How to properly warm up to prevent injuries?

Want to get ready to train, boost your performance, and minimize injury risk? This simple routine will have you feeling prepped and primed for whatever workout lies ahead.

The Purposes of a Warm-Up

Warming up serves to get you ready for your workout, potentially boost your training performance, and reduce the chance of injuries.

One key way a warm-up achieves these benefits is by raising your body temperature.

This rise in temperature leads to several positive physiological changes, such as improved blood flow to muscles, better oxygen delivery, and enhanced speed and responsiveness of the neuromuscular system.

Although static stretching has long been a part of warm-up routines to increase flexibility, stretching to achieve immediate flexibility gains can actually impair muscle performance.

Think about it: making a muscle-tendon unit more relaxed and elongated seems counterintuitive when your goal is to make it contract powerfully under heavy loads.

Step 1: Get Your Heart Pumping

Start by picking your favorite cardio machine.

Whether it's the treadmill, bike, or rower, hop on for 5 to 10 minutes.

The goal here is to work up a light sweat and slightly elevate your heart rate.

This gets your core nice and warm, which is a crucial step in preventing injuries.

If you’re in a hot country, you might skip this part, but for most, it’s a great start.

Step 2: Mobilize Your Body

The body mobilizer is a fantastic routine I’ve adapted from Gray Insitute principles.

It’s designed to get all your joints moving through all three planes of motion: forwards and backwards (sagittal), side to side (frontal), and rotational (transverse). Let’s break it down.

Spine Movements

• Sagittal Plane (Forward and Backward): Flex your spine by reaching down and extend it by reaching up. Do five reps. This also hits your hips.

• Frontal Plane (Side to Side): Keep your hips stable and reach one hand over your head, then the other. Do ten reps (five each side).

• Transverse Plane (Rotational): With hands forward, round out your shoulders and twist your torso. Do five reps on each side, focusing on keeping your hips stable.

Shoulder Movements

• Forward Reach: With elbows in, rotate your body and reach forward. Do this a few times, then reach behind you.

• Rotational Movements: Internally rotate by pivoting on your foot and reaching up, then externally rotate by reaching back like changing a light bulb behind you. This gets your hips, shoulders, and ankles involved.

Hip Movements

• Lunge Matrix: This involves lunges in all three planes of motion.

  • Sagittal Plane: Forward lunges and reverse lunges. Do three on each side.

  • Frontal Plane: Side lunges. Lock one leg and step to the side. Do three on each side.

  • Transverse Plane: Diagonal lunges (back and away). Do three on each side.

Step 3: Lift-Specific Warm-Up

Now, it’s time to get lift-specific. This is a protocol taken from Muscle Strength Pyramid Book by Andrea Valdez, Andy Morgan, and Eric Helms. Here’s a simple rep scheme to follow:

Concerning the above, as you get more experienced, you’re going to know how to abbreviate the warm up sets and how to perform them in order to get the most out of your working sets.

For example, in your strength warm ups, you may do a 531 rep scheme, omitting the 4 and 2 reps from the table above.

Or you may do sets of 3s for a few sets, whilst increasing the working weight.

The main thing to focus on in your warm ups are the techniques and the extent to which you’ll feel ready and confident to perform your work sets with the best technique possible.

Wrapping Up

There you have it.

The perfect warm-up to get you ready for your workout, improve your performance, and reduce injury risk.

Give it a go and let me know how you feel.