Is anything less boring than warming up and recovering?
Yes, actually what comes to my mind is:
– Not being able to workout at all because you hurt yourself in a workout due to an insufficient warm-up.
– Having to severely modify your workout because you hurt yourself by not warming up.
Or maybe you haven’t hurt yourself (btw- if you’re skipping warm-ups then we’ll just add a “yet” to that statement) but think about this; the less prepared your body is to move via an adequate warm-up the less effective your workout will be.
You’ll spend the first 10-15 minutes just getting your body to finish warming up, get loose and be able to move properly.
Muscles that are usually slow to fire like your glutes, may not turn on until half-way through your workout or at all. Meaning all that booty work you were doing actually has no “booty” involved. Think: Slooow to NO results.
As Martin Rooney says: “The warm-up isn’t so you can get to the good stuff. The warm-up IS the good stuff.”
This doesn’t mean that you have to spend 30 minutes warming up. You can get an effective warm-up in about 5-7 minutes depending on your training focus for the day.
Here is one I use when I’m crunched for time:
- Leg swings front and to the side. I like these because the open the hips, make your stabilizers fire and get your heart beating a little faster all with no impact.
- Hip circles. I tell my clients to picture that they are trying to hit every inch of the inside of a barrel.
- 3-legged dog to spiderman climb with rotation. This hits shoulder, thoracic spine, hips, the whole shebang!
- 1-leg 1.5 glute bridge
If I’m working heavy legs I throw in an extra glute activation.
I made this quick video for you:
We’ve all seen those videos of very senior citizens still active and killing workouts that would crush some 20-somethings. Isn’t that #goals?
Take care of your body, it’s the only one you’ve got.