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- Rise your hand if you thought to yourself,
I'll just warm up in the workout.
Yeah, I'm guilty.
Probably like a lot of you are.
But the advantages to warming up your body,
if you truly want to reach peak performance,
if you truly want to get the most out of every minute
that you put into your workout,
necessitates that you actually warm up ahead of time.
So, let's talk quick, easy, functional warm-ups
to get you ready to roll.
If this is your first time here,
welcome to Dark Horse, where you are the hero of your own
story and we are the guy that's going to help you get
to where you would like to go.
Now getting into today what we are talking
about is a simple format for scheduling and prepping
your own warmup that will take anywhere from
15 to 30 minutes pre workout, to get the most out
of what you're going to do.
If that sounds interesting to you, stay tuned.
As I mentioned, we're gonna be working through
the three pieces of a good warm-up
that will get your body prepped and ready to go.
As I mentioned 15 to 30 minutes.
Essentially we're assigning five minutes to each section.
Now can you run it faster?
Of course.
Can you run it longer?
Of course.
And generally the rule of thumb when we are talking
about a warm-up is, the shorter the workout,
the longer the warmup.
Now I'm not saying that if you have a 10K for time,
you should just jump into the workout and go
because it's gonna be a long workout,
you still need warmup time.
But if you have a 2K for example
and you're gonna do a 2K for time, guess what?
That warm-up is going to be long.
It's gonna include gentle warm-up, stretching.
It's gonna include times at your, get at your goal pace
for the workout, it's a whole bunch of things
that go into getting ready for a workout like that,
that aren't necessarily there for a longer piece,
so just keep that in mind as we go through,
but with that being said let's get into the three
essential parts, now one of the things that's more important
as we get through this is that you have a toolbox
of a few different things that you could do
to help warm you up specifically
for the purposes of rowing.
This format applies to whatever exercise you're doing.
It doesn't have to just be rowing,
but the exercises that I'm gonna give you
in a little bit are definitely conducive
to just being on the rowing machine,
and things that will help you,
as you are warming up for a rowing machine purpose.
So, stay tuned for that,
but let's get into part one of what makes
a great warmup.
Step one in this process is getting your body moving gently
and gradually and the why?
So, the objective here is that you slowly and gently
coax the body into movement, instead of smashing it
in the face with an all-out activity,
your goal is to slowly help introduce your body
to the fact that today you're gonna be doing
something active and giving yourself the forethought
to eliminate any potential easily avoidable injuries
that could happen because you're going from cold
to hot real fast.
It's kind of like if you have a glass jar that's cold
and then you immediately introduce boiling liquid,
you can very easily just shatter the jar,
because it shocks the system.
We don't want to do that to our body.
We want to gradually heat up as we go.
So, no surprises here, but the easy way of getting
into this is basically start with a five-minute
basic introduction to how do you move.
Meaning practice the activity you're going to be doing
that day, adding an extremely, and I can't emphasize this
enough, just a moving pace.
Don't worry about breathing hard right away.
Allow that to pick up over the five minutes or 10 minutes.
A perfect example of this is using our 10 minute build
that we posted a few weeks ago.
If you're with our channel and you follow what we've got,
make sure that you're using that video.
It's a perfect way, you start at a 16 stroke rate
and you build up to a 30 over 10 minutes.
It's one of the best ways of getting your body prepped
and ready to go because you started at 16,
zero pressure on and you are just moving
and then at the end you find that you are breathing heavy.
You're a little bit warm and sweaty but you're not fatigued
and that essentially is the goal of this step one
in the warm-up phase.
It's just getting you prepped and ready to go,
hot and sweaty, breathing heavy, but not fatigued.
Step two in this process is mobilize your major joints,
essentially the parts of the body that are required
and necessary for you to create optimal
peak performance of the thing.
In our instance we're speaking to the rowing movement.
So, with that being said what are the primary parts
of the body responsible for good performance on the machine?
Hips, back, quads, hamstrings,
core, lats, those are all things that need
to be really like warmed, opened, movable.
That's really the goal of step two is the mobilization part.
Now here is where we are starting to open
up range of motion.
So, instead of just creating blood flow,
we are starting to say all right joints
it's time for you to get ready.
Now that may include activation of some kind.
For example with the mid line, I want to make sure
that my mid line is ready to brace (grunting)
and be able to take the load
that you will be distributing into the machine.
