The most important part of your workout.

“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail”.

Your workout is only as good as your warmup. In order to perform your best during any workout you must prepare the body appropriately to be ready for what is to come.

The old way of warming up before a workout was doing static stretching. Static stretching is when you hold a stretch for and extended period of time. This is ok sometimes before a workout but you want to have warm muscles first. You should never just start with static stretching.

The goal of a warmup is to get blood flowing to the muscles that will be working, as well as lubricating the joints to help prevent injury and increase range of motion. A warmup is also a great time to forget about all the distractions and set your mind on your workout and what you want to achieve in that next hour.

The best way to warmup is:

1) Movement – low impact movements that will elevate the heart rate and get the blood flowing.
2) Dynamic stretch – putting muscles and joints through a range of motion to be used during exercise. This is constant movement through a range of motion.
3) Activation – use corrective exercises to turn on the muscles that you normal are not using much throughout the day. Ex. If you sit all day some glute bridges will be good to get the glutes firing!

A warmup will determine how your workout will go. So take the extra time to prepare your body so you can get the most of your workout.

Here is a sample of a dynamic warmup for you.

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