The Warmup: What’s In, What’s Out?
There seems to be two kinds of warmups circulating the sports community right now.
The first; the long, monotonous warmup that is replicated before every training and match. There is a huge emphasis on injury prevention exercises, like your Nordic Curls and Copenhagen’s, mobility drills, activation drills to “turn on” muscle groups and finally some low intensity plyometrics in the form of “jump and stick” the landing tasks.
The second; a light jog, few swings of the legs, couple kicks of the football and waiting for training/match to begin.
In truth we have all probably experienced both of the above warmups. But how have they prepared us for the match or training? Well, the first may have left you fatigued, lethargic and unaroused as you’ve spent the last 30 minutes performing general work and very little that will actually improve your performance on the pitch.
With the second warmup, well, I shouldn’t have to explain to much. Very short but does get in some sport specific movements like kicking.
“The truth lies somewhere in the middle”. I don’t particularly like using that phrase but it fits to some degree here. A little from column A, a little from column B. To talk about this more we need to ask one question, What is the purpose of a warmup?
Purpose of a Warmup
It’s only in recent times that injury prevention has been added as one of the 4 primary purposes for a warmup. The others include, Physical preparation, Mental preparation and Performance Enhancement. A well designed warmup, knowing the importance of all 4 primary purposes, can maximize the athletics potential of the players and athletes. The positive effects of a successful warmup include:
Increased blood flow to muscles (1)
Increase muscle contraction speed (2)
Increased rate of force production (3)
Improved reaction time (3)
Increase power and strength (4)
“RAMP” protocol
Dr. Ian Jeffreys developed the RAMP protocol (5) which allows for coaches and trainers to easily assemble a warmup in the correct sequence.
Raise
Activate
Mobilise
Potentiate
Raise:
Increase body temperature, heart rate, respiration rate and joint viscosity.
Its easy to get players to just run a couple laps but you are wasting valuable time. There is far better means that get more bang for your buck. Use exercises that are more sport specific and if possible include a ball - keep things relatively fun and enjoyable. Some low intensity, multi-directional movements in an enclosed space. During the Raise portion of the warmup is a good opportunity to then include more technical drills to improve running economy such as Sprint technique drills, A-skips, B-skips, dribbles, hops.
Include some big complex movements like your squats and lunges, and finishing off with some controlled change of direction drills.
Activate and Mobilise:
Activate muscle groups and mobilise joints for the sport.
Your typical mini-band routine; glutes in all three planes, shoulder retractors and depressors, external rotators, mobility drills; for ankles, hips, thoracic spine work.
Potentiation:
To “Prime” the body prior to the session or competition.
Using the “post-activation potentiation” principle, using steadily rising high intensity movements to improve performance.
Increase intensity until its comparable to competition level.
Example for a team sport:
Plyometrics - jumps and bounds both uni and bilateral
Accelerations of 10-20m
Reactive stimuli drill such as evasion games in a chaotic environment (eg. 5v5).
Missed Opportunity
The warmup is often a missed opportunity to introduce new elements and drills to develop the players. Particularly in team sports, time is limited, the coach or manager wants the team doing their drills and tactics. How many warmups could your team do in a year? Now, multiple that by 10-15 minutes. That accumulates a huge work if you use such time appropriately.
It was from Derek Hanson (6), a coach I recommend everyone to follow, that I first came across the phrase “micro dosing”, which is just spreading a workload over many days rather then a just one or two. This is a highly effective method with team sports as strength and conditioning coaches get very little time with the athletes on a given day.
Micro-Dosing Speed. To me speed training is always swept under the rug. Devoting 40 minutes to high quality sprinting during a training session will not sit well with the coach or manager. So micro-dosing is your answer. That 40 minutes or so could be divided up into your 4 sessions in the week. 10 minutes just after the warmup doesn’t seem like much but you’ll keep the coach happy. This of course is not the optimal means of training speed, but sure creates some robustness with athletes.
Sample dose of speed for after warmup (10-15 mins)
3 x 10m resisted sprints (sled or with partner) - 60s rest
3 x 10m sprints - 60s rest
2-3 x 20m sprint -120s rest
It doesn’t have to be speed, it could be agility work, some conditioning, extra skill work before main session.
