346 | Should You Be Doing Warm Ups? What's Effective? What's Not?

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Optimal Body Podcast. I'm Dr. Jen and I'm Dr. Dom and we are doctors

[00:00:10] of physical therapy bringing you the body tips and physical therapy pearls of

[00:00:14] wisdom to help you begin to understand your body, relieve your pains and

[00:00:17] restrictions and answer your questions. Along with expert guests our goal of

[00:00:21] the Optimal Body Podcast is really to help you discover what optimal means

[00:00:25] within your own body. Let's dive in! Alright before we talk all about warm-ups but

[00:00:31] the research says and what's really most effective don't forget that you have

[00:00:36] an incredible discount that we're giving only to our podcast listeners if you

[00:00:39] have not yet taken the leap and gotten into our move to improve challenges

[00:00:43] today. Yeah strong healthy joins the goal is to get you strong and help you learn

[00:00:48] how to use that strength to move powerfully through your day. If you use

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[00:00:56] give you $30 in general off the entire program and I'm just so excited about

[00:01:01] this because of how condensed the workouts are. So you still get your strength

[00:01:06] work in, you get a great warm-up and mobility in we're talking about warm-ups

[00:01:10] today and Jen uses a lot of those principles in the warm-ups that she creates

[00:01:14] for these workouts and we just can't wait to share this with a massive

[00:01:17] community to help people keep strong healthy joints throughout their life. Yeah you're

[00:01:22] really going to understand what warm-ups can feel like within your body and

[00:01:26] how they support the work that you were doing within these strength workouts when

[00:01:30] you set it up properly within your body and so I'm really excited for people

[00:01:34] to come in and experiences and you get led with an entire community. We have a

[00:01:40] private community chat where you can ask me any questions we have live webinars

[00:01:44] that will be learning even more together and the opportunity to win prizes but

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[00:01:56] these discounts too so get in it go to the link down in the show notes it's

[00:01:59] just gen.health backslash strong and make sure you use code optimal 20

[00:02:04] check out. Okay so today we're going to do a quick talk and overview on warm-ups

[00:02:10] and I feel like this is something that everyone talks about everyone knows or

[00:02:15] thinks it's good to do a warm-up before you exercise before you work out

[00:02:19] before you go into a competition but what's the best warm-up? What's the best

[00:02:23] way to warm up one of the best exercises or protocol for me to do. And when

[00:02:29] we're looking into the research on this you know that's what's so hard with

[00:02:32] the research is like what is best for an athlete versus someone just going to

[00:02:37] work out in general versus someone who's been doing it for a long time so

[00:02:42] no hasn't like there's so many nuances when it comes to the human

[00:02:46] individual. Yeah there's so many nuances and it's so difficult to do good

[00:02:49] research that has broad application right. Taking a quick pause from this

[00:02:56] discussion about warm-ups to talk about something that is absolutely vital to

[00:03:01] make sure we have optimized when we are going into exercise and that is our

[00:03:05] hydration not only by taking in enough water but making sure that we're

[00:03:09] replacing the electrolytes and having enough electrolytes in our system to

[00:03:14] create, maintain and sustain energy that we need for whatever activity it is

[00:03:20] that we are doing. And that is why Jen and I on a daily basis take element

[00:03:25] electrolyte mixes. We put it in our water it tastes fantastic but the best thing

[00:03:30] is we notice the difference we can't go a day without having our element and not

[00:03:35] notice a change in our energy levels, a change in the brain fog or fatigue that

[00:03:40] we might get when we know we aren't getting those electrolytes, the sodium,

[00:03:44] potassium and magnesium back in that we need on a day-to-day basis. These

[00:03:49] electrolytes are so important because they help with things like helping us have

[00:03:54] the mental clarity that we need day-to-day have smooth and consistent muscle

[00:03:59] contractions when we're working out make sure our bowel movements are regular

[00:04:02] make sure we're sleeping regularly and that is why again we use this on a day-to-day

[00:04:08] basis. We can't have our water without it. It keeps us coming back to the

[00:04:11] bottle to make sure that we're staying hydrated and replacing those electrolytes.

