A Warm-Up Wake Up Call

By: Kelsie Mazur, DPT

If you’re anything like me, you dread warming up before a run or heavy lifting day. Sorry to tell you, you got to start taking your warm up seriously. The main goal of a warmup is to prepare your body for the workout. There is nothing more cringe, as a physical therapist, than seeing someone walk out their door onto the pavement to run without a warm up! Or someone jump into their set of heavy back squats… then they wonder why they need that knee brace they’re wearing. 

By “warm up”, I do not mean only foam rolling your spine to get that good release, or rolling your feet out on a lacrosse ball, or (my personal favorite) using any sort of massage gun… ever. If you are not doing movements that mimic what you would do in the workout, you are doing yourself a disservice in terms of the workout’s effectiveness. Warmups should align with the goals of your workout and reflect what you hope to obtain from the exercise.

Let's talk about the effectiveness and importance of a dynamic warm up. Unlike static stretching, which involves holding a stretch for an extended period, a dynamic warm-up involves active movements that increase your heart rate, blood flow, and body temperature.

When I say “warming up” I literally mean elevating your core body temperature, as this increases muscle viscosity and tendon elasticity. This is going to allow you not only to get into a steady state speed faster during running but it’ll also help you sit deeper into your squats, jump higher, move faster, and potentially even lift heavier. But it will protect your muscles and tendons from any injury you would sustain under a stress or load that your body was not ready for.

Our brain plays a significant role in allowing our body to run, move, lift, and do these things with great purpose and safety. A running warm up or warm up set before a lift is what we call a neurological primer. This means that the warm up acts by introducing your body to the stimulus that is the focus of the session. For example, a distance runner may warm up with agility drills or a series of different hopping motions. Furthermore, other fancy tools in my PT tool kit like foam rolling, massage, and dry needling can also serve as a neurological primer in preparing your body for a workout, so incorporating a few minutes of foam rolling on top of your dynamic warm up routine could be highly effective. 

Here at Wattage, I don’t expect you to come in for physical therapy every day of the week. One of my goals as the therapist is to equip you with the tools to heal your injury independently. I expect that you are working out on your own, so many times I will prescribe exercises, personalized to your lifestyle, to assist you in getting back to 100%. These exercises serve as a great warmup for your daily workouts outside of physical therapy. 

Developing a warmup routine may feel tricky and confusing. If this article intrigues you or you feel like you need some guidance on a lifting or running warm up, you can directly email me at Kelsie@wattagept.com. I would be happy to help you with a warm up plan and if needed. Let’s start the process of living a life free from pain and injury!