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Do 2-3 Standing movements for 8-10 reps
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Add in some light, extensive skips/plyos (often these can be jump variations)
Repeat if needed. You can also spend some time on a bike or other zone 2 cyclic movements prior to all of this. This can be especially helpful for our gray beard heroes who just need a little more time to loosen up. Yes, 20 year old me would scoff at this however 40 year old me with a total hip replacement is totally on board. This is particularly true if it’s cold outside.
Why the Ground?
Gray cook and others who are much smarter than me came up with all kinds of movements that I sprinkle into our programming. These pioneers did a phenomenal job in essentially mainstreaming the idea that so many of our foundational movements start from the ground. Like when we were babies learning how to first roll over, crawl, and then walk. I often find it beneficial to start here as there are so many movements that require a lot of coordination from this position.
Kneeling
An easy progression is to move to a quadruped (hands and knees) and work in some rocking variation (Tim Anderson and Dan John really popularized these) and other mobility work. Sometimes adding in a light weight like a kettlebell adds in some sensory input to again help us work on foundational movement patterns to get us moving just a bit better.
Standing
From there we move to standing. This is a great place to work in some unloaded single leg and rotational movements. Now we’re starting to tie everything together.
Skips/Jumps/etc
Now that we should be moving better, we start to do some lighter/extensive plyo and jump work. What I usually recommend is doing part of a typical track warm up. Start with some marches and move into skips, then maybe some box jumps. I’d recommend starting by doing them with 50-70% effort, then as you progress through the warm up, especially if you’re going to do 2-3 rounds, add a little more “snap” each round. What I mean is add a bit more speed to your movements, a bit more power into your jumps, etc.
After all of this, if you’re training strength during this session start with some lighter sets before moving into your work sets. If you’re conditioning, it never hurts to start with an easier pace first before moving faster.
Closing
This topic isn’t always the most entertaining, but still important. Tactical and First Responder populations are generally tougher people who often gloss over this kind of thing and just move right into the workout or training session.
That’ll work in your twenties but much like eating your vegetables and other “boring” work, the pay off of doing it is often subtle until you’re injured or have a health issue. All I am asking is 10-15 minutes, and then get after it. Feel free to apply this same logic prior to starting your shift. Who knows...the video above might be the perfect pre-foot pursuit activity that you never knew you needed.
