Warming Up - Part 1 of 2

What is it and why is it so hard to do?

We often hear these things from the exact same people:

  • “My shoulder hurts when I bench”

  • “My knee hurts when I jump”

  • “My back hurts when I run”

… have you tried warming up (properly)?

Crazy, I know - talk about reinventing the wheel.

Disclaimer - before we dig into mobility, muscle activation, flexibility, etc. let’s address something that is far more important. It’s called your nervous system.

Your nervous system dictates how you feel.

Sometimes you feel crap, lethargic, stiff and/or sore.

So what do you do?

There is this ‘thing’ called your sympathetic nervous state. This state is responsible for ‘fight or flight’ responses and is commonly associated with running away from a bear or fending off an attacker. It’s basically your brain preparing your body for life or death situations - or for the purpose of the modern world we live in -  physical and intense activity.

The opposite is referred to as your parasympathetic state. You may have heard of this before as ‘rest and digest’.

So, a good warm up should switch you from a parasympathetic state to a sympathetic state.

What does that look like?

Find out in our next blog post.