I Don’t Need To Warmup???Who Hired You?
This article is inspired by a colleague of mine. We had a little exercise challenge at the workplace today. The challenge was to deadlift our body weight for as many reps as possible. Upon my turn I was asked if I needed to warm up first, to which I sarcastically replied, “what’s a warmup?” (maybe the individual that asked me didn’t understand that I was being sarcastic, but who knows). I just went and did my reps. We joked a little more about how I don’t warm up, where I mentioned that I’ve run 7 marathons, and never really warmed up before any of those races. And I never got injured, always felt great the next day, to which my colleague (jokingly/ who knows) replied, “Who hired you as a trainer?” Fair enough. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
Our bodies are already at a temperature of 98.6 Fafrenheit. If the weather forecast calls for a temperature of 98.6 degrees, is that a “warm day”?No thats actually pretty damn hot. Now I know where some of you already think I’m going with this. You think I’m about to say warming up before exercise isn’t important. ABSOLUTELY NOT. Warming up gets our blood flowing, and our joints lubricated. And thats important since our joints (bone connected to bone) receive a minimal amount of blood flow which is why most bone related injuries happen at those said joints. Just like owning proper movement before we add resistance is important, so is warming up. But we’re all different. So warming up before exercise is more important for some than others. And to some extent we all need some type of warmup. For me, the walk from my apartment door to the elevator of my apartment is enough to get the blood flowing. For some, various dymamic movement of upwards of 15 minutes is needed. And both scenarios are fine, as they apply specically to the individual. But we’re all different.
I ran 6000+ miles training for 7 marathons in the last 7 years(thats almost twice the size of the USA). For my body, strength training and active recovery(kinda like re-warming up after the workout) is most important. And that’s why the day after I’ve ran my races I always appear fully recovered. That works for me. As far as my client’s are concerned, they all ALWAYS do a warmup of some kind before all workouts. They’re bodies are not like mine. And I’d never treat them as such.
Our bodies are machines. But they’re all different. And they all need a warmup of some kind. Get your warmup on.