[00:04:15] If you haven't tried element yet make sure you go down to the link in our

[00:04:19] show notes, it's drink element dot com backslash optimal. That's drink element

[00:04:24] spelled out l m n t dot com backslash optimal. You get a free sample pack with

[00:04:30] every single order so you can try out the whole array of their flavors and

[00:04:34] make sure you know which flavor you like the best when you inevitably come back

[00:04:39] to get more. Go down to the link in the show notes, check it out and get your

[00:04:42] free sample pack. Let's get back into the PT Pearl. You can't have broad

[00:04:49] application across a whole population unless you have a million subjects in

[00:04:54] our research study and even then to be able to control variables and you know

[00:04:59] get good data. It's really tough so you have all these research studies on

[00:05:02] very specific populations with two conditions that themselves tend to be

[00:05:07] very specific. So it's tough to get really good research and there are some

[00:05:11] systematic reviews which review a lot of different research which in some

[00:05:16] cases tends to muddy the takeaway or muddy the results. Yeah but we're gonna do

[00:05:21] our best to kind of break down you know what we've seen is most valuable

[00:05:26] and really when it comes down to it when people are looking at okay well what

[00:05:30] kind of warm up should I be doing. It's because they're trying to focus on

[00:05:34] injury prevention right? We're trying to focus on how do I not get injured in

[00:05:38] this workout? How do I make sure that I take care of my body so I can continue

[00:05:42] to work out or continue to do the sport that I love. I would feel better when

[00:05:45] I'm doing the workout itself. Right and the reality is there's so many factors

[00:05:50] that come into injury prevention. Unfortunately a warm-up isn't going to be

[00:05:55] the standalone thing that's going to prevent injury but we can look at the

[00:06:00] physiological effects that we're intending to do for a warm-up and start to

[00:06:06] understand okay what's most beneficial and how can I maximize those

[00:06:10] physiological benefits to really help maximize what I'm gonna do in the workout.

[00:06:15] Yeah a lot of the research studies focused on warm up fairly literally where

[00:06:21] it's like we're doing this to warm up the muscles and warm up our core body

[00:06:26] temperature and there are some significant physiologic benefits that come just

[00:06:31] from that. Warming up the body, warming up the muscle and they kind of

[00:06:34] separate a lot of the studies passive warm-ups versus active warm-ups and

[00:06:39] some people might think of a passive warm-up as like passive stretching at

[00:06:43] least that's what I thought initially when I saw passive warm-up because we deal

[00:06:46] with movement mostly but the passive warm-ups for them were doing something

[00:06:51] like using heat pads, using lasers or ultrasound or

[00:06:56] sonas or something to literally warm your tissues up which is what you will see

[00:07:01] in a physical therapy clinic so often. Right warming you up with some sort of

[00:07:07] heat pads and stimulation or heat pads stimulation and then ultrasound versus

[00:07:13] active treatments or active warm-ups which was movement based and doing more

[00:07:18] movement and in general I mentioned there's benefits to warming up the

[00:07:23] tissues of the muscles and warming up the core body temperature and the benefits

[00:07:27] that they spoke about were better turnover of your ATP which is essentially

[00:07:33] the fuel for the cell and that physiologically makes a lot of sense if the

[00:07:37] muscle is warmer you're going to be able to produce or replenish ATP source

[00:07:41] faster and also utilize ATP stores better. You're gonna have better what's

[00:07:47] called cross bridging of the muscles which is essentially how our muscles crawl

[00:07:52] along each other to contract and relax. They're gonna have better nerve

[00:07:55] conduction velocity you're gonna have better utilization of the oxygen so like

[00:08:00] your VO2 max or not VO2 max but your your oxygen uptake at the muscle is

[00:08:05] going to be more efficient so better delivery to the muscles themselves to do

[00:08:10] the workout so all of these physiologic benefits of warming up locally but also

[00:08:15] like systemically raising your core body temperature can have benefits for

[00:08:20] the performance. Which we know we've done a podcast previously on heat and

[00:08:25] using hot packs and doing sonnas and all that kind of stuff and what is most

[00:08:30] beneficial for actually improving core body temperature which isn't the

[00:08:37] passive treatments it's not the the heat packs and the ultrasounds it is

[00:08:42] actually doing active movements so you know overall looking at a lot of

[00:08:46] these studies they're showing that passive warm-ups like these using all those

[00:08:52] tools aren't going to be as effective as just actively warming up the body.

