Warm up and Cool down

Hi,

I am Abhinav, M, 31, 62Kg, from Bhopal, India. Have been playing sports till 10 yrs ago. Nothing after that.

4 months ago, bought the book and rings . I was fascinated by the things coach said. Sadly, no one pursues gymnastics around here. Started with static holds. I am gaining muscle strength.

Now I want to do a routine with FSP and FBE and thanks to many topics in this forum and reading the book, have designed a program, 4day per week, 90 min per day.

I am stuck at warm up and cool down.

I do a little warm up

-->5 min jogging

--> Joint rotations

-->static stretch pikes/straddle, etc (http://www.ehow.com/video_2360445_do-straddle-stretch-gymnastics.html)

(Thomas Kurz's says its wrong http://www.stadion.com/column_stretch12.html) Want a second opinion on this

don't know how to do Cool down .

I have gone through the forum 'Joint Preparation and Flexibility work', topic 'Designing a stretching program:'

link: http://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1346.

It helps, but it seems more for someone practicing martial arts or other sport. I am sticking to Gymnastics given in the book only.

Please guide me on :

1) Warmup sequence (Jogging--> Rotation--> stretch) or (rotation-->jogging--> stretch )

2) Static stretching should be done or not

3) How to do cool down

Once again , thanks to coach for the wonderful book.

well you are touching on a subject in which I have perhaps read the most conflicting information on.

There's the typical 'stretch before you do anything, you don't want to pull a hamstring' approach. Well most people who say this probably can't touch their toes

On the other hand the 'scientific' approach, says that you should NOT perform any static stretching as part of a warm up.

I'm going to refer you to what is the best guide to flexiblity that I have read, however there are still a lot of things I don't fully agree with (gives you an idea of the amount of conflicting information you will read on stretching).

http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/docs/rec/stretching/

and in particular

http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/docs/rec/stretching/stretching_5.html#SEC39

and here is what I think based on personal experiences:

You should begin with aerobic activity, however this should NOT be a single, repeated motion such as cycling, rowing or jogging for that matter. You need to perform exercises that will work every part of your body through all ranges of motion. This is not only important physically, but also for preparation of the central nervous system. The warm up needs to compliment what you are warming up for. Another critical point is that your warm up should be physically tough. A lazy five minutes walking on the treadmill will do little to prepare you. The warm up should build in intensity and by the end you should have broken a heavy sweat and your heart should be pounding in your ears. Of course you don't want to unneccesarily fatigue your muscles, but the heart rate should be elevated and core temperature raised.

To give some examples of things to do: running, running and raising your knees to your chest, kicking your bum. Running and jumping off a single leg, running touching the floor, turning around. run backwards. calf jumps, tuck jumps (tucking knees to chest). Leg kicks to the front, side, rear, start bent, then do straight leg.

Caterpillars: standing pike, walk hands out to front support, walk feet up to hands. Walking on all fours. Cartwheels.

Forwards rolls, backwards rolls. Kick to handstand, roll out. Backwards roll try to push into handstand.jump press into handstand, going higher each time. bodyweight squats. with jump. squat down, kick legs into front support. jump back up. maybe some lunges. Standing front bend, standing back bend, standing side bend.

Lots and Lots of shoulder swings/raises, maybe some stuff with resistance bands.

ok i've exhausted myself. but the point is that everything should be worked, with an emphasis on using the whole body and preparing the whole body so you are ready to further strength work or skill work or both.

Now comes stretching. Some people argue that static stretching should not be used to warm up. I think that is not true, it is the placement of the stretching that is more important. For gymnastics and any similar activity where large amounts of flexibility are required, a good stretch can help you limber up and perform better. The majority of sports do not require vast amounts of flexibility, and yet that is where you so often people doing stretches first thing

Now that our muscles are warmed up and the blood is flowing they will be very pliable. You will notice a huge difference between stretching warm and stretching cold. I prefer to do relatively short stretches, or embedding static stretches into dynamic movements. For example, in the straddle video you posted, you could go down partially, pause, raise yourself back up and repeat - going deeper into the movement every time. You definitely do not want to be doing extending stretch holds (30s or more), I would not do more than 10s.

As for cooldown, that is when you should perform extended static stretches, with the primary focus on relaxing the muscles and bringing the body back down from state of exercise. Often you will find you can go much deeper in stretches after a solid workout, because your muscles are fatigued and the stretch reflex doesn't kick in as much(correct me on that if i am wrong). Don't be afraid to spend ten minutes stretching down every part of your body.

Perhaps most importantly, is the level of flexibility that you need and the level of flexibility that you want. If you are just doing the exercises in the book like you said, you will want good pike and straddle flexiblity but you won't really need a huge back bend for example. However, like strength, balanced flexibility is important and can be better for your body and it is important to have balanced active and passive flexibility in all motions.

To my knowledge warm ups and cool downs have not really been discussed in depth here. I look forward hearing what other people have to say. Feel free to disagree with anything I have said, as it is based on things I have read and what I have gained from my own experiences. I must admit, when I go to classes I tend to do really good warm ups, but when I'm working out at home I get kind of slack. Also sometimes I do stretching with no warm up what so ever. I'm a bad boy.

