Warmups and cooldowns

TLDR

  • Beginners are probably overthinking warmups and cooldowns
  • As your training age and your actual age increases, you’ll need to pay more attention to warmups and cooldowns

Warmups

It’s generally agreed the goals of a warmup are to:

  • Increase body temperature which should reduce injury risk
  • Prep the relevant joints you are planning to train
  • Mentally get into the right state of mind so you’re firing on the first set

In descending order of importance, these are the building blocks of a warmup:

  1. Doing lighter sets of the actual exercise
  2. Breathing and positioning drills
  3. Joint prep
  4. General cardio
  5. Foam rolling and massage ball rolling

The upper body warm-up

Global warm-ups

  • Asymmetrical tabletop hold for 4 deep breaths
  • Cable shoulder IR for 1 set
  • Cable shoulder ER for 1 set
  • Cable shoulder IR for 10 sec iso hold
  • Cable shoulder ER for 10 sec iso hold

Specific work (to be done before the actual exercise)

Chest

  • Cable 1-arm fly for 1 to 2 sets

Back

  • Cable 1-arm lateral flexion lat stretch for 1 to 2 sets

Wrists

  • Sideways wrist for 10 pulses
  • Reverse sideways wrist for 10 pulses
  • Backwards wrist for 10 pulses
  • Reverse backwards wrist for 10 pulses
  • Finger flexion for 10 pulses
  • Forward wrist for 10 pulses

The lower body warm-up

Global warm-ups

  • Feet supported deadbug hold for 4 deep breaths
  • Wall tibia raise for 1 set
  • Wall 1-leg calf raise for 1 set
  • DB leg curl for 1 set

The full body warm-up

Global warming-ups

  • Feet supported deadbug hold for 4 deep breaths
  • Wall tibia raise for 1 set
  • Wall 1-leg calf raise for 1 set
  • Cable shoulder IR for 1 set
  • Cable shoulder ER for 1 set

Cooldowns

The goal of a cooldown is to signal to your body to relax in order to begin the recovery process.

Again, chances are if you haven’t been intentionally lifting for a while (say over 5 years) you’re not going to need some extensive cooldown.

The cooldown

  • Squat down, reach out with your arms to hold onto a stable object (a smith machine bar for example) and breath in, focusing on expanding your ribcage and upper back. Do this for 4-6 deep nasal breaths.