[00:08:57] And in general you know at least with the research is gonna say and what we're

[00:09:01] gonna look at as far as what Dom and I recommend as well especially now being

[00:09:06] parents and business owners and there's so much more that goes into this right

[00:09:09] but you're looking at warming up the body aerobically for at least less than

[00:09:14] 15 minutes so which 15 minutes for me sounds like so long but at least if you

[00:09:20] did a little bit of aerobic capacity so you're walking around your jogging

[00:09:24] you're biking you're getting something to kind of kind of raise that inner

[00:09:28] body temp inner core temperature. It's starting to get the blood flowing really

[00:09:32] yeah I mean getting the blood pumping around the body is gonna make your body

[00:09:35] work more it's gonna raise the temperature a little bit and again when we're

[00:09:39] looking at these studies sometimes they're basing these recommendations off

[00:09:42] somebody going out and going for an hour run or a long bike ride or it's all

[00:09:47] activity dependent if you're gonna be going into a yoga session or if you're

[00:09:52] gonna be doing something that's more you know low impact activity you're not

[00:09:57] gonna need to sit on a row machine for 15 minutes to warm up for that. Exactly and

[00:10:01] then they recommend doing like four to five activation sprints they say but

[00:10:08] things that are specific to the activity that you're going to be doing which

[00:10:12] it tells me by by them saying sprints and they're probably talking to a running

[00:10:16] population in this study. Right like soccer or football or something where

[00:10:19] they're gonna be running and using their body at a fuller capacity. Yeah where if

[00:10:24] you're not going to be going into sprinting or doing you know a little bit

[00:10:29] more dynamic movement then your activation exercises are probably going to be

[00:10:34] more like can I do a series of squats or lunges or dead lifts that have

[00:10:40] lower intensity of the exercise that I'm gonna be doing but I'm still mimicking

[00:10:46] the movements that I'm gonna be doing within the workout. And really the most

[00:10:50] important thing is it's mimicking the movements that you're doing it's getting

[00:10:53] the body warmed up and that's going to start to prepare you for whatever

[00:10:58] exercise you're doing in some cases when we're running short on time it's like

[00:11:02] we just use the first sets of the workout that we're doing as our warm up. We

[00:11:08] might use half the weight we might use a significantly lower amount of weight do

[00:11:12] a few extra extra reps but we're starting to load the muscles we're starting

[00:11:17] to get blood pumping through the body to warm up and we're warm up directly

[00:11:22] using the movements that we're gonna do for our workout so there's all sorts of

[00:11:26] ways that you can adapt this to your specific exercise time constraints

[00:11:32] space constraints what we know as beneficial is warm up the body a little bit

[00:11:36] and do some of the movements that you're gonna do in the exercise. And when

[00:11:40] we want to talk about injury prevention there was a pretty significant sized

[00:11:44] study done with children specifically playing soccer or football the European

[00:11:51] football and they used this very thought out warm up protocol and it did show a

[00:11:58] significant decrease in injuries in the group of kids that were using the

[00:12:03] warm up protocol yeah versus the kids that were not and where this is

[00:12:08] beneficial to what we're talking about now is that they used a lot of the same

[00:12:13] principles we're talking about now they got the kids warmed up aerobically and

[00:12:16] then they started doing a lot more activity specific drills like sprints

[00:12:21] and agility type drills in a more controlled setting before sending them out on