Coach Sommer goes over a warm-up routine in the GB seminars if I remember correctly besides stretching.

I personally have come to dislike it when the gymnasts jog around in circles on the floor. They could be doing things far more useful and it wastes space, imo, because now other groups can't do line drills or get run over.

We typically do lunge walks, inch-worms, standing long jumps, depth drops, leg swings, toe/heel raises, ankle punches besides vault drills like high knees, butt kicks, one leg hops, power skips for warmups. Sometimes I also use basics that are not beyond the level of the group such as rolls, cartwheels from side lunge or forward lunge, chasse forward or sideways, round-offs or limbers.

Typically I we will go over the basic lunges and jumps and rolls and inchworms and the basic tumbling is one of the last things. We won't work on say a handstand forward roll if most of the gymnasts are not at the level where a HS fwd roll is simplistic or if it's too much on the wrist or shoulders.

Sometimes we do wrists and shoulders first like hanging and doing 1/2 or full turns in hang besides arch>hollow, side straddle swings and skin the cats or at least doing rope shoulder pass-throughs or in/dis-locates.

When we actually sit down we do the L-sit and straddle-L assistance exercises such as lifts while seated or holds or holding L or straddle-L or rocking back and then into the position. Then it's typically onto bridging and HS stuff.

Sometimes, we do the bridge wall walks very early in the WU but sometimes right before bridges.

nickvb said:

well you are touching on a subject in which I have perhaps read the most conflicting information on.

There's the typical 'stretch before you do anything, you don't want to pull a hamstring' approach. Well most people who say this probably can't touch their toes

On the other hand the 'scientific' approach, says that you should NOT perform any static stretching as part of a warm up.

I'm going to refer you to what is the best guide to flexiblity that I have read, however there are still a lot of things I don't fully agree with (gives you an idea of the amount of conflicting information you will read on stretching).

http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/docs/rec/stretching/

and in particular

http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/docs/rec/stretching/stretching_5.html#SEC39

and here is what I think based on personal experiences:

You should begin with aerobic activity, however this should NOT be a single, repeated motion such as cycling, rowing or jogging for that matter. You need to perform exercises that will work every part of your body through all ranges of motion. This is not only important physically, but also for preparation of the central nervous system. The warm up needs to compliment what you are warming up for. Another critical point is that your warm up should be physically tough. A lazy five minutes walking on the treadmill will do little to prepare you. The warm up should build in intensity and by the end you should have broken a heavy sweat and your heart should be pounding in your ears. Of course you don't want to unneccesarily fatigue your muscles, but the heart rate should be elevated and core temperature raised.

To give some examples of things to do: running, running and raising your knees to your chest, kicking your bum. Running and jumping off a single leg, running touching the floor, turning around. run backwards. calf jumps, tuck jumps (tucking knees to chest). Leg kicks to the front, side, rear, start bent, then do straight leg.

Caterpillars: standing pike, walk hands out to front support, walk feet up to hands. Walking on all fours. Cartwheels.

Forwards rolls, backwards rolls. Kick to handstand, roll out. Backwards roll try to push into handstand.jump press into handstand, going higher each time. bodyweight squats. with jump. squat down, kick legs into front support. jump back up. maybe some lunges. Standing front bend, standing back bend, standing side bend.

Lots and Lots of shoulder swings/raises, maybe some stuff with resistance bands.

ok i've exhausted myself. but the point is that everything should be worked, with an emphasis on using the whole body and preparing the whole body so you are ready to further strength work or skill work or both.

Now comes stretching. Some people argue that static stretching should not be used to warm up. I think that is not true, it is the placement of the stretching that is more important. For gymnastics and any similar activity where large amounts of flexibility are required, a good stretch can help you limber up and perform better. The majority of sports do not require vast amounts of flexibility, and yet that is where you so often people doing stretches first thing

Now that our muscles are warmed up and the blood is flowing they will be very pliable. You will notice a huge difference between stretching warm and stretching cold. I prefer to do relatively short stretches, or embedding static stretches into dynamic movements. For example, in the straddle video you posted, you could go down partially, pause, raise yourself back up and repeat - going deeper into the movement every time. You definitely do not want to be doing extending stretch holds (30s or more), I would not do more than 10s.

As for cooldown, that is when you should perform extended static stretches, with the primary focus on relaxing the muscles and bringing the body back down from state of exercise. Often you will find you can go much deeper in stretches after a solid workout, because your muscles are fatigued and the stretch reflex doesn't kick in as much(correct me on that if i am wrong). Don't be afraid to spend ten minutes stretching down every part of your body.

Perhaps most importantly, is the level of flexibility that you need and the level of flexibility that you want. If you are just doing the exercises in the book like you said, you will want good pike and straddle flexiblity but you won't really need a huge back bend for example. However, like strength, balanced flexibility is important and can be better for your body and it is important to have balanced active and passive flexibility in all motions.

