Often neglected, warm-ups are an essential part of our workout no matter if we are doing slow cardio, heavy strength, or fast power work. There are many methods to warming up and typically most organisations that certify strength and conditioning coaches stick to a particular warm up protocol. Likely the most popular protocol for warm ups is the RAMP protocol - Raise, Activate, Mobilise, Potentiate. We will get into each section shortly but first lets go through how warm ups are beneficial to you.
Benefits or positive impacts of warm ups include:
- Improved communication between muscles and the brain
- Improved rate of force development
- Improved blood flow to working muscles
- Improved oxygen delivery to working muscles
- Improved use of energy systems
Looking at the RAMP protocol we can break down each section like this:
| Phase | RAISE | Intensity | Duration |
| General Warm Up | Choose an activity to raise: 1. Body temperature 2. Heart rate 3. Breathing rate 4. Blood flow 5. Joint fluid activation | Light to Moderate | 5min |
| Activate and Mobilise | Intensity | Duration | |
| Increasing Range of Motion | Choose static or dynamic stretching, and exercises to activate muscles, and increase range of motion. consider: 1. Go from passive to active 2. Go from weight independent to weight dependent 3. Gradually increase the difficulty | Moderate | 7-10min |
| Potentiate | Intensity | Duration | |
| Specific Warm Up | Return to athlete's sport and focus on: 1. Developing specific movement patterns 2. Increasing intensity until at training or competition intensity 3. Working mental focus for task at hand | Moderate to High | 5min |
There are a number of resources and guides for what can be done for activating and mobilising the body for the movements required in your sport. One option I would recommend is getting familiar with different types of exercises for activation, and same for mobilization. Field based sports and endurance sports can use similar exercises for this phase. A convenient tool would be using YouTube to search for "hip activation exercise". You'll will find many examples with coached technique here to help you. If a general warm up is not specific enough for you, please get in touch with me so I can help you develop the right warm up for all your session types.
Finally, your warm up should be something that you are so familiar with that come race day or game day, it is a process that grounds you and settles the nerves before the race or game starts. Warm ups are very useful in this regard and I would highly recommend using your competition warm up regularly during your competitive training block.