The Complete Warm-up: Upper Body

Almost anyone who has ever exercised will have heard about the importance of a warm-up. That said, 99% of these don’t actually understand the true purpose behind a warm-up and how to properly apply it. So we thought we’d take it upon ourselves and show you how to fully prepare your body for exercise through a functional and dynamic ‘Coastal Fitness’ warm-up protocol.

Firstly, a few points to think about regarding a warm-up:
1. A good warm-up doesn’t have to make your body warm – well at least not all of it. The ideais to make the right parts warm.
2. Low-intensity cardio warm-ups such as jogging or cycling, don’t improve strength performance. Yes they increase body temperature and blood circulation, but don’t transfer when it comes to preparing for a set of heavy bench press, for example.
3. The more intense the exercise you’re about to do, the more you need to warm up
4. The more similar the warm-up activities are to the lifts for which you’re preparing, the more effective they’ll be.
5. Static Stretching before exercise before exercise actually limits power potential in muscles by down-regulating the muscles and central nervous system. So you should always opt for active or dynamic stretching.

Why warm-up?

1.Increase body temperature
2. Improve motor unit recruitment, which in turn helps with gains in size and strength
3. Increase overall mobility
4. Turn on stabiliser muscles to prevent injury
5. Prepare you mentally for the training ahead

With this in mind, we have put together a 10 minute warm-up protocol that we like to use with a whole range of different clients which will get you firing in all cylinders! Remember, if we’re preparing to train our upper body, then we need to warm up our upper body – whilst agility ladders, cross trainers, treadmills and glute activation exercises are great, they don’t do much to prepare the upper body for optimal performance.

Follow these 4 steps and feel the difference!

1.Self Myofascial Release (self massage)
2.Dynamic Mobility
3.Muscle Activation
4.Central Nervous System (CNS) Activation

I will discuss each of these steps in more detail below. Feel free to chop and change some of these exercises with your own if you feel they work better for you.

Step 1 – Self Myofascial Release (SMR)

SMR is a stretching technique that uses objects such as foam rollers, tennis balls, golf balls, medicine balls to apply force to your muscles. This will help to release muscle tension and help restore the body back to its optimal level of function.

The key to SMR is to find the spot which is tight (you’ll know when you find it as it’s disgustingly painful) and to hold for 20-30 seconds whilst trying to relax the muscle.

Step 2 – Dynamic Mobility

Dynamic Mobility can be thought of as muscle flexibility and joint range-of-motion exercises performed at a high paced, dynamic rate. Dynamic Mobility exercises are essential to any warm-up as they wake up your muscles by helping the body to understand how to control your muscles and joints through a full range of motion, generally using little to no extra load (just your bodyweight).

Jumping jacks are great at working the entire body in a fast, dynamic movement. When performing jumping jacks, make sure your hands touch at the top which will ensure full range of motion at the shoulders, perform 15-20 reps. Below is one of the best illustrations you’ll ever find of how to perform a jumping jack.

We can also play around with the jumping jack to target other areas of the body. This time, rather than bringing your arms up by your sides, bring them up at a 45 degree angle in front of you with hands starting together in front of your body, and finish with your arms in a ‘Y-position’ at the top. Perform 15-20 reps.

Asides from jumping jacks, there are many other great ways to mobilise the body. The TRX is a great way to do so as you can easily adjust the amount of bodyweight load you use.

Step 3 – Muscle Activation

Muscle activation is a key component of our warm-up protocol as it is essentially waking up the muscles that haven’t been doing much whilst sat in your office chair. This links well with Step 2, as it ensures you have the correct muscle activity to control the range of motion you achieved with your dynamic mobility exercises.

Exercise 1 – Push up with rotation:
Pushups are a fantastic exercise for your upper body, working your chest, triceps, shoulders, shoulder stabilisers and core. By adding in rotation, your body is having to cope with controlling your torso as it twists.

To do this, perform a regular push up, then as you extend your arms, bring one arm off the ground and rotation round, finishing in a T-position. Return to the starting position. Perform 4-10 repetitions.

*If you find this easy, add some light dumbbells to your hands which will increase the resistance as you rotate, and the balance as the dumbbell is on the ground. Similarly, this can be regressed by placing your hands on a step or bench, or coming down onto your knees.

Again, there are plenty of alternatives to this exercise, and ideally you should hit your posterior shoulder and back muscles. A great exercise is the YTWL routine created by US Strength Coach, Nick Tumminello. Click here to watch his YTWL routine.

Step 4 – CNS Activation

Last but not least, we need to fire up our CNS. How? By doing fast and coordinated movements that require an element of skill, we can stimulate the nervous system. Here you will need a medicine ball or a straight bar to hang off (smith press, railings etc.).

Exercise 1 – Medicine Ball Chest pass

Stand facing a partner or a wall. Start with the Medicine ball at chest height, quickly push arms forward and release the ball. Repeat 10 – 16 times.

Exercise 2 – Inverted Row

Hand underneath a bar or railing, the more horizontal your body is, the more challenging the exercise. Start with hands wider than shoulder width apart, and pull your chest up towards the bar whilst maintaining a straight body. Explode up fast towards the bar and lower down slowly. Repeat 5 – 10 times

And there you have it, a great way to get you fully prepared for your session in under 10 minutes! Remember that you can use different exercises than the ones I’ve used here, but make sure they have a similar purpose. Incorporate this into your next upper body session and see if you notice the difference. My next blog will focus on the Complete warm-up for the lower body. Enjoy!

Ed