The science behind the warmup

@jermyn Thanks for chiming in!

I wonder, how often do you move throughout the day? Like, would you say youā€™re always moving about, whether thatā€™s exercising, limbering, walking etc? As opposed to sitting sedentarily (at a desk, on the sofa, say).

I think that perhaps the more a person moves generally throughout their daily life the ā€œbetter greasedā€ their muscles and joints are, meaning theyā€™re better prepared to suddenly begin exercising. Compare that to most modern sedentary people who spend 8+ hours of their day sitting, and over time their bodies would become horrendously tight and unable to quickly adapt to exercise without said warm up

I often see your anti-warm up posts (for lack of a better word) on Instagram and think to myself ā€œMan, thatā€™d be awesome. I could save SO much time.ā€ But Iā€™m super intimidated by the risk of injury or even possible reduced ability (whether that be strength or ROM). Anecdotally I certainly do feel for things like handstands if I do only a short warmup for my wrists, they feel super tight for the first 5 minutes or until they naturally become warmed up through my workout. But Iā€™ve never really tried it with other exercises.
 
@jesusloverr
Thanks for chiming in!

No problem! :D

I wonder, how often do you move throughout the day?

Not much at all. I'm actually not near as active as people would think. I ditched all the extra movement stuff I was doing long ago so on off days, I go for a walk sometimes and that's it. I spend a lot of my day on the computer answering emails, making post, writing comments, answering messages, on reddit etc and then in my free time, I tend to watch TV and play video games (currently watching Bojack Horseman and playing the new Hyrule Warriors with my wife)

I think that perhaps the more a person moves generally throughout their daily life the ā€œbetter greasedā€ their muscles and joints are, meaning theyā€™re better prepared to suddenly begin exercising. Compare that to most modern sedentary people who spend 8+ hours of their day sitting, and over time their bodies would become horrendously tight and unable to quickly adapt to exercise without said warm up

I thought this too at first but then I realized I had so many trainees who were desk workers who would commute to come train with me and still do no warm-up that it was kind not showing itself to be as true as I thought. I really think it's more in the dosage. Again, I'm really strict about making sure people walk into each session feeling GOOD (as in not achy and sore still). If that doesn't happen, we wait until they do.

I often see your anti-warm up posts

Haha that's what I mean. I don't want to seem like I am anti-warmup. Just anti lack of nuance. No warm-up doesn't automatically equal injury. There are circumstances where replication is showing that isn't as true as it seems. But I DEFINITELY don't want people to get the idea that warm-ups are USELESS. I gave that idea in the past. Trying to fix it now and be more nuanced.

But Iā€™m super intimidated by the risk of injury or even possible reduced ability (whether that be strength or ROM).

Are you training with the circumstances I listed above? If not, I would be careful about trying it anyway. But if you are, don't even think of it as fully eliminating your warm-up. Just think of it as starting at higher and higher loads. One day, you may find you don't need one at all. But even if you don't, you'll find you're MUCH more capable cold than before and that's cool in itself. There is something awesome about knowing your body can perform WHENEVER you want. Not just under perfect conditions.

Anecdotally I certainly do feel for things like handstands if I do only a short warmup for my wrists, they feel super tight for the first 5 minutes or until they naturally become warmed up through my workout. But Iā€™ve never really tried it with other exercises.

Yeah this is what I mean. So over time, this can get better and better (if you are under those circumstances I mentioned...) and you can start it without a warm-up and your wrist feel good FROM the start. But if not or if you HS more often and have to start sessions stiff and achy, you might want a warm-up before.
 
@jermyn One day, when Iā€™m not a poor postgrad student, I think Iā€™d like to hire your services (or at least try out one of your programs).

One final question if I may! You obviously prioritise rest and recuperation between workouts, but for skills like Handstands which arguably require daily practice, how can someone make sure they get adequate rest between sessions (I currently do HSs every other day, but my wrists always feel rough at the start of sessions)

Thanks bro!
 
@jesusloverr
One day, when Iā€™m not a poor postgrad student, I think Iā€™d like to hire your services (or at least try out one of your programs).

