It is crucial to include a warm up routine prior to commencing any sport to prepare you both physically and mentally.

Why warm up?

Warming up increases the body’s core and muscle temperature. By increasing muscle temperature, you are helping to make the muscle supple and pliable.

Top tips for an effective warm up

Don’t foam roll: This will just relax us – the complete opposite of what we want. Foam rolling can be utilised AFTER an event or during a cool down.
Progressively build the intensity (starting at 50% and building to game play situations)
Structured routine incorporating elements of:

1. Light aerobic activity (i.e – run, cycle, swim)
2. Static/Dynamic stretching to improve range of motion and flexibility of joints and muscle’s
3. Strength/Plyometric work: Always try and target the movements/muscles you plan to use. Example: In soccer, hamstrings are a commonly used and injured area of the body. So, incorporating Nordic hamstring curls into your routine to help reduce hamstring injury risk.
4. Running/agility drills
5. Sport specific drills

Stick to a short warm up (general guide should be 25% of total planned activity, for example if soccer is an 80 minute game, warm up should not exceed 20 minutes)

An effective warm up has a number of key components that help to reduce the risk of injury. These include:

Light aerobic activity (i.e – run, cycle, swim)
Static/dynamic stretching + mobility: Stretching is a very important part of a warm up. However, it should not be the core focus of the warm up. These include exercises such as:

• Hip flexor/quad stretches
• Hamstring stretches
• Calf stretches
• Lower/mid back and hip mobility exercises
• Upper body mobility/stretching exercises for throwing sports or activities that place high demand on the upper body

Strength/Plyometric exercises

• Squats, forward lunges, side lunges, calf raises
• Squat jumps, hopping, bounding

Running/agility drills

• Forward running, lateral shuffles, stepping, pivoting

Sport specific drills

Myths

• Going for a short run is sufficient enough: NO! Your warm up routine should include aspects required from your sport or activity.
• Static stretching causes injury: Static stretching cannot cause injury, however it can reduce strength/power and potentially performance when used ALONE (i.e – after stretching statically, strength/performance deficits return to normal within 5-10 minutes).
• I should do dynamic stretching over static stretching: If your activity or sport involves large movements such as Gymnastics, Dancing, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu etc then more of an emphasis on static stretching can be given.
• Warming up prevents injury: Nothing can prevent injury, however it can reduce the risk.

Click on the video below to watch an example of a warm-up routine our team created for the Sutherland Shire Football association girls teams.

If you are interested in having us present this to your sporting club/team, please contact us via email at admin@jannaliphysio.com.au