Posted on December 07, 2016 by Jenny Cromack

Everyone, in one way or another, will do a warm up prior to exercise. For some this may be a 5 minute jog on a treadmill followed by some mobility exercises and for others it can be a couple arm swings and a little ‘shake-off’. Whatever you do before your training, it is all for similar reasons:

* Prevent injury

* Improve performance

* Get mentally ready to train

A warm up should be a vital part of all training sessions, especially resistance training. Improving performance is a reason for doing a warm up that the majority of people overlook. Done correctly a warm up should activate, mobilise and potentiate the body. This ultimately will increase flexibility, range of movement and switch on muscles ready for training. Obviously a lot of people will give the excuse of having little or no time to train, never mind ‘wasting’ this on a warm up.  Ideally, a warm up should take no longer than 10 to 15 minutes to complete. A correctly performed warm up will be an asset to your training, not a hindrance.

What should an ‘ideal’ warm-up should look like?

To remember how to warm up correctly, just remember the acronym RAMP.

Raise

Simply raising heart rate and therefore blood flow around the body. A jog, star jump, skip, row or any other low intensity whole body activity is usually perfect for a ‘raise’. Spend no longer than 2 min doing this, you can mix and match the activity depending on what equipment or space is available.

(For the ‘AMP’ stages of the warm-up I suggest doing 45 seconds of work and 15 seconds of rest between exercises. This way you get through a good number of repetition for each exercise and still a chance to catch your breath and check what is next).

Activate

This is ‘switching-on’ your muscles, your everyday activity may not use the muscles you are going to train so you will need to activate them. Example exercises for this are: Glute bridge, lunge, squat, plank, TYW’s and MANY more. If you are unsure of any of these exercises, I would advise asking one of the motive8 team. Aim to target each of the major muscle groups, so 4 to 5 different exercises will suffice.

Mobilise

Doing mobility before your training is a great way to increase flexibility and range of movement during your key lifts. Again if you are unsure on any exercises then just use the internet. T spine rotations, spiderman’s, leg through, hamstring walkouts and cat-camels are all great ways to mobilise the body.

Potentiate

A scientific way to incorporate jumping into the warm-up. Jumping from two legs and landing on two legs is a simple but good exercise, variations of this include single leg alternatives.

Try to prioritise this before each workout, it will positively affect all aspects of your training!!