I am looking forward to working together some day! It's always an honor when people believe in us and want to try out our method! Thank you!

One final question if I may

Ask everything you want. I love talking about this stuff šŸ˜Š

You obviously prioritise rest and recuperation between workouts, but for skills like Handstands which arguably require daily practice, how can someone make sure they get adequate rest between sessions (I currently do HSs every other day, but my wrists always feel rough at the start of sessions)

So first, limit your other sources of wrist strain so you can "save" your wrist for handbalancing. Do your pushing work on parallettes and/or rings. Do your pulling work on rings rather than bars and that might help too. Then, your wrist get more recovery since they get less "workout strain".

Next, try to manage the volume in the session. Don't do so much that you're in PAIN tomorrow. More important to do more frequent work with skills. So do enough, then back off and do the next day, then back off etc.

Last, this doesn't apply to handbalancing as much but try to find ways to get the volume in without all the load. An example would be that if you want to learn flips, use things like trampolines to get more volume in without the impact.
 
@jesusloverr Thank you! It actually was WAY more positive than I thought it would be. I expected it to be one of those where people get mad about the almighty warm-up LOL
 
@jermyn I figured I'd chime in and respond to your comment here to say that I've also never needed to warm up and haven't ever had anything bad happen as a result.

I never needed to warm up all the times back when I used to still lift weights and haven't ever needed to do it for anything BWF/calisthenics related.
 
@neptune4 I LOVE this! There are so many stories of people who DON'T do it and are fine. So I think we need to read those too and develop nuance and figure out what circumstances are okay and which aren't rather than just preach that you will die immediately without one!
 
@jesusloverr That Instagram post reeks of pointless content to me. A lot of these fitness folk build up their brands then realize a couple years in that they don't have anything of value left to say, so they resort to these lame contrarian takes to keep the content coming.

Look at what the caption says. It's just saying don't be dogmatic about your fitness practices, big deal, he'll probably get a ton more mileage out of this hot take by paraphrasing it for half a dozen other fitness and health related topics. I eat fried foods and didn't become obese, wow!! Don't believe everything you read!!!

Warmups are a great and low cost way to ensure you don't incur unnecessary injury. You spend 10 minutes doing it, waste almost no energy, and you're on your way. Does not doing it guarantee injury and pain? Probably not. But this is a weird and pointless hill for anyone to die on.

Apart from that, warmups are also great for getting you into a good headspace especially once you go into the heavier lifts or more complex movements. Why not do it? Because you don't want to be a #SuckerSaturdayMM target?
 
@peslaugh Admittedly it certainly seems like everyone has a different definition of what a warm-up actually constitutes. Those saying ā€œI never warm upā€ but then go on to say they do 5 pyramid sets starting with light weights, clearly have categorised warmups as a CV only type affair.
 
@jesusloverr I personally don't warmup a lot, I usually just get my blood pumping and I take joints and muscle to their full range of motion in the air. But I am young and this coule bite me in the ass in the future.
 
@dawn16 Indeed, but if you see the link of the instagram post OP linked, he is talking about warmups with low weights or resistance bands, and its mocking that.
 
@jesusloverr There are some great answers on here already, but I'll chime in with my anecdotal experience.

When I was younger I could roll out of bed, throw on some shoes and just go. Once I hit my late 20's I started to experience injuries. Through some trial and error (more than it should have taken because I'm stubborn) I realized that I absolutely had to warm up for anything minus probably biking.

A solid progressive warm up of at least 5 minutes is now as important in my regimen as what I would consider my actual work out, otherwise it feels like I'm playing Russian Roulette with the next few weeks at stake and saving 5 minutes just isn't worth it.

I really wish I had appreciated my youth more.
 
@jesusloverr My experience has been that, when I first started and was a stiff, weak man in my late 30s unused to exercise, I needed a decent warm up. In the past few years I've essentially been stripping away the warm up to only a few key things I feel I need, and haven't experienced any negative side effects.

The problem is people see a warmup lay out (as in the RR or any other programs) as a strict program instead of general guide. You can add, subtract, and change whatever you need.
 
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