Your Workout Is My Warmup
“Our warmups are like most people’s workouts.” A comment from one of my group training clients.
“Your workout is our warmup” was a phrase a lot of crossfit gyms began to throw around. It sounds pretentious, but it’s also a badge of honor. An effective warmup should work up a sweat and prepare you for hard work ahead.
When new trainees think of warming up all that really comes to mind is raising body temperature (literally just getting warmer). However, this is only one component of a proper warmup. The warmup prepares your joints and tissues for the work ahead, it starts releasing the enzymes you’ll need to produce energy for your training, and lights up the nervous to produce more force and improve coordination.
My warmups years ago were very brief or non existent because I use to believe they just made me tired for the workout.
But I found the opposite to be true.
The more I got my heart rate going during the warmup, the better my workouts got. If you’re out of shape or have low work capacity then you may experience a drop in strength or performance at first during your workout. However, as you build work capacity and get in better shape you won’t notice any dropoff in performance.
My new clients often begin with a simple full body warmup that’s 3 rounds of 10 squats, 10 inverted rows, and 10 pushups. At first, they think of it as a workout but after a couple weeks it begins to feel like a warmup and they bang it out in just a few minutes.
Use the warmup to build your general conditioning, prepare your joints to handle force, and to tune up your nervous system. You can also add mobility and remedial exercises to the warmup to beef up deficiencies before your session begins.
The Workout
Pushup x 20, 15, 10, 5
Kettlebell Swing x 10, 10, 10, 10
Inverted Row x 20, 15, 10, 5
Kettlebell Swing x 10, 10, 10, 10
Quick hitter. Do 10 swings between the reps of pushups and inverted rows. Swing as heavy bell as possible. Unless you’re frail or a child, you shouldn’t be swinging anything less than a 30 lb kettlebell. That’s often the biggest mistake I see when people use kettlebells, people go way too light. Use your hips and swing some big bells.