How are you doing your warm ups?

[Alan Armstrong]

Popular opinion is to always warm up before stretching as cold muscle can cause injuries.

Some days I will start my warm up workout wearing as many as 5 pairs of sweat pants, then as the workout continues removing them when needed.

My personal preference is to make small circular movements with my joints first and gradually increase the size of the circles, working out any kinks that might cause injuries by moving too fast too soon before being completely limbered up.

Once the joints are running smoothly, then it is time for the muscles to be warmed up by means of slow moving contractions and extensions, to create a little friction between muscles, adding intensity and speed throughout the workout.

With the idea of warming up without wearing out, as in without the use of energetic cardio movements.

Allowing for the use of finer motor skills to become improved upon and body alignment checks before making gross movements such as jumping Jack's or jogging often used in warming up muscles.

As closer to the end of a workout the more intense the muscles can be made to work for strengthening and stretching them for improved flexibility.

Why I mention all this, is that the fine motor skills and alignment aspect can become lost due to quick intense warm ups and too much stretching before being adequately warmed up.

How are you doing your warm ups?

[Fat Cobra]

The standard in the ShuBu Kan is to start class (after bowing in) with 50 sumo squats, then calisthenics. Our 2 most common varieties are:

Variety 1:

3 sets of the following:

Jog in Place - 30 sec

Jumping Jacks - 30 sec

Pushups - 30 sec

Crunches - 30 sec

Variety 2 (tougher - Insanity workout warmup):

3 - 4 sets of the following:

Jog in Place - 30 sec

Jumping Jacks - 30 sec

"Heisman" - 30 sec

3 Step - 30 sec

Butt Kick Jog - 30 sec

High Knee Jog - 30 sec

"Mummy" - 30 sec

Both varieties are done with no rest in between exercises or sets.

After that we go into kicking, then break falls, then we stretch, then we do hand exercises, and then we take our first break. This takes 30 to 40 minutes. After that, we go into stance work, kata, tuite drills, and then ude tanren (forearm conditioning). Class is 1 hour 30 minutes.

[username19853]

I don’t teach martial arts, although I do teach what can sometimes be a very intense vinyasa yoga class. I’ll usually start class with fluid mobility type movements and maybe a brief (and gentle) stretch or two, depending on what I’ll be working on in class.

I’m a firm believer in dynamic stretching before exercise and static stretching after, although I’ve had a lot of positive feedback when including gentle, brief stretches towards the beginning of dynamic stretching.

If you’re interested, I do similar things to warm up before Olympic lifting, which requires similar explosive power output to martial arts.

- Treadmill (5-10 minutes, optional)

- cat pose and cow pose, fluid transitions between spinal flexion and extension, 10x

- spinal rotations on all fours, think “thread the arm” between your opposite arm and leg, then “dethread” the arm and twist to reach up towards the ceiling. 10x each side

- spinal flexion/extension with core engagement. One leg extends (cow spine) then bring that knee in towards your nose (cat spine) 10x each side.

- repeating above, but with one arm reaching forward. As the knee comes toward the nose, being the extended arms elbow in to meet it (cat spine)

- internal and external rotations for the hips. Still on all fours, one leg extends back and bends at the knee. Big circles as the knee is pulled out to the side, towards the ribs, then the chest, and back up. Then repeat in the opposite direction.

- downward facing dog pose. Bending and re-straightening one leg at a time to lightly stretch calves and hamstrings, then hold still. 5 breaths

- lizard lunge. From down dog, step right foot outside of the right hand. Playing around with circling the knee around the angle, the straightening the front leg and rebending 10x both sides

- deep squat, holding and pulsing the legs. Maybe lifting the arms up and trying to lift my chest while keeping heels down.

I’ll add in some shoulder swings and arm circle circle stuff and then I usually feel pretty good to go! I like to think of this as some standard mobility stuff, but if you focus one the contractions and slow transitions, you’d be surprised at the heat that can build!

[sensei8]

We/I stretch before and after class; 15 minutes at the start...5 minutes at the end...

Before Class:

Body Loosening

Neck Twisting

Arm Stretching

Side Stretching

Trunk Twisting

Back Stretching

Shoulder Shrug

Leg Swinging

Leg Stretching

Leg Spreading

Back Stretching

Trunk Stretching

Leg Relaxing

Joint Loosing

Cat Stretching

Push Ups

Pelvis Twisting

Rabbit Hopping

Leg Lifting

Leg Snapping

Rope Skipping

After Class:

Calves and Hamstrings Stretch

Hip Flexors Stretch

Abs Stretch

Glutes Stretch

Chest Stretch

[DWx]

I do less and less traditional warm-ups now. Jogging in-place, exercises etc. are boring! Instead I make the class play games to get warmed up, anything that increases the heart rate and gets the blood flowing. Kids love it and so do the adults too.