Warming Up: The Real Deal

There are warm-ups, then there are real warm-ups. If you are going for a fitness run, you're warm-up can be as simple as starting with a slow jog for a half mile then gradually picking up your pace. However, if you are going to do any load bearing exercise, like lifting weights, you need to actually work up some sweat, like you have a slight fever.

In fact, you want to get your core temperature to around 103 degrees F. That's the point at which the collagen and elastin in your muscles and tendons are able to stretch or contract, as they will under resistance, without injury. The heat also improves the ability of fluids to move through and around muscle and connective tissue, as well as the synovial fluid in the moving joints, and thus perform better.

The video below demonstrates an excellent warm-up. What you'll see is not a namby-pamby little static stretch (like you see runners doing standing one one leg and pulling back the foot of the other to stretch the quadriceps) here and there, but an energetic, dynamic sequence in preparation for a more demanding workout.

A routine like this one is a real workout in itself. If you only had ten minutes to exercise, this would be a good one. Add a few more reps of a few of these exercises, like more push-ups, jumping jacks, and squats, and you'd give your heart and muscles some useful exercise even if you didn't do anything else.

Notice how the trainer activates all the major muscle groups and joints. Also, watch how he moves his body in all directions - up, down, laterally, rotating around. He moves without smoothly and without delay from exercise to exercise.

Try the sequence with him. If you can't do it as quickly, do what you can. If you can't do all of them, pick a few of the movements and master them one at a time. When you can do them all, you'll have a really good base of stability, mobility, and core strength to build on.

He's a good benchmark. When you can match him movement for movement and keep your breath under control like he does, you've arrived at a fitness milesone. Then you can ask yourself: What next?

Dynamic Stretching: The 95% Solution

This TOJ has a confession to make: I don't do much old-fashioned static stretching, the kind where you assume a fixed pose and hold it for 30 or more seconds, straining, say, to touch your toes. I prefer dynamic stretching for 95% of my warm-up and cool-down because the benefits are proven by good science and it feels more natural.

I learned to not like static stretching when I played high school football and ran track; it was boring and often hurt. I encountered the old ways again when I studied martial arts after college. That was decades ago, and even then I wondered it it really did any good. Since then exercise physiologists have affirmed static stretching is of limited help in preventing injuries, maybe even harmful, and may reduce your athletic performance rather than enhance it.

A couple years ago, Gretchen Reynolds wrote an article about static and dynamic stretching and the scientific evidence for/against both. Check it out because it's a concise overview of the issues and the superior benefits of dynamic stretching. Also included are some good examples of dynamic stretching. The most important take away point is that static stretching is useful only in small doses.

Dynamic stretching is the best warm up. It's very simple: you gently move the joints of your body prior through their range of motion, especially those parts of your body that will be stressed when you start of exercise hard. Prior to running , it might consist of jogging slowly for a couple of minutes, then gradually running a little faster for a couple more minutes. When preparing to lift weights or do calisthenics and jumps, it might consist of rotating the knees for twenty seconds, rotating the hips for twenty seconds, rotating the upper torso right to left for twenty seconds, then windmilling the arms for twenty seconds. This might be followed by a minute of light jumping with feet shoulder width, hands held loose at the side, and the feet barely leaving the ground, or a few squats and forward knee lunges. You want to just start to sweat and slightly elevate your breathing. That's it.

Unless you are a contortionist in the circus, there's no benefit to being super flexible. The right amount of flexibility enables you to generate some power in your running, lifting, x-c skiing, biking, whatever your sport might be. And some flexibility is absolutely necessary if you take a fall on a bike or slip while running on snow. But flexibility is not an end in itself unless you are a yogi. Strength plays an equal role in protecting you.

Flexibility is largely predetermined by genetics and gender. Women are usually more flexible than men. The body stretches less and less as you grow up because of natural bone growth; for example, you won't be able to do the side splits anymore because your mature femurs are more restricted by the fully developed sockets in your hips.

Dynamic stretching of the joints that will be stressed in your particular activity or sport raises your body temperature, allowing collagen in muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints to become more elastic. With the warmer temperatures comes increased blood supply to all these tissues, which in turn aids in producing metabolic energy and helping muscles quickly contract and relax, thereby generating speed and power.

For TOJs, the warm-up becomes even more important because the circulatory system is not as efficient as we age. The discs in your back, joint surfaces, and tendons have a very limited blood supply. These areas are all especially prone to injury. Dynamic stretching, combined with a light aerobic component, gets the juices (like the synovial fluid lubricating your joints) flowing and your body prepared to exert safely.

Static stretching, in particular classic hatha yoga poses, can help after a workout, especially a hard one. The stretches lengthen and relax the muscles, which in turn allows more oxygen rich blood to flood the tissues to remove the lactic acid, promote more rapid healing of damaged tissues (which occurs in all exercise), and reduce post-workout soreness. (Note that my emphasis here is on preventing athletic injuries. Gentle, controlled static stretching, especially as practiced in yoga, induces relaxation, which is effective for stress reduction.)

A favorite hybrid routine that I use as a warm-up which mixes yoga's Salute to the Sun and some everyday calisthenics like push-ups. Going slowly from movement to movement, I never stop, including during the Downward Facing Dog and Cobra poses, which you'll see people on early morning Yoga TV holding for a minute.

Watch how dogs stretch when they rise after sleeping - it's slow, smooth and continuous. Animals mastered dynamic stretching a long time ago.