[00:12:26] the pitch to play a game. Exactly and what we're doing and what we're trying to

[00:12:31] prepare is the brain really the brain to that muscle connection to understand

[00:12:36] the movement and the load that it's going to be taking on especially if you've

[00:12:42] been working all day you're sitting you're not moving as much and then you go

[00:12:45] right into a workout it's going to be more beneficial to start getting the

[00:12:50] circulation going to start mimicking the movements maybe I've been sitting I

[00:12:53] haven't gotten you know squatted past parallel at getting in and out of my

[00:12:59] tear in and out of my car so I'm gonna want to do a little bit more you know

[00:13:03] movement within those joints prior to lifting a little bit heavier of a load

[00:13:08] so it makes sense what we're trying to do and you know how we're trying to get

[00:13:14] the brain kind of woken up and prepared for the movements ahead and that's

[00:13:20] the most that's the best way that we've seen in general of how we can start to

[00:13:25] prevent injury is that we're preparing the body for the task ahead so even for

[00:13:31] example going into motherhood and it's like if I'm gonna be picking a baby

[00:13:34] up and down from the ground or putting them bending over and putting them into

[00:13:38] their crib or bassinet. Am I doing deadlift? Am I doing the movements

[00:13:42] specific to the activities that I'm gonna be doing that is the best way that we

[00:13:47] see in general to prepare the body to prevent injury and so that's exactly what

[00:13:51] we're trying to do with the warm up and I've talked about this a lot with the

[00:13:55] John Health community and in terms of our webinars and and private lives that we

[00:13:59] do but when it comes to mobility a lot of people want to ask about you know

[00:14:03] stretching prior to working out and we've heard it be demonized a lot and

[00:14:08] though we can see like a two to five percent decrease in performance directly

[00:14:14] after passive stretching so I'm just going to take a strap and passively

[00:14:18] stretch my hamstrings or I'm just going to take my arm across and passively

[00:14:23] stretch. I mean we see this a lot right in kind of a aerobic type classes is

[00:14:27] just this passive type stretching and though we can see again a very small

[00:14:32] decrease in performance to the five percent if you do passive stretching and

[00:14:38] then you do an active warm up prior to your workout there is no change in what

[00:14:44] that means to your workout your performance or your injury prevention so you

[00:14:48] if you desire like getting your mobility and prior to your workout you can still

[00:14:54] do that effectively as long as you make sure you warm up properly prior to your

[00:14:59] workout. And this is where I hate when people try to start these online arguments

[00:15:03] saying I know oh you should never stretch before you work out.

[00:15:07] You want this? Yeah. First off F off because like never say never yeah

[00:15:12] because they see research saying passive warmups versus active warmups and

[00:15:18] passive warmups might have negative effects versus active warmups which are

[00:15:22] better or the best but again if you feel good I know that if I'm going to be

[00:15:28] squatting I have ankle restrictions I have hip restrictions and I know if I do

[00:15:32] some more passive type stretching it might help me open up some of those

[00:15:37] restrictions I have but then I immediately move into a more active style or an

[00:15:43] active variation of that stretch to load into it a little bit and then just like

[00:15:48] we've been talking up I do a bit of the movement to start gradually increasing

[00:15:52] that load and that's where I feel best and I'm not gonna let somebody on

[00:15:56] Instagram tell me I'm an idiot for doing that because I feel good when I do it

[00:16:01] Well and what we look at too when we're looking at passive stretching actually

[00:16:05] over time you can see that there's an increase in tensile strength of the

[00:16:09] tendons which is the same thing that you get from strength training and you're

[00:16:14] loading the tissue. We're still putting load on the tissue it's a different

[00:16:18] type of load it's a stretch of it's more passive but it's still a load for the

[00:16:22] tissue so that's still gonna be giving some feedback to the brain of a

[00:16:27] different range and a new movement that's that is preparing for the movement

[00:16:32] ahead. So I don't think it's a bad thing just how we're using it I mean there was

[00:16:37] a study that looked at specifically just looking at hamstrings and strength