My lats they need to be activated and turned on,
because I need to be able to hang from right here.
So that's an important piece to turn on.
My hips they need to be open
because my legs need range of motion.
So, I need to have my hips be able to allow
my knees to move in and out as necessary.
I also need that pelvis to be able to tilt
forward and back so the hamstrings need to be mobilized,
so that they're ready to give me range of motion.
The quads, they need to be active so that when I push,
they're warmed up and they're tuned and ready to push.
As opposed to if we avoid all of that,
if we don't do that ahead of time when
you get into the movement,
each of these pieces of the puzzle,
they start to act independently
because they're all just trying to fire for the first time,
and that's where we reduce performance is that
when you're asking those things for the first time
inside of a demanding effort to turn on,
well they're not gonna be ready to go.
They aren't going to have the blood flow necessary.
They aren't going to be primed and you haven't sent
the signal that hey body it's time to go.
Some of my favorite mobilizations and these are,
feel free to grab these, take them,
but also invent your own off of them
or go do some extra research on great hip mobility,
quad activation, hamstring lengthening,
all of these for mobility purposes.
Go search that, you can create your own plan.
I just want to give you a few that I like
when I'm getting on to the machine.
That would include leg swings, x-band walks
or monster walks, they're otherwise known as,
glute bridges and any kind of hip hinging
that's going to prime that hip hinge movement,
meaning if these are my hips,
this movement of the hip priming that.
So, let me just show you a little of how these could work.
So, with an x-band walk or a monster walk,
the intention of this is to get your glutes
firing and turned on.
You can use a regular band or a mini band.
It's totally up to you this can be accomplished
in a number of ways.
With the mini band you'll have it just above your knees.
With a large band, you will have your feet set in,
you'll be pulling it up as tight as possible
and then crossing the band over itself,
and this just creates lateral tension on the foot.
You can get into an athletic position
and you will essentially sidestep 10 per side
and then 10 forward and 10 back.
The objective is you take very small steps each time
making sure that the band isn't pulling your legs together
that you keep your feet spread,
and the burn in the glutes is oh so real on this.
With a glute bridge you are again asking
for glute activation as well as some quad activation
and also good midline stability.
These are easy, no equipment needed.
You are laying on the floor, feet flat,
knees bent, you will then keep your midline brace,
meaning your ribcage drawn down towards your pelvis
or your hips and you will simply press through your feet
squeezing your butt,
as you attempt to open your hips
without opening your ribcage.
Meaning that the body stays in a nice lined plank
from the shoulder to the knee
as you establish this.
Do this with control and give yourself
10 to 20 reps of this, where you simply drive up,
squeeze, brace, and hold for maybe two three seconds
at the top, slowly bring yourself back down and repeat.
On the leg swing, find something to hold on to.
I use a PVC pipe, you can use a wall.
You can use a rack, you can use a broom handle,
whatever you want maybe just nothing.
You're welcome to do it without that too,
and all you are doing is asking for hip mobility here,
allowing the leg to swing both laterally and forward
and back, so that you allow that leg to really
just move through the joint,
trying to create as much range of motion
through that hip joint as possible for the leg
to begin to open up and create greater range of motion.
On the hip hinge, the goal here is to make sure
that your trunk or your midline stays braced,
and in the same position.
Now this doesn't mean broken with the ribcage flaring open.
This means that you keep the ribcage tied down
with the pelvis and that when you move,
it says if you are reaching your hips behind you
to try and touch a wall
with just your butt.
And you wanna make sure that you keep your feet grounded
so your weight is through your toes and your heels,
push your hips back as you reach through the hamstrings
and start to feel a pull on the hamstring.
That's your indicator that you're doing it right.
Do not allow the spine to round.
The goal here is not necessarily range of motion.
It is good range of motion,
meaning how far can the body actually move
before you start to break that spine
meaning you start to round the spine
or give up tension there.
That's the objective is just tap into
how do you close the hips and then open them with success.
Step three in creating a good warm-up
is adding intensity.
Here's where you really begin to tell the body exactly
what's going to happen.
So, you're essentially doing a mock start
of what the workout is going to be.
For example if I want to row a 2K,
after I've done my gentle gradually increasing warmup,
then I've performed my mobility pieces
that I need to get ready for whatever that movement
is going to be.
I arrive at the adding intensity piece.
A good way of doing this would be a six-minute row.
