But It Takes Too Long

I have been exceptionally fortunate in my athletic career from an injury standpoint. The few different injuries I have all been acute situations where there was nothing I could have done from a preparation standpoint that would have prevented them, a helmet to the Ulna was giving me a broken arm regardless of what I did prior to stepping on the field. However, often we see injuries that occur because people skip the warm up. Why? Because it takes to long. I want you to pause here and due some quick mental math. You train 5 days a week. The warm before each session is say 15 minutes. So we have now spent 75 minutes warming up that week, or 300 minutes a month. Wow, you are saying that is so much time I just spent 5 hours on warm up? That so long. Not really if we contrast it with the length of time an injury costs you because you forced your muscles through a full range of motion without a warm up. So instead of 300 minutes we now lose closer to 1800 minutes a month or 30 lost hours. The 300 minutes looks pretty short now.

View your muscles as silly putty, when we first start moving we have just spent the night in that little peanut shell carrying case and we are incapable of forming any cool shapes other than a glob. Then after a few minutes of kneading we are flexible and strong and able to move into pretty much any form. That 15  minutes elevates your core temp, increases blood flow, draws in more 02 and a variety of other factors that get our body ready to go. I really want to stress the importance of a good warm up, start with something aerobic for 5 minutes, then move through a more dynamic flexibility section (high knees, butt kicks, spider man lunges) then progress to more sport specific. If you are playing football start running routes or light coverage. If the sport for the day is weight lifting get under the bar and practice that movement pattern before you starting with your working weight. Do not just set up the weight and rip it without feeling the movement pattern first. Swinging the arms across the chest twice before max benching is not enough folks. Take the extra 15 minutes and take care of your body as the number of overuse injuries in sports (even in younger populations) grows it is even more important that your muscles are fully ready for the demands that will be placed on them, otherwise you may end up like the guy in the video. He didn't warm up.