[00:16:40] and power when you're going into a workout so they're looking at the peak

[00:16:45] torque value but when we're looking at just passively stretching the hamstrings

[00:16:51] and I'm telling you you're using a strap for about a minute and then you're

[00:16:55] going right into like deadlifting. Over 24 days they saw that there's a 15.4

[00:17:02] decrease in strength and power. 15.4% decrease. Yeah which again who who lifts

[00:17:09] regularly is laying on their back doing hamstring stretch and then going

[00:17:13] straight into deadlift and again if someone out there's listening and you do

[00:17:18] that that's fine yeah I hope it has worked out well for you and you feel good

[00:17:22] doing it there's a way to still get that passive stretch and then move into

[00:17:26] some light loading of the hamstrings and then do the more effective you know

[00:17:31] thought through warm up before jumping right into your heavy deadlift. So I

[00:17:35] think that again there's in my mind there's never never an either or like

[00:17:40] there's never anything we should cut out completely because a lot of this is

[00:17:46] also tough to research you're never gonna have a research study that studies

[00:17:51] every single combination of passive stretching active yeah aerobic and then

[00:17:56] doing the workout compared to each other. Well in so many different populations

[00:18:01] and who's necessary who's using it is there's so much to everybody right I mean

[00:18:06] within that study what they compared it to was a more dynamic hamstring stretch

[00:18:10] so think of the lake swinging yeah a lot of people do before they go run or

[00:18:15] anything like that before basketball games. I'm like no change no difference no

[00:18:20] difference in strength and power so a little bit more active compared to passive

[00:18:25] no change yeah you know so I mean in general keep it active prior to prior to

[00:18:31] your workout and if you're going to do passive stretching not bad if you have the

[00:18:35] time to do that and get your mobility and then great do a little bit of

[00:18:38] active movement and so what we recommend now for for warm up will go into like a

[00:18:45] little live example of how we use it. So you're warming up to do squats. Sure

[00:18:50] you're warming up to do a strength workout a lower body strength workout. Yeah lower

[00:18:54] body strength workout in general make sure that you're not just going from sitting

[00:18:57] on the couch or sitting on in a desk or your car for hours you know you're

[00:19:03] gonna do a little jogging in place at a bike a something a row or something to

[00:19:10] get your playing hide and seek with Kai and Dante for five to ten minutes. Yes I am sweating after that

[00:19:17] exactly and this is us running around the corner to hide from our dog she comes

[00:19:21] and finds us and then we chase her down with our little baby boy yeah and yeah doing

[00:19:25] that for 10 minutes it's going to get the heart rate going. I mean if you're

[00:19:28] cleaning you're doing dishes you're doing like you're doing something active

[00:19:32] and getting the blood flowing that's that can count I'm gonna say that's going to count as your

[00:19:37] aerobic warm up prior to getting into your workout because a lot of times is busy parents

[00:19:42] that's the one thing that's how holding us back well if I have to do five to ten minutes of this

[00:19:46] then I have to do five to ten minutes of some activation stuff then I have to go into like it

[00:19:50] becomes this thing that feels daunting and something we're never going to get to so we want to

[00:19:55] take that away. Well we were doing research on warm ups and cool downs kind of at the same time

[00:19:59] and the warm up said 15 minutes or less of an aerobic thing and then about five minutes of

[00:20:05] these activation sprints or increasing intensity exercises and the cool down said no more than 30

[00:20:12] minutes of you know cool down activity I'm like 15 minutes plus five minutes plus 30 minutes

[00:20:18] like we're at 50 minutes already and I'm done with my workout. I've done two workouts like

[00:20:23] my workouts tend to be between 25 and 30 minutes right now so again it's very specific to the person

[00:20:30] also if you're going into a powerlifting or Olympic lifting competition doing the dishes

[00:20:35] and walking around probably not gonna be best. Probably not gonna be your best warm up but

[00:20:39] again you're in a much different place than we are for the workouts we're doing right now.

