Warm-ups

Hello,

I was wondering what some of you guys do to warm up before your workouts. Two days a week I start my workout with plyometrics and once with FSP work. I read somewhere that your heart rate needs to be elevated before plyometric training for it to be more effective (I don't remember the actual number), but my warm-ups on any day feel a bit haphazard to me (maybe some jumping jacks? maybe jogging in place? where to begin?). I don't have room to run where I work out, and I tried jumping rope but the ceiling is too low. How can I get warmed up for plyometrics in limited space? How can I get warmed up for lsits, handstands and back levers? Thanks,

erin

Use super fast jump rope foot work and hold 1 lb weights while doing the jump rope motion with your hands to get the benefits of jumping rope when the ceiling is too low for the rope. This is a very good idea and will work.

You can also just sprint in place, do super fast partial jumping jacks, or anything else that gets your heart rate up in a hurry. Without equipment I suggest the ropeless jump rope technique described above. If you need 1 lb weights either use 16 oz water bottles full of water or fill an 8 oz water bottle with sand or dirt and then saturate it with water. Should be 1 lb or slightly more. 16 oz of water is about 14oz of weight I believe, also very close.

@Slizzardman, that's a good idea! It's more fun to do it the ol' fashioned way, though, because you get to hear the "whir whir whir" and "bap bap bap" sounds.

Edit: By the way, do you have any time/round recommendations as a rough guideline for using those kinds of movements for pre-polymetrics? It seems like your prehab+mobility stuff should have prepared you mostly for the plyos but the actual high intensity jump rope/sprint in place is just to "supercharge" your nervous system (and heart rate?). A set or two of 15-30 seconds high intensity?

Patrick Smith said:

@Slizzardman, that's a good idea! It's more fun to do it the ol' fashioned way, though, because you get to hear the "whir whir whir" and "bap bap bap" sounds.

Edit: By the way, do you have any time/round recommendations as a rough guideline for using those kinds of movements for pre-polymetrics? It seems like your prehab+mobility stuff should have prepared you mostly for the plyos but the actual high intensity jump rope/sprint in place is just to "supercharge" your nervous system (and heart rate?). A set or two of 15-30 seconds high intensity?

Whatever you use, you don't want it to blast the muscles you are about to use into oblivion. That's part of why running or sprinting is such a great tool during upper body workouts, and the jump rope can perform a similar function. 30s is probably more reasonable than 15. Wearing a heart rate moniter is also a very good idea, but as long as you start feeling hot and are breathing too hard to carry on a conversation without significant interruptions you are doing it right.

Go look through some of the dynamic 4 round WOD's but I believe the target HR was 170.

My warmup tends to be long but it was for a 2.5-3.5hr training session including event work.

When I used to do workouts at home, I generally used lunges, duck squats, standing jumps, jumping jacks, deck squats, mountain climbers or animal walks and side to side lateral lunges besides shrugs in hang and support.

Yep, 170.