THE IMPORTANCE OF WARM-UP IN STRENGTH TRAINING

A priori, it seems that everyone knows the importance of a good warm-up prior to any physical activity, but why when it comes down to it, the vast majority of those people who claim their importance do not do it or do it erroneously? Next, we'll talk about the importance of a good warm-up before a strength training session.

Man Doing Warm Up Exercise Cartoon by videoplasty.com.CC BY-SA 4.0

The physical warm-up could be defined as the set of activities or exercises, first of a general and then specific, that are carried out before any physical activity, superior to the normal one (training or competition), with the purpose of arranging the organic, muscular, nervous and psychological functions of the sportsman and arranging him for a maximum performance (Alvarez del Villar, 1987).

The main objective of the warm-up is to raise the body temperature, a fact that will cause the following effects:

• Increased blood flow to the muscles, improving the exchange of substances.
• Increased sensitivity of nerve receptors and nerve conduction speed, resulting in a faster and more effective neuromotor response.
• Increased oxygen dissociation by hemoglobin and myoglobin, increasing their availability and therefore performance.
• Decreased viscosity in muscles, tendons and ligaments, improving contraction and relaxation. Elasticity is increased and the probability of injury decreases.
• Decrease in the energy index of the chemical reactions of the metabolism, improving energy efficiency.

In addition, it should be noted that numerous studies affirm that a good warm-up helps us to find ourselves more mentally prepared for the activity.

We can find three different types of warming:

• Passive warming: hot showers, hot bags, massages, etc. Effective but impractical.
• General warm-up: basic activities that require the movement of large muscles and numerous joints.
• Specific warm-up: activities focused on the specific movements of the activity.

However, do you think you are making a mistake when it comes to warming up? Some of the most common mistakes may be the following:

• Warming up too long.
• Do not activate the main musculature you are going to work on. On many occasions with doing 5-10 minutes of static bicycle, elliptical... we believe that we have already warmed up enough, but this is not the case, you must do more specific exercises that activate the main musculature that you are going to work in the training.
• Warming up with too high loads.

Focusing more on a specific warm-up, eight different phases are proposed covering all parts of our body:

• Muscular and fascial work of the lumbar and dorsal spine: The main objective is to warm up and separate both muscular and fascial planes. To heat this zone what we can do is 2 to 3 series of 10-60" roller through these areas.
• Ankle mobility: It is very important to increase the dorsal flexion of the foot, this will help improve exercises such as squatting or dead weight. One exercise we can do to increase the dorsal flexion is the "Knee-wall".
• Hip mobility: In this area is important lumbo-pelvic dissociation, which we can work with the exercise known as "hip hinge".
• Activation of the lumbar spine: Make movements within a comfortable range such as "Cat-camel" or "Bird-dog".

  

  Birddog exercise by Pk0001.CC BY-SA 4.0

• Mobility of the dorsal spine: With exercises such as "Crunch dorsal with roller" or thoracic rotations either kneeling or in a deep squat position.
• Shoulder Mobility: The shoulder is one of the joints most often injured with strength training because it is a joint involved in many exercises and does not warm up properly. So to not happen, we can perform exercises such as "Rotations with pica", "Pull-Phase" or "Arms sliding on the wall".
• Scapular Activation: This part can be activated with the exercise of "Scapular Retraction" in plank position or "Push ups scapulars".
• Activation of the abdominal transverse: To activate this area we can make different planks holding for 8-10 seconds with micropauses of 2-3 seconds and performing 3 to 5 series.

It's important to note that you don't need to warm up all these parts of your body before all of your strength training (unless you do a full-body training), just the area you're going to work on in your training.

I hope that all this information has helped you and that from now on you will give the importance of the warm-up. 

See you in the next post.
May the force be with you!

REFERENCES

Alvarez del Villar, C. (1987). La preparación física del futbol basada en el atletismo. Gymnos. Retrieved from https://www.casadellibro.com/libro-la-preparacion-fisica-del-futbol-basada-en-el-atletismo/9788485945269/347250

Fradkin, A. J., Zazryn, T. R., & Smoliga, J. M. (2010). Effects of Warming-up on Physical Performance: A Systematic Review With Meta-analysis. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 24(1), 140–148. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181c643a0

Shellock, F. G., & Prentice, W. E. (1985). Warming-Up and Stretching for Improved Physical Performance and Prevention of Sports-Related Injuries. Sports Medicine, 2(4), 267–278. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-198502040-00004