Warming up
Many trainers take their clients for a 10-minute walk or cycle as warm up before strength training. They said that this will raise their body temperature, increase heart rate etc which will prepare for the workout.
This is wrong!
Warming up has to be specific. You don’t see power lifter doing a 10-minute jog before they lift heavy weight. You also don’t see a marathon runner doing a 10-minute swim or anything before their run.
These are the things which you have to do before a workout.
- Self myofascial release exercises
- Dynamic stretching
- Static stretching
- Muscle activation/Joint mobilization
- Core training
Self myofascial release exercises (SMFR)
Imagine the length of your hamstring is 80cm. Over the years, there will be a lot of knots forming in your hamstring and this will reduce the muscle length. (<80cm) This will reduce your range-of-motion during workout which reduces the effectiveness of your workout.
Performing SMFR will help to remove these knots.
Click here to find out more about SMFR.
Dynamic stretching consists of some movement drills such as knee to chest walk, leg cradle walk and reverse lunge. It will help to prepare you for workout by raising body temperate, heart rate and “loosen” a little of your joints. Now, you don’t wanna be stiff for a workout right?
Static stretch
People just like to do quadriceps, hamstring and calves stretch before a run. People just like to do chest stretch during bench press.
Static stretch works by deactivating strength of the muscle so that the muscle will get “weaker” and won’t be so tight for a period of time. This is why static stretch has been given a bad reputation recently because this will decrease sports performances. (Especially when one stretch all muscles).
Static stretch still has its uses. You will only static stretch on your tight muscle.
Common muscle for guys: butt, hamstrings, ITB
Common muscle for ladies: hip flexor, inner thigh.
Common muscle for all: upper trapezius/levator scapulae (neck)
Muscle activation is necessary to get your muscle to “wake up”. The number 1 muscle that needs to be activated is our butt muscle.
With simple number as example to illustrate why butt are important….
We will use both butt (100%) and hamstring (100%) during deadlift. What if our butts are “sleeping” and it uses only 70%. Our hamstring will work harder and it will be working at 130%. Of course, the real figure is not as simple as this but you should get the idea. I have not bring in our lower back yet.
Core training
We will be using a lot of our core muscle in all movements. If you have a weak core, you will be doing all exercises wrongly. Do remember to train up your core. The first thing that you need? Know how to activate your transverse abdominal muscle.
All right, that’s the end. I understand that too many words make you sleep! (Feedbacks from my readers) I will explain a lot more individually in other articles.