Dynamic warm up exercises are CRUCIAL before any workout or sporting activity…
That’s right – do not begin working out or doing anything active before you’ve done the following (which might take you 10 minutes at most).
A LIGHT AEROBIC WARM-UP
Every workout needs to start with activity that will raise your core temperature and make your muscles more elastic for the coming workout. Doing some light jogging, biking, or anything else that increases your heart rate/temperature is what you need to start with.
Otherwise, getting into your workout with cold muscles is like stretching an elastic band that you’ve just pulled out of the freezer. I’ll let you figure out what happens there.
Your light aerobic/cardio warm-up can last 5-10 minutes and should be done at your “talk test pace”, which is a pace/intensity where you can hear your breathing but are still able to maintain a conversation. So, no “huffing and puffing” yet.
DYNAMIC WARM-UP EXERCISES
Now that your body is warm it’s time to work out the kinks, dust off the cobwebs, and get your muscles and joints used to the ranges of motions and movement patterns that you’ll be encountering during the workout.
At this stage, the goal isn’t to STRETCH but rather go through movements that will progressively loosen your muscles and lubricate your joints.
Examples of dynamic warm-up movements include lunge walks, inch worms, push-ups, leg swings, and pretty much any other bodyweight movement that incorporates a certain degree of flexibility, strength, and range of motion.
Now to the average person those names mean absolutely nothing, so to help you out I’ve prepared a special video that will take you through a number of these terrific dynamic warm up exercises.
Enjoy…
Dynamic Warm Up Exercises – Video Explained
You can use these dynamic warm up exercisesbefore any workout in the gym or if you are an athlete like a soccer player, tennis player or whatever and you need to warm up your body more effectively beforehand.
Dynamic warm-ups are what their name implies…
It’s a warm-up that includes dynamic movements and the reason that’s important is because you don’t want to just do some light cardio and just get your body warm and then go into your sport or go into lifting weights without first priming your muscles or nervous system. It’s important to go through ranges of motion that you’re going to be subjected to during your workout or sport.
There are a lot of different things you can do in a dynamic warm-up but I am going to take you through a number of exercises which I do on a daily basis before my workouts or my activity in sport that are going to help you loosen up and really get a lot of stuff going on through various ranges of motions.
The idea is that you should have already done a light cardio warm-up (as mentioned earlier), so some jogging, etc… to get your body moving for about five minutes to get warmed up.
The Inch Worm
The first dynamic warm up exercise is called an Inch Worm.
You can do this at home or in the gym, it doesn’t really matter. Here, you are going to come in through a push-up position and from there where we are going to walk the feet in towards the hands, heels towards the floor. Then, walk your hands out, back to push-up position, walk the feet in, keeping your legs straight.
Got it?
Now, what we are doing here is getting the back side of the body, the hamstrings, the calves, and lower back all loosened up.
The Frog Walk-In
The second exercise is going to target your groin and hamstrings. We can call it a frog walk-in.
We will start in a push-up position and what we are going to do here is we are going to come in with the foot, making sure the heel contacts the floor first, then take it back out, and repeat with the other leg.
If you were to bring both my feet in, you would essentially be sitting in a groin stretch but what we are doing here is keeping things more dynamic. Complete about 10 to 12 reps total.
The Frog Walk-In Twist
Next, I am going to show you a cool progression to the previous dynamic warm up exercise. Here, we are going to get a little rotation involved.
As with the Frog Walk-in, we’ll begin in a push-up position and bring one foot in (as before) but now we are going to rotate the back foot so that it’s flat on the floor and then we are going to twist and open up to the side.
This is a great dynamic exercise to continue targeting the muscles of hips and introducing rotation – which we all do – into the mix.
The Twisting Reverse Lunge
Next, we are going to do a twisting reverse lunge which will help to open up your hip flexors and abdominal muscles.
From a standing position take one foot back and then twist and extend, over and back.
So, if your right foot is forward, you would extend and twist over to your right. Then, return to standing and repeat with the other leg/side.
As you’ll see, there’s quite a bit of balance involved in this exercise, which is a great thing for getting you ready for any kind of sporting activity.
The 2-Step Hamstring Stretch
I guess that’s what I’ll call it. The names don’t really matter anyways.
For this one, you can do it in a walking fashion or simply from a standing position.
Start off in a standing position and then drop into a forward lunge. From there, take your forearm, drop it to your instep so that you are now getting a lot of upper hamstring and groin action.
Next, take your hand to other side of your foot and extend back so that your leg straightens. This targets more of the hamstring.
You can then reverse this motion and come back to your original standing position or move through a series of lunge walks as you perform this dynamic warm up exercise.
So that’s five great dynamic warm up exercises that will give you a great pre-workout or pre-sport warm-up. Now them give them a shot and let me know how it goes.
==> Click here for the ultimate dynamic warm up program (for runners and all exercisers)
a
Thanks for the tip. I appreciate that you provided this info via text in addition to a video. I often do not have time to watch a video, so I prefer the quicker text. Question- can we warm up in a sauna? My gym has a sauna. thanks. a
Mark Samuel Tuttle
I had a hard time getting a high school JV lacrosse team to do dynamic warmups; they preferred static stretching.
Your excellent dynamic routine might have engaged them at a deeper level and thus gained their interest.
– Mark
Caroline
This is great Yuri! Love that you’re getting some yoga in. I’ll use these exercises with my boys (basketball players).
I do Sun Salutations before my workouts.
J
Thats an amazing and well put routine Yuri. I LOVE dynamic warmups. I’m going to give your routine a try, it’s quite interesting. Your the best Yuri, well one of
Elisa
Great stuff! Ever thought of adding some primal movements to your warm up also? I regularly do these as well as the ones shown by you. I find them very effective in waking every sleepy muscles before a workout! A favourite of mine is the walking caterpillar!
Elisa
Joan Hartsough
Thanks so much! Appreciated the video from both angles. Never did dynamic warm ups before, and looking forward to better ROM with exercises. Thanks again!
Irshad
Excuse me yuri, can u please make a video about why protein found in some dairy products (e.g bread) could not be used to build muscle? Also what is the difference between amino acids and protein? Can u help explain please?
Panama
There are two types of flexibility receptors, a static receptor, which measures magnitude and a dynamic receptor, which measure speed and magnitude. As one would expect, dynamic activities that require movement, such as running, jumping, or kicking use the dynamic receptor to limit flexibility. Therefore, a dynamic stretch that stresses the dynamic receptor is more beneficial when preparing for a warm-up when performing a dynamic activity.