To my knowledge warm ups and cool downs have not really been discussed in depth here. I look forward hearing what other people have to say. Feel free to disagree with anything I have said, as it is based on things I have read and what I have gained from my own experiences. I must admit, when I go to classes I tend to do really good warm ups, but when I'm working out at home I get kind of slack. Also sometimes I do stretching with no warm up what so ever. I'm a bad boy.

This particular post should be stickied here, and perhaps in the basic strength section as well. Perfect advice. It's true that static stretching won't impact workout performance as long as holds are less than 10 seconds, though dynamic stretches will be of the most benefit.

I'm warming up kids with basic gymnastics skills:

1. Running

2. Sprints

3. All kind of front, side hops, jumping,..

4. rolls worward, rolls forward with jumps and turns,..

5. jumps with sumersaults,..

6. HSs, HSs with straight legs rolls,...jumping HS (For handspirngs), walking forward and backward in a HS

7. all kinds of handspirngs

8. walking in a pancake (I don't know if it's a correct english word for it), legs together walking in a pancake, also all backward,..

9. starddle rolls forward (like stradlle L-seat press to HS, but her just to support on a hand)/endos

10. back rolls, back rolls to HS with hop, back rolls to HS with turns

11. all kind of wheelbarrows (i don't know any special english word for it)- cca. 6 diffrent variations.

This warming up is more or less when the kids are addapted to it and can remember it all cca. 20 minutes. If some kid can't do for example front handspirng, he is doing a jumping HS (2x times); or if the gymnast can not walk backward in a HS, he is walking forward (2x times).

Big thanks to Nickvb, Blairbob, slizzardman and Gregor,

I now have a good idea of a warmup.

I would like to hear a bit more on cool down because after 2 or 3 workouts in a week, I get the delayed onset muscle soreness, this last for 2-3 days and affects my schedule for the rest of the week.

For a novice like me, the terminology is also new, so I will google/youtube what Blairbob has said for warm up

"lunge walks, inch-worms, standing long jumps, depth drops, leg swings, toe/heel raises, ankle punches besides vault drills like high knees, butt kicks, one leg hops, power skips for warmups. Sometimes I also use basics that are not beyond the level of the group such as rolls, cartwheels from side lunge or forward lunge, chasse forward or sideways, round-offs or limbers."

I guess I should complete some of the above in not more than 10 min. Correct me here.

10-30 minutes, depending on what you need. A warm-up is hard work, just not quite as hard as the work sets. If you read all of the posts, you will find one thing in common: You must warm up the body with movements similar to what you will do in your workout. Just jogging or jumping rope doesn't do enough.

have designed a program, 4day per week, 90 min per day.

PS: With the number of injuries that have been happening I am wondering how to start again.

I've always thought that a cool down is basically the same thing as the warm up except you slow down near the end of it.

If you don't need anything for the rest of the day (if you work somewhere that requires heavy lifting for example), then you could increase your flexibility with static stretching in the cool down.

Oh, and static stretching is believed to reduce muscle soreness, so that's another reason to do it in your cool down.

Static stretching seems to also help with strength gain retention. It appears that a good post workout stretching session involving the muscle groups you work out that same day will help your body keep more of the strength that it gains as a training adaptation to that particular workout. Pretty important when you start looking at long-term progress.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/resear ... eview.html

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle ... art-1.html

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle ... art-2.html

slizzardman said:

Static stretching seems to also help with strength gain retention. It appears that a good post workout stretching session involving the muscle groups you work out that same day will help your body keep more of the strength that it gains as a training adaptation to that particular workout. Pretty important when you start looking at long-term progress.

I have not really seen much science to support those claims. The science behind restoration modalities seems to be fuzzy and conflicting.

Also, what seems to diminish DOMS is controversial. I'm sure I've read a lot about it, but I have forgotten everything I've read.

In my opinion, static stretching post-workout, especially many hours after working out, helps to maintain your ROM. Restricted ROM can interfere with force production in your next workout.

The necessity of cooldowns is also greatly exaggerated. The notion came about from the lactic acid myth. This topic was brought up a while back on the Supertraining forum, and nobody could find any exercise physiologist who had a sound rationale for a cooldown.

Yea, I don't know about that DOMS stuff, the only thing that's ever worked for me is time and contrast baths.

I believe I read about the stretching to help maintain strength gains in Thomas Kurz's "Science of Sports Training" but I don't remember for sure.

Yeah, a lot of the stuff on restoration comes from the Soviet Union era research.

When more recent research contradicts the Soviet research, the Soviet guys say restoration modalities, such as massage, require precise technique (bla bla), so the research doesn't reflect....bla bla.

This is similar to the arguments going on with a lot of soft tissue, spinal manipulation stuff (osteopathy, chiropractice, etc.).

In the end, a lot of this stuff seems to work, to an extent, but we don't know whether it's b/c of placebo or some yet to be discovered reason b/c the reasons alternative medicine people put out usually end not making scientific sense.

It's interesting to note that traditional Chinese medicine has similar success rates to modern western medicine despite having very different methodologies. There is something there.

slizzardman said:

It's interesting to note that traditional Chinese medicine has similar success rates to modern western medicine despite having very different methodologies. There is something there.

For sure, look up Ayurveda.