The science behind the warmup

[jesusloverr]

After stumbling across The Mindful Movers’ recent Instagram post , where he claims that he hasn’t warmup up before working out in 2 years, and has done so with zero injuries, it made me wonder what the science actually says about warming up.

Is the ingrained belief that we must warmup before workouts just indoctrinated into us through hearsay and community word-of-mouth, or is there actually any science out there that supports the notion?

EDIT: @jermyn may want to chime in on this ;-)

EDIT2: This thread has produced some really divided opinions on the subject of warming up. LOTS of anecdotal cases of people from both sides of the argument. Clearly if science had categorical proof of one or the other, you’d think we would all be closer to an agreement. But the fact that there just doesn’t seem to be any profound agreement makes me really unsure about which is better. I guess the jury is still out on this one.

 

[sethproton]

@jesusloverr "I'm tired, i'll skip warmup today." - I said this 3 years ago, in a cold winter night, right before injuring my chest with bodyweight dips. Still haven't healed, can't even work out since then. Learned the lesson the hard way.

 

[madhusudhana25758]

@sethproton for your recovery, try doing assisted Dips with bands. go with the heaviest bands available and SLOWLY increase from there. You need some kind of stimulus to heal the injured muscle/tendon/ligament. Plus, eat in a caloric surplus. You need those calories to go into repairing the tissue. I have injured my chest myself almost two years ago - I guess it was costochronditis from doing archer ring Pushups. I couldn't do dips for a year. Eventually, it got better but only when I did those two things: assisted dips and eating a lot. As long as I was on my cut, it didn't change. And take your time. It took me months before I could start doing regular Dips again.

 

[sethproton]

@madhusudhana25758 Thanks, really appriciate it I have tried all these things, wall pushups, anti-inflammation gels AND capsules, resting it... with no results. Now I'm doing rehab, and became good friends with my doc

 

[adamgarfield]

@sethproton The studies show that you should either A) never warm up or B) always warm up. They found that injuries happen exactly like it happened to you - skipping a warmup that was normally done.

 

[jesusloverr]

@adamgarfield This is the first I’ve ever heard of this. Sounds interesting though, as in the body adapts to always receiving a warmup or not. Would you be able to share any evidence to back this up (ie. links to studies)?

 

[bigmike424]

@jesusloverr Sounds real bro sciency to me

 

[carolean87]

@bigmike424 It sounds like the kind of thing that, if there is some evidence “supporting” it, could also be explained by “some people (especially young people) don’t need to warm up, but the rest of us do. If those of of us who need to warm up don’t, we’re likely to get injured.”

 

[adamgarfield]

@jesusloverr First saw it on Reddit. Having a hard time finding sources because there’s no distinguishing search terms

 

[littlepikachu]

@jesusloverr Science does confirm that static stretches before exercising might increase risk of injury. Static stretches afterwards are fine, and dynamic stretches before and after are fine. So the recommendations there have changed in the last 5-10 years.

I haven't seen any similar scientific shift about warm-ups themselves - someone else can chime in there - though I can say if I don't warm up, my later sets of the same exercise can be easier than the earlier sets so blood flow and whatever else does help with being able to exercise.

 

[shneider177]

@littlepikachu

if I don't warm up, my later sets of the same exercise can be easier than the earlier sets so blood flow and whatever else does help with being able to exercise.

I've noticed the same thing. I'm following a home training program a coach at my gym made for me and with shorter warm-ups / warm-ups that don't target muscles I need later, I notice that the same exercise gets easier as I go through sets (and then get harder again as I get fatigued).

 

[damonfriend]

@jesusloverr Personally if I don't warm up I get tired much faster. This is drastic when I'm rock climbing.

 

[jesusloverr]

@damonfriend Perhaps similarly I find not warming up my wrists makes them feel horrible when training handstands

 

[dawn16]

@damonfriend Also, climbing fingery stuff without warming up, brrrrr. Painful, horrible.

