How to Build an Effective Dynamic Warm Up

Jason Price, MS, CSCS, ATC, LAT, CPT, USAW Club Coach

Ask a Coach, Athlete, Athletic Trainer, and Strength Coach about the importance of a warm up no doubt they all will tell you how important it is. But, not all warm ups are created equal and knowing the difference between an effective warm up strategy and an inadequate strategy can be difficult. Today, more and more athletes and teams are implementing a dynamic warm up strategy. But, knowing what a dynamic warm up is and being able to effectively create one are two totally different things. The purpose of this article is twofold; first, to give a brief overview of what a dynamic warm up is and why it works and some of the major concepts to understand and secondly, to demonstrate how to create a dynamic warm up and provide an example of a dynamic warm up.

Dynamic Warm up Videos

Let us begin by eliminating some of the confusion as to what to call a warm up. Warm ups have many names; functional warm up, sport specific warm up, linear and lateral warm up, functional flexibility to name a few names that are out there in use today. All of these are basically under what would be termed a dynamic warm up. Call it what you want but the basic fundamental theory of the dynamic warm up is preparing the body with movement specific to the task about to be asked by the body. Now, it is hard to believe but there are a great number of coaches and athletes out there still who insist that “stretching” is the proper way to warm up for activity. A simple concept to understand is that a “warm up” and “stretching” are not the same thing. If there is one thing you can take away from this article is that warm ups and stretching are two totally different things. Stretching is statically elongating a muscle and holding it for a certain amount of time. A Warm up is preparing the body for movement. A session of Static stretching prior to activity relaxes the muscle; it may pre fatigue the muscles therefore reducing the muscles ability to generate force. Also, it will decrease the muscles ability to coordinate muscle contraction. A Dynamic warm-up stimulates the nervous system and prepares the coordination between the nervous system and the muscular system for movement. It bridges the daily activities the body performs with the activities to come in practice and competition. It activates the muscles by lengthening and contracting them in the lengthened position. This prepares muscles for forceful contractions that will take place during the individual’s activity and the types of ranges of motion that will be asked of the joints. To fully understand that the concepts of warming up being different from “stretching” you will need to know the difference between mobility and flexibility. Flexibility is the ability a muscle has to lengthen during a static stretch, this is “stretching”. Mobility is the ability to move multiple joints together to achieve active range of motion. Without proper mobility athletes will make compensations during their movement. It is these compensations or “bad biomechanical habits” are what create inefficiency in movements and eventually will cause injury. If athletes don’t know how to move properly or have poor mobility, it is not a matter of if it is a matter of WHEN they will get hurt!

One last important concept to understand is the concept of reciprocal inhibition. Many athletes will have tightness in one muscle group or several muscle groups. To understand reciprocal inhibition think of it this way tightness in one muscle group will cause improper functioning on the opposing muscle group. For example tight hip flexors will cause the glutes to shut off. This deactivation of the opposing muscle group is what you want to fight when performing a dynamic Warm-up. You want to wake up the muscle groups who may be napping and get them ready to work. You do this by placing joints through full range of motion and isolate inhibited muscles for contraction while stretching the opposing muscle group. This will help to improve flexibility as the contraction of one muscle group will cause relaxation of the opposing muscle group allowing for greater range of motion.

When deciding to implement a dynamic warm up there are a six main considerations to focus on when designing a warm up. They are the foundation as to why a dynamic warm up is effective for preparing for activity. The six considerations are:

1. Integrate don’t segregate the warm up. An effective dynamic warm up should be part of practice, it should set the tempo for the training session or competition, and it should prepare the body for the movements about to be required of it and should reinforce some of the fundamental movements of the activity.

2. Focus on reinforcing the fundamentals of movement and sport skills by training in proper movement patterns the brain will file away the movement for future use. When it comes to movement patterns like any sport skill practice makes perfect. When thinking about movement patterns think about it who taught you how to run, jump, change direction or back pedal. Some athletes are not taught these simple and basic movement skills. All too often the sport specific skills are focused on more than the basic skills of movement. A good warm up will focus on both. Reinforce the fundamentals will not just warm up athletes but it will make better athletes.

3. Focus on the movement not the speed of movement. All too often speed become the main focus when training movement. Speed means nothing if the movement is incorrect.

4. Make warming up a routine. A set routine will not only physiologically prepare the body the same way every session but psychologically too. If a proper dynamic warm up becomes habit then not just the body will be prepared for the training session but the psyche will be prepared as well.

5. Warm up by going with flow. There should be a progressive flow to the warm up. It should begin with a general warm up and move to a more specific warm up.

6. Make sure to take it seriously. By taking the warm up seriously it will let the athletes know you take warm ups as serious as the most important part of practice. Why should this be? Because the warm up could possibly be the most important part of practice, it is the foundation of the training session. Just like it’s unacceptable to show up for competition flat it should be equally unacceptable to show up for practice flat. A proper dynamic warm up will not eliminate some of these issues but it will help to control and curb them.

With a foundation of how to design a warm up what goals should you hope to achieve during this time. The goals of the warm up are simple. They are:

• Increase Heart Rate
• Increase Blood flow
• Increase Core & Muscle Temperature
• Increase Respiration
• Increase Joint Viscosity
• Increase Perspiration
• Get Activity Specific Flowing From Low to High Intensity

Keeping these goals in mind and understanding the six fundamental considerations you are prepared to construct a quality and effective warm up strategy.

Here is an example of an effective dynamic warm up I created for a basketball team.

General Warm up

Specific Warm-up

• Lay up lines right side

• High Knees mid court butt kicks to baseline

• Lay up lines left side

• Lateral Shuffle to ¾ jog progressing to 3x

• Lay up lines jump shooting right side

• Backpedal turn and go 3x

• Lay up lines jump shooting left side

• Form run skipping to mid court then bounding for height

• Form run skipping to mid court then bounding for distance

• Partner dribble with defender and change of direction

• Partner rebounding Vertical Jumps

• Whistle reaction drills:  Lateral shuffle, backpedal, foot fire, defensive slide back, sprint forward, etc