[00:20:44] Yeah so after doing that warm up then we want to get into the gym and start loading up the muscles

[00:20:50] we talked about doing mobility okay if you want to do some mobility great I would start with for

[00:20:55] myself a 90-90 hip exercise but do active switches so I'm actively loading those and then

[00:21:02] you kind of sit up and step forward into a lunge and step back so again we're loading those hip muscles

[00:21:08] through all the range of motion and then throw a bar on or depending on the weight that you're

[00:21:15] gonna be shooting for for your active working sets aim for 40 to 60% of that and do a warm-up

[00:21:22] set or two. Yeah sometimes I even just like take the the bar and just do like a little bit of a

[00:21:27] hold kind of rock into my ankles and then come back up you know and just like getting that pause squat

[00:21:33] getting that that brain used to going into that with a little bit of load on my back is kind of good

[00:21:39] if you're going to be doing a little bit more dynamic movement sometimes I will do a quick step up

[00:21:44] so I'm doing a step up onto something but I'm moving a little bit faster within my body

[00:21:49] or I will step up on something and jump and land so I'm working on that eccentric control of

[00:21:55] that landing you know so there's ways that you can okay what is am I gonna be doing jumps am I

[00:22:01] gonna be doing some dynamic activity am I gonna just be doing yeah so can I do deadlift at a

[00:22:09] lower capacity kind of exactly what Dom was talking about or even taking a band around your neck

[00:22:13] and doing good mornings but that mimics the same hinge pattern so in general you don't have to be

[00:22:20] doing 10 to 15 minutes on a bike you don't need to be doing side clams for the reset of 15

[00:22:31] you know there are ways that you can squeeze in your mobility and activation in a way that is

[00:22:40] going to be mimicking the movements and the workout that you're gonna be doing and hopefully

[00:22:46] when you start getting understanding how movements can kind of mimic each other and how to feel

[00:22:53] different areas within your body because I think that's what a lot of people have trouble is like

[00:22:59] well I can't feel my glutes so I need to do some activation exercises or I can't feel this or my

[00:23:04] quads always take over it's like well then what can we be doing that's a little different in your

[00:23:10] warm up is said that we can feel a different result and sometimes that can be I'm gonna lift my toes

[00:23:19] on an elevated surface when I'm doing light deadlifts so that now I'm forcing my body to hinge a

[00:23:27] little bit more get into my glutes and hamstrings and I'm not into my quads anymore or so we could work

[00:23:33] on different setups and this is I'm like talking this is everything we do in Jen Health this is

[00:23:38] what we're gonna be doing a little bit more in the new move to improve challenge it's gonna be coming

[00:23:43] out this year you know ways that we can be smart about integrating active mobility integrating a warm

[00:23:49] upset prior to your workout and still be getting everything done within 30 minutes everything

[00:23:55] no you mentioned the upcoming challenge and I love the way that you have warm up integrated into

[00:24:01] that workout because in a big way mimics what we're talking about right now it doesn't include as

[00:24:06] much of that aerobic portion before so play with your kid before you know again but we're coming

[00:24:12] from yeah running around with Dante or again you can condense this warm up into five minutes six

[00:24:18] minutes so that you can still get in a good active workout and we'll have an episode coming out next

[00:24:23] week on cooldowns to talk a little bit about two weeks two weeks I guess we have a guest coming out

[00:24:29] next week and then two weeks from now we'll have an episode on cooldowns to talk about what we think

[00:24:34] about having effective cooldowns to add into this whole routine hopefully that helped to kind of

[00:24:41] clear things up on what you need to be most effective for warm up so that you can get into your workout

[00:24:46] and feel good within your body of course we have so many more episodes like this and so many that

[00:24:51] we've done in the past on different pains and diagnoses feel free to explore share any episodes

[00:24:56] out with friends because this is how we get this podcast to be out to more people so that they

[00:25:01] learn and understand and feel good within their bodies we hope that you come back don't forget

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[00:25:10] optimal body podcast