52 hours of extra exercise per year.

That’s how much you can gain by completing a 15-minute warm up 4x per week before your training sessions.

That’s probably more than more than 90% of the population get, and if you are someone who regularly exercises those 52 hours don’t even include your planned workout time.

Ok, so that may not be enough to convince those who are already feeling in good shape and don’t think they need that 15 minutes of extra exercise.

Majority of football players we have worked with hate warming up, pinging a few 30-yard shots or wearing their training long sleeve top and pants counts as ‘getting warm’ for some.

Funnily enough, players are at the lower level are usually those who need to warm up even more. Although, higher level athletes who tend to be in the habit of warming up can often be in auto-pilot and don’t go through the warm up with purpose.

Of course, there are many people who take their warm up into consideration as part of their warm up, and those people tend to be in pretty good condition.

WHY?

With a good warm up you are essentially preparing yourself for what is ahead. I like to call this part ‘preparation’ as opposed to just ‘warming up’.

Will you make it through with a couple or leg swings and shoulder swings and some light movements prior? probably.

But…

If you are about ‘just making it through’ then you are probably setting yourself some pretty low standards.

Fundamentally, you are going to be increasing blood flow.

Why not improve some weaknesses, reduce the chance of injury, work on any niggling injuries, ensure you are able to run your fastest, react quicker jump your highest and lift the most amount of weight in the session ahead?

A well planned warm up will do exactly that.

HOW?

Whether you are in the gym or on the field I would suggest the following:

Raise the Temperature of The Body
Here you can do pretty much anything from a short bodyweight circuit, skipping, jogging, side shuffles, carioca or if you are on the pitch about to train, then a simple warm up incorporating the ball is ideal.

Depending on the nature of the session, it’s also a good time to include a bit of fun if it’s a group session or perhaps prior to a recover session.

Activation
This has become a bit of a buzz work as of late. You’ll see pretty much any serious gym go-er and athlete using mini-bands, light weights or core exercises to get the glutes and core ‘activated’ prior to the session.

Exercises such a monster-walks with a mini-band around the knees and deadbugs are a way of ensuring that the glutes and the core are going to working as they should be. Very often, our glutes become dormant from sitting all day and needs this little kick as a sort of ‘wake up’.

Otherwise, our hamstrings and other surrounding muscles end up doing extra work that can cause overuse injuries and minimise power output.

Completing the activation often eradicates some hip mobility issues people feel and also reduces some back pain for people.

Mobility
This doesn’t have to be anything more than 3-5 exercises using some dynamic movements to open up our hips, thoracic spine, shoulders and ankle joints.

Beginning your session with limiting range in these joints will once again limit our potential to be fast, strong and powerful. It will also increase the chances of an injury as we attempt to take an exercise through its full range.

Potentiation
This is just a word for getting your central nervous system fired up. This can be done by using some short sprints, ladder work, medicine balls or jumps.

Very often, if you feel sluggish, this is the part that will get you raring to go!

Example

There are loads of ways to do this and many effective ways to individualise a warm up to suit your needs and the session type. Here is a generic guide:

20m Run forward, run backwards, side-shuffle, skip and carioca x2

Mini-band monster walk with band around knees x10 sideways (each side)

Mini-band monster walk with band around ankles or feet x10 sideways (each side)

Deadbug x6 each side

Pull knee to chest and come up on toe on opposite foot x5 each leg

Make figure 4 with foot to opposite knee and sit back x5 each leg

Open the gate: keep hands on head opening hip one at a time x5 each leg

Lunge forward with rotation, backwards and sideways x3 each direction

Inchworm: push up position, keep legs straight and take small steps until feet are flat, walk hands back out into push up position. Repeat 5x

Spiderman: Push up position, right foot next to right hand, return to start, do left side. Repeat 5x.

Ladders: 2 foot in each forward, lateral, x3 each

If on the pitch you may want to include some gradual build up accelerations to prepare for sprinting in the session.

This will definitely prepare you for most sessions and should take around 10 minutes!

Hopefully by now you realise that a warm up doesn’t have to take a long time but it does have to be done!

Get in the habit of completing the warm up and you’ll get even more out of your performance and be far less likely to get injured!