The 6 Phase Dynamic Warm Up System

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Learn this simple, efficient, and effective warm up system to enhance your training performance and prevent injury.

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You Will Learn How To:

• Use foam rolling and stretching to improve mobility

• Correct weak links and activate key stabilizers

• Master the 6 foundational movement patterns

• Prepare your central nervous system for performance

• Implement the most effective and efficient warm up system within 15-minutes or less.
  
  

The Neglected Art of Warming Up

For nearly 15 years of being inside a gym environment, I've observed and trained with a number of people that either completely skipped their warm up or just wasted precious time practicing ineffective routines. Ever wondered why the weights seem extra heavy somedays? Maybe you can't seem to break your plateau? Or perhaps you keep feeling pain in your knees, back, or shoulders during or after training? It's because walking on the treadmill for 10 minutes, doing a couple stretches, and getting under a barbell for a couple light sets is NOT a warm up. The warm up is strategically meant to prepare you for the specific workout of the day by enhancing your performance and helping you prevent training related injuries.

If you want to maximize your results from training in the long term, then you must utilize a warm up system that improves your mobility, corrects weak links, activates key stabilizers, primes your mind/muscle connection for the foundational movement pattern of the day, and prepares your central nervous system for performance. This system should not only be effective, but also time efficient, so that you can quickly bulletproof your body and safely commence the destruction! Lastly, each component should be programmed in a specific order, so that they synergistically work with one another to create the ultimate result.

Let's break down the 6 Phase Dynamic Warm Up System and start training like the Warrior Avatar that you've created!

Optional: Pre-Dynamic Warm Up (3-8 minutes)

Before we begin the primary phases of the dynamic warm up, it's worth mentioning this completely optional step. If you've been sedentary all day by sitting at your desk, then taking a few minutes to implement this pre-dynamic warm up may help you jump start your body for success.

By getting your body moving with moderate intensity steady state cardio (Ex. Incline Treadmill, Stairmaster, Elliptical, Bike, etc.), you can elevate your heart rate, and increase blood flow in your entire body which can help you better execute each one of the upcoming phases.

Phase 1: Self Myofascial Release Techniques (2-3 minutes)

The first phase is designed to Improve muscle function and alleviate chronic pain by softening muscle tissue utilizing targeted self-myofascial release (SMR) with a foam roller.

The targeted aspect of foam rolling focuses primarily on trigger points which can be any area in your entire body that feels tight, sore, ache, or painful. Once a trigger point is found, we want to implement an oscillatory technique by making small, rapid, back and forth movements on that specific area. Foam rolling every area of your entire body for 20 minutes is not the goal prior to training.

We want to pinpoint the trigger points and invest a maximum of 20 seconds into oscillatory foam rolling on each trigger point that we find, then quickly move onto the next phase.

Phase 2: Bi-Phasic Positional Stretching (1-3 minutes)

Once your specific muscle tissue is softened, we then want to improve mobility and reduce tension by stretching the muscle tissue by combining back and forth oscillating dynamic stretches (30-40 seconds) with short duration hold static stretches (10-30 seconds).

When it comes to stretching prior to training, long duration static stretching where your holding the end position of a stretch for minutes at a time has been shown to decrease performance with that muscle group and even increase the risk of injury. Dynamic and short duration stretching can help you improve your movement quality when performed correctly

With dynamic stretching, our goal is to incorporate the oscillatory movement like we did during foam rolling specifically at the end range of motion. For example, if we're on the ground doing toe touches to stretch out our hamstrings, we want to reach as far as we can, then oscillate back and forth for about 30-45 seconds.

With short duration static stretching, our goal is to hold the end position stretch between 15-30 seconds after performing the dynamic stretching technique.

Combining these two forms of stretching together for a total of 1-3  minutes on the key trigger points discovered earlier will give you the best of both worlds.

Phase 3: Corrective Exercise & Movement Remediation (1-2 minutes)

Now that the muscle tissue is smoothed and stretched, we now want to incorporate a corrective exercise to reduce the risk of injury, improve performance, and open new ranges of motion by focusing on dysfunctional movement patterns that are challenging the hips, core, spine, and shoulders simultaneously.

The goal is to focus on the 3 S's of sound movement which are stability, sequencing, and smoothness.

We do this by executed a movement like a Bird Dog to pinpoint the areas that may be negatively impacting the way you move, perform, or even put you at risk of injury.

Invest 1-2 minutes of mental energy and focus executing a total body exercise of your choice and performing it until you can execute your repetitions with stability, sequencing, and smoothness.

Phase 4: Muscle & Pattern Activation (1-2 minutes)

At this point you should start seeing how each of the phases are interconnected with one another to prepare your body for maximum performance. Now with Phase 4 we want to prime your stabilizer muscles and activate targeted muscles with exercises that require the maximal amount of tension, force, and mind muscle connection.

We simply want to incorporate another corrective exercise to fully activate our muscles by using higher intensity muscle contractions.

We want to use our mind and muscle connection to feel the muscle contracting with as much tension as possible, so that we can carry that over to when we perform the primary foundational movement pattern of the day.

Choose an upper or lower body exercise that reflects the compound movement of the day and squeeze as hard as you can for 2-3 sets of 5-10 reps with 15-30 seconds in between sets.

Phase 5: Foundational Movement Pattern Development (2-3 minutes)

Following the previous activation techniques we now want to prime the main compound movement patterns with slow eccentrics emphasizing the mind muscle movement connection and total body tension.

Depending on the workout of the day, we want to perform one of the six foundational movement patterns that reflects the first compound exercise with your bodyweight. We want to perform either a Squat, Hinge, Lunge, Push, Pull, or Carry movement pattern.

For example, if your primary compound movement of the day is a bench press, then we want to perform a push up. If it's a squat, then we want to perform a bodyweight squat.

Our goal is to improve the quality of how we move in that movement pattern which we can't do when we incorporate heavy resistance.

Select your foundational movement pattern and perform 2-3 sets of 3-5 slow & controlled reps with your bodyweight before moving to the final phase.

Phase 6: Central Nervous System Activation (2-3 minutes)

For the final phase of the Dynamic Warm Up System, we're improving movement quality with explosive central nervous system simulation work.

We want to get your heart rate up and prepare your neurological system to signal your muscles to fire at maximum efficiency.

We accomplish this by utilizing a high velocity based movement that’s incorporating the same muscle groups as the primary movement of the day. You can also use equipment like medicine balls for brief bouts of explosiveness.

For example, if the squat is the first movement of the day, then you can do some explosive jumps. If the bench press is the first movement of the day, then you can some medicine ball throws or slams.

Our goal is not to pre-fatigue, but prime the central nervous system by performing 2-3 sets of 2-5 explosive reps with a movement that prepares you for the primary compound movement of the day.

Pain-Free High Performance Warrior Training

After Phase 6 that's it! If you executed the Dynamic Warm Up System effectively, then you should have been able to complete it in 15 minutes or less and feel more than ready to perform at your absolute best going into your training.

This Warm Up system should be strategically customized around the specific workout of the day which would be pages of examples long if we included it in this article.

If you want examples of specific 6 phase dynamic warm ups, then that’s exactly what we include in our customized Warrior Training Programs as well as our 1:1 Online Coaching Programs. Both include demonstrational videos that will show you exactly HOW to properly perform each phase in the dynamic warm up.

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