Move the Mobility Work
Using the RAMP protocol, a large section is taken up with mobility work. Before we get ahead of ourselves, I’m not saying to remove it, but maybe reposition it in your warmup. Some guys like it, some guys think its a waste of time. To keep everyone happy and the warmup rolling, I suggest that you have 10-20 minutes to let players do whatever routine that gets them prepared before the game, this also applies for training days.
Foam rolling, static stretching can increase ones mobility in the short term, but its important to follow this up with active drills to then use this new range of motion in the hopes it’ll last long term.
Putting the mobility before the group warmup allows for players to look after their own individual needs. Each player takes control to do what they feel necessary to get them right.
Mindset
Expanding from this point, preparing for a match is as much psychological as well as physical. So having players in a comfortable mindset, doing the things they want to do is vital. If you arrive an hour before the game and you start your team warmup 30 minutes kick-off, this gives players time to prepare in their own way. That could be, as said, doing their mobility work - foam rolling, specific band activations drills. Some players like to get out on the pitch early, free-takers might kick a few shots. I know guys who listen to music, those who load up on energy drinks. And others that won’t do anything until the group warmup begins, which is perfectly fine. Everyone has their own unique way of getting into the right mindset so I wouldn’t interfere greatly with players personal routines.
Sample Warmup for Team Sport
Set up a small playing area for players to run around in. This will automatically create a chaotic environment where everyone must navigate and avoid others via change of direction type movements like in a game.
The intensity at which players run around the square could be increased between each section.
3 minutes general work
This could be a jog or teams may stay inside the small playing area with a ball.
Dynamic Mobility
Skips - forward and backward
Side Shuffles
Lunges - forward and to side
Dynamic Flexibility
Partner Frontal and Sagittal Leg Swings
Drills
Dan Pfaff Hop Series (7)
Plyometrics - jumps and bounds both unilateral and bilateral
Sprint Drills - A-Skips, A-Run, Dribbles
Each drill is finished with a 3-5 step burst
Decision Making Drill and/or Skill Priming
Small Sided Game 3v3 or 5v5 - perhaps drop a player for an advantage with attackers
Kicking or Shooting Drill
If we treat a warmup like training, we could accomplish and develop so much more attributes. As a trainer, you need to find out what is important to work on and try make as much time possible to do it.
And of course, have some fun. As much as i have emphasised to take advantage of this time to work on the likes of sprint mechanics and what not, its important to sometimes break up the monotony and have some fun - It’s amazing how much laughs you can get from a squad of grown men playing a kids school yard game.
References
McArdle WD, Katch Fi and Katch VL. Exercise Physiology: Energy, Nutrition and Human Performance (Fifth Ed) Baltimore: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins 2001. http://www.amazon.com/Exercise-Physiology-Energy-Nutrition-Performance/dp/0781725445
Hoffman J. Physiological Aspects of Sports Performance and Training. Champaign Ill: Human Kinetics 2002 http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all-products/physiological-aspects-of-sport-training-and-performance-with-web-resource-2nd-edition
Asmussen E, Bonde-Peterson F and Jorgenson K. Mechanoelastic properties of human muscles at different temperatures. Acta Physiologica Scandinavica. 96:86–93 1976. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1251749
Enoka, RM. Neuromechanics of Human Movement. Champaign Ill: Human Kinetics 2002. https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Neuromechanics_of_Human_Movement.html?id=-dtPqXEzo44C&redir_esc=y
Jeffreys, I. (2007). Warm-up revisited: The ramp method of optimizing warm-ups. Professional Strength and Conditioning. (6) 12-18. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280945961_Jeffreys_I_2007_Warm-up_revisited_The_ramp_method_of_optimizing_warm-ups_Professional_Strength_and_Conditioning_6_12-18
Hansen, D. (2015, October 28). Micro-Dosing with Speed and Tempo Sessions for Performance Gains and Injury Prevention. Retrieved April 9, 2017, from http://www.strengthpowerspeed.com/micro-dosing-speed-tempo/
Dan Pfaffs Hop Series, https://youtu.be/bNjQ2gOizAI
