Are You Ready to Train?

David Fleming

Cavemen didn't warm up so you dont have to? Well, as Mr Fleming will point out, theres a chance you spend a little more time on the Xbox 360 or stuck at a desk than most cavemen. You may find that your biomechanics are not quite what they could have been if you haven't been hunting and living wild since you were are child. However all is not lost, and with a few mobility exercises, a little nervous system activation and a bit of focus you will be ready for action. .

So, you’ve been sat at work all day with clients treating you like a bitch and your boss breathing down your neck. The end of your day arrives and you’ve made the right decision to head to the gym before enduring the trip home for some more dedicated sitting and hopefully good eating.

The decision to train as we all know is the right one, but is your body, after the day you’ve had, really ready to train and perform? In a word, no. Why not you may ask, well I'll tell you... You're not a 5 year old kid any more. It's true they don't ever stretch or warm up before tearing around the house crashing in to things but they hopefully have the blessings of perfect mobility, zero stress and an unpolluted mind and body. You're not a caveman. Again, I think it may have been unlikely to find a caveman trying to loosen up his calves before high tailing it away from a sabre tooth tiger but the caveman was undoubtedly a lot more active on a day to day basis than the modern man. Lifting, carrying, throwing, bending, running were all elements of survival. While if it was a life or death situation, thankfully, we have a glorious host of chemicals that take care of our ability to go in to overdrive at the drop of a hat. So if you want optimum performance with a reduced risk of injury, encouraging the body out of its defensive, flexed posture before you apply external load is a good idea, but first, it will help to understand why and how your body adapts to the weak, tight and awkward postures we place it in throughout the day.

The number one priority for the body is survival and so energy conservation is key. If you place your body in a certain position or repeat a certain movement over and over again, your body will find a way to complete that task with as little effort as possible, improving until the least amount of energy is used. This can be both good and bad. If you’re a sprinter, running flat out at first will be extremely taxing as you are innefficient at completing the task. Over time you will improve and your body will take the necessary steps to make sprinting more energy efficient, this is obviously the good side of the coin. If you spend 8-10 hours a day sat at a desk, the same thing will happen. Your body will adapt to make the position of sitting with a rounded back, flexed hips, protracted shoulders and neck easier to maintain. Why? For energy conservation and survival.

This second scenario is unfortunately the more common one. We are made of what is termed ‘viscoelastic’ material. That basically means that the tissues will creep, move and adapt to the positions we spend the most time in. Even though a flexed spine is suboptimal in terms of function, the tissues supporting the spine will allow it to happen, instead of fighting it which takes a lot more energy. The other bit of bad news is that as little as 20 minutes of flexion will cause 'creep' within our viscoelastic tissues. So if we then want to get the most out of our training sessions without undue niggling pain, we must wake the body up and prepare it to lift, run, jump, stretch, push and pull.

There are several factors to consider in your warm ups but my top four are as follows. Nutrition, hydration, mobility and progressive CNS activation.

Nutrition:

If you're finishing work at 6pm and heading straight to the gym, when did you last eat? By lifting weights you will use and somewhat deplete your glycogen stores. Glycogen is what the body converts carbohydrates into for energy. It is a bad idea to try and train hard while running on empty. The nutrition surrounding your workout is extremely important and if you are training for size, strength and or power I would recommend the following:

Pre-workout 2 hours before: Aim to eat a food meal consisting of dense fibrous carbohydrates (dark green, leafy vegetables), protein and essential fats (fish).

Pre-workout 30 minutes before: Make up a large protein/carbohydrate shake and consume a third to half of it. Caffeine, acetyl-L-carnitine, creatine and beta-alanine are all optional depending on your goals.

During workout: Consume a third of the shake.

Post workout: Consume the remainder of the shake and make sure you get another meal of dense fibrous carbohydrates, lean protein and essential fats within 1 hour of completing the session.

Hydration:

If you do not drink plenty of water and stay hydrated you will give your body a really hard time. Numerous studies have shown that dehydration can give rise to an 8% drop in performance. If the exercise you complete regularly is long in duration, such as 2 hour sessions or longer and there is a lot of fluid loss during the session, consider a glucose based electrolyte drink as well as plenty of water during and after the session.

Mobility:

As I mentioned earlier, your body will get good at being in the position it is held in for the longest time. During your working day, try to get up and move around at least every hour. Without looking like a crazy person, try to stretch your hip flexors, calfs, pec's and lat's to stop joints getting to lazy and flexed. When you get to the gym, take the time to mobilize your joints. Try these four simple movements to gently open joints and stimulate proprioceptors to gradually stimulate the nervous system:

1: Ankle Mobility: Dorsiflexion

2: Hip Mobility: Extension

3: Thoracic spine 1 - pec/transverse

4: Thoracic spine 2- lat/frontal

Complete these movements based on feel. I would recommend anywhere from 2-4 sets 0f 10 repetitions for each motion.

Performing these movements will gradually increase your core temperature and release the right fluids etc. so that you may associate with a traditional cardiovascular based warm up.

Central Nervous System (CNS) activation:

This sounds complicated but is actually very simple. If you're going to be lifting heavy weights, 85% 1RM and above, to get the most out of your work sets you want to up-regulate the nervous system to a higher working level with 3-5 non fatiguing and progressive warm up sets. For example if your work weight on the back sqaut is 100 kg's for 5 reps the warm up progression may look like this;

Set 1: 50kg x 8-10 reps - stop 2 reps short of any fatigue

Set 2: 70kg x 6-8 reps - stop 2 reps short of any fatigue

Set 3: 90kg x 3-5 reps - stop 2 reps short of any fatigue

Set 4: 105-110kg x 1 rep

Work sets as necessary.

Performing some power based movements pre-lifting will have a similar effect to the progression shown above. Jumps and skips for the lower body and medicine ball throws and slams for the upper body.

Even if you're not planning on lifting heavy, practicing the motion with an empty barbell before your work sets will be of benefit.

The protocols shown above should become second nature. The formation of good habits when dealing with the development of the body is imperative to reducing your risk of injury and maintaining/improving your health. As the population becomes more and more sedentary, those of us who do strive for improved strength, fitness, flexibility and a body that is basically as impressive as nature intended it to be can give ourselves a little helping hand along the way by pointing it in the right direction around the best hour of the day; training time!

About the Author

David Fleming is one of London’s top strength and conditioning coaches. He has studied and learned from the best strength coaches in the world. He is happily married and can lift heavy weights. His mother is very proud of him and he writes a good article.It took him until the age of 30 to pass his driving test, but other than that he is a solid chap.

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