 

[nettie6684]

@damonfriend Yes the dreaded flash pump! I wonder why this happens?

 

[morningfireeater]

@damonfriend Not warming up before climbing is kinda stupid. Except if you are a pro climber and/or a young good climber maybe you can manage it. But it's a no go to not warmup. Everyone knows it's better to warm up good at least your fingers/joints when climbing

 

[jermyn]

@jesusloverr Hi! I love this topic.

So if you look at the standard science, you are probably going to see warm-ups touted as beneficial for injury prevention. And I am not saying they are NOT beneficial for injury prevention or performance enhancement or any of that. I think they absolutely can be.

My point is that under certain circumstances, it seems a lot of people are fine SKIPPING the warm-up and staying injury-free and gaining from session to session. These circumstances are:

One: Strength and Sprint training (on soft surfaces) only. I am not talking about movement, sports, etc. For those, it's much harder to test. It may or may not work. For example, I didn't warm-up all the way from purple belt to black belt in BJJ and I stayed injury-free there too but I practiced differently than people. But for strength training and sprinting on soft surfaces, I have seen a lot of people at this point skip it and be fine.

Two: Minimal Effective Dose training. So the people I train who skip warm-up do it while training with MED. This means training with the dose that makes gains and then resting until fully recovered (ZERO aches or soreness) before next session. I go into each session ALREADY feeling loose and ready to go and I tell my trainees to do the same as well as anyone who ask about it on Instagram. If you're doing something like 3 sessions a week and you aren't fully recovered between sessions, you may want to warm-up.

Three: Full mobility. If you aren't able to get into the positions that you need to without a warm-up, you should warm-up. This one is objective. If you can't squat down all the way without a warm-up, then warm up. Now over time, you may find you can squat down without a warm-up and I use training tools that help people build that ability like Split Squats but at first, you may need it.

Fourth: Progressively working up to no warm-up. So if you squat 500 pounds but you need 10 sets to ramp up to it, please don't unrack 500 pounds tomorrow and start with that. Keep your ramp up sets but gradually start higher. So if you usually go 135, 225, 315, 405, 495, etc, start your NEXT session with something like 150, 245, 335 etc.

Five: Do it if you WANT to. If you simply prefer to warm-up, then I fully support that and I am happy to even help you tune it to make it better if I can. If you want to be able to SKIP your warm-up, I am happy to help that too.

As far as I know, there hasn't been a scientific study on these warm-up and these circumstances and if lab tested, it might show that the injury rate is low enough that you can hop right to it as long as you are under these circumstances.

Is the ingrained belief that we must warmup before workouts just indoctrinated into us

I think it's more like it's in us but WITHOUT nuance. The people who shout that you WILL be injured without a warm-up need more nuance because there are cases and circumstances where it appears to not be true. The people who say it only works for young people need more nuance since there are older trainees who do this too and are fine (ironically some of my older trainees are the who's think warm-ups are a waste of their time ). The people who say warm-ups are completely useless (like myself in the past... sorry about that ☹) need more nuance too because warm-ups CAN be beneficial as well. Basically, the hard statements need to be softened because there's more nuance.

Okay hopefully that clears it up and doesn't get me TOO much hate mail. . Happy to answer any questions about it if there are any.

 

[hunter101]

@jermyn I like your idea of progressing on the warmups.

It's all a matter of degrees. If you can barely do a single pullup, it may make sense to do some stuff before that. But if you're doing weighted pullups and your max is 50% added weight, bodyweight pullups are a warmup.

One man's max is another man's first warmup set.

 

[jermyn]

@hunter101

I like your idea of progressing on the warmups.

That's the name of the game! The body can adapt to not needing one under the right circumstances but you STILL need to build it up. Can't just be like "I have been using 10 sets to warm-up but now I am going to just jump STRAIGHT in".

You gotta... warm-up to no warm-up!

 

[esmeknits]

@jermyn My mans said “I became the quintessential purple belt. Class started at 6:30? I promptly got there at 6:45.”