So, the length of time that,
roughly the length of time or perhaps eight minutes,
the length of time that you would row the 2K.
At I would say three points inside that time span,
I'm going to do what's called a power 20.
That is 20 hard strokes at my goal pace for the day,
and what that's doing is telling my body,
hey I know this feels like a bit of a shock,
and I know you're warm, but I need to send the signal
to my body this is the demand that I'm looking for today.
I need you to be ready to go
and here's exactly what it feels like.
Okay it's like getting your engine revved up,
ready to go, and then backing off a little bit,
and that's why we do three sets of power 20s is
because set one, you're gonna feel that power 20,
like "Oh ahh", you know how that feels for today,
but then by the second time you're like,
"Okay got it, I'm starting to feel the rhythm
"what I need, how to connect, how to deliver
"the force that I'm looking for"
And by number three, you're like "Wow okay I'm starting
"to experience a little bit of fatigue but I'm hot.
"I'm still sweaty and I'm feeling good and primed
"and ready to go" and that's the exact thing that you
are looking for inside of the intensity piece.
Now what's important to note with this is that
blood flow is greater than fatigue.
So, yes I mentioned you may begin to feel
a little bit of fatigue,
but at no point in this part of the warmup
should you be feeling like you're starting to decline.
This should be a "Hoo that was taxing and I'm okay.
"I can step off for five minutes, recover.
"My brain is tuned.
"My body is tuned and it knows what it has
"to execute for the day."
Now again it's important that when you add this intensity
piece you are thinking of it from a perspective of what
do I have to do today?
What is the demand of this workout
and that you tune the intensity accordingly.
Do not just pick power 20s at a 2K pace.
Know exactly what you're gonna do for that day
and change what you're gonna do in the intensity piece
accordingly and again the shorter the workout,
the longer the warmup the longer the workout,
the shorter the warmup can be.
So, keep that in mind as you are structuring
what your intensity piece will look like.
And again this should fall in the five to 10 minute range.
From here have everything ready to go.
Before you start your warmup in total,
have your water ready, if you're going to have music,
have it queued up on your phone and ready to go.
If you need a bathroom break
and you know that about yourself,
take your bathroom break in between
maybe part one and part two.
Have things primed, because when you come out of step three,
it's important to know that you want to use that heat
that you've built up with your body
to get into the piece.
People make the error often of stepping away,
taking too long and then they end up cooling down,
and when they get into the workout,
it shocks them again, because they've cooled down too much.
So, don't allow too much time to elapse.
I would say anything more than 10 minutes,
and even that's on the upper threshold.
Five minutes is about perfect.
Once you get done with phase three,
no more than five minutes if you can help it,
before you're getting on to the machine,
ready to hit the workout and ready to just put
to use what you've spent the time building.
Warm-up is all about delivering the best possible
performance, your peak performance.
Don't lose it by spending too much time off the machine
thinking about what the workout is gonna be.
That's another advantage to using a warm-up routine
like this is it gets your mind set,
and it puts you in a frame of mind of I'm ready
to approach this, not how's this gonna go?
I have no clue, let's just find out.
That part is important for you to learn
and know to be successful.
So, go forth my friends and be successful in your workouts
and if you happen to be doing the follow along
workouts that we're posting,
use this warm up sequence to get the warm-up that you want
and spend that time.
You will not regret doing it.
You will regret getting into the middle of a hard workout
when you haven't done it.
Again at the beginning, I raised my hand.
I have been guilty of not warming up before
and I just always feel better
when I have the opportunity to do it
because I go in with a stronger mindset,
a stronger body, and I'm ready to perform.
So, go out there.
Take this information,
use it for yourself.
Give it to others.
The whole goal is that we are building this Dark Horse
community together, because this truly
is a community of supportive individuals.
And if you watch this and you're like
yeah that all made sense to me.
And I like what this guy is saying
and also he's super cool.
If that's you, make sure that you hit that subscribe button
and the little bell next to it,
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community that lives here and everywhere else,
where Dark Horse exists.
Guys thank you as always for tuning in
and I mean it when I say it from the bottom of my heart,
I love you all.
Thank you all for being amazing human beings.
Continue to do that and continue to spread love
everywhere you go.
Guys with that being said we will see you on the other side.
Hey thanks for watching the video.
If you enjoyed this and you're looking for more,
and you want workouts continuous coaching from me
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Just go over to darkhorserowing.com/athlete
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