The ultimate guide to warm ups
Why do you Warm Up?
To prepare your body and mind for the activity to follow.
Active warm up
If you have a “routine” that you follow day in day out, it becomes just that…routine. Your mind switches off, your body has adapted too well, and any benefits are lost.
If the coach leaves the warm ups to the players, then it had better be good players with the right leadership qualities who can get it done right. Otherwise you then have players who are not switched on when they need to be and wonder why they get off to a bad start: in practice, or in competition.
This week’s module of the Sports Training System is looking at different types of warm ups and how to incorporate them into both pre training and pre competition preparation.
What exercises should I include in Warm Ups?
The Shooing the Chickens exercise is an example of what has become the “norm” without people questioning what it is doing. (Thanks to Laurence Kitchen for the term).
Just about every team sport seems to do this in rotation with some “opening the gates” or “sumo squats” which are performed half heartedly whilst catching up on the week’s gossip.
Heel flicks and high knees are also included in every warm up by default: depsite the fact they encourage bad running mechanics. If you do include these, you are teaching kids to run badly!.
One of the sequences we use is the animal movements. Cricket Coach Mark Garaway tried these out in St Vincent last week with Matthew Hoggard and Michael Vaughn. Apparently even these 2 experienced players learned something new and enjoyed it.
As a coach or player you wouldn’t do the same skills or running session every day, so why do the same warm up? Have a heart for the players and break the routine up. Of course, don’t change it on match day.
How to implement change
I have given the Millfield Hockey and Netball girls an arsenal of exercises that they can do, then broken that down into 3 different types of court\ field warm ups. To help get this to actually happen:
- I have explained why we are doing it to the coaches.
- Videoed the exercises
- Given written handouts
- Rehearsed the exercises over several weeks, so they can execute them properly, effectively and confidently
- Let the players mix and match to come up with what they think is right.
- Had dress rehearsals and adjusted from the feedback.
This didn’t happen overnight, it has taken time, but it is an important part of the overall Athletic Development and player development, that the athlete knows what they are doing, why and can get on with it themselves.
We have banned shooing the chickens too!
Read more here on
- Do warm ups affect performance?
- How to make your warm up sport specifc
- Weight training warm up video
- Have you thought of using gymnastics as part of your warm up?
by James Marshall
Hello James,
Great article and a very important point with regards to keeping the athlete avoiding staleness and boredom before a session.
What is your opinion regarding routine warm ups before a competitive game? I personally have been subjected to this every year of playing rugby and every year the coach will employ a ”new” warm up routine before the match. However, as exciting as this sounds many of the players seem to lack interest in a warm up of this nature 2-3 months into the season. I can understand why the coaches do it as it seems to give both the players and the coaches something they don’t have to worry about before the match and possibly a sense of security.
Cheers
Brett
Hello James
I can use this information as well as the info i gained over the weekend to create a good warm up for rugby. So not only do i get them physically prepared but mentally aswell.. and i keep everything related to running mechanics and specific to there sport.
Tom
Hi Brett,
thanks for the comment: if I am working with a team, then I introduce a new element to the warm up on Thursday, then apply it on Saturday before the match.
Just changing one drill or exercise at a time though. That way the structure is familiar, but the mind and body have to concentrate and focus on the new element.
Over the course of the season, the warm up changes and adapts and stays fresh.
I’ll definitely be using this information for my rugby warm ups for my team, there has always been a sense that there is a ‘boring, predictable’ warm up before our games so being able to link it with previous sessions, as well as now knowing that some techniques are ineffective is a big help!
Thanks!
Matt
Hi James,
Dynamic warm up of hamstrings makes perfect sense,i have used the one you show as part of our current warm up and you are fully aware of the muscle you are warming up. We also have had no injuries of the team since a dedicated warm up was introduced which is great.
I will certainly be trying to capture the motion the body goes through during an event and trying to recreate that as part of a warm up routine.
I think simplicity is key and people understand and respond to that.
Why use a complicated word when a simple word explains just as well.
Regards
Darrell
Hi James,
I have been slowly implementing the dynamic warm-ups with the rugby team that I coach and progressing slowly with both the boys & the other coaches & everything is going very well!
The warm-ups have helped the boys to be ready for the game and helps their alertness as well!
Thanks!!
Gary
Hi James
I recently saw a coach, ‘shooing the chickens” during a warm up and had to chuckle to myself as I thought of the video you’ve done here.
Adding in these ideas certainly makes it more interesting for the boys playing rugby and gets the mind more focussed for the training session ahead. However it is a long term process getting them used to doing new exercises, remembering them and doing them correctly, i guess Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Many thanks
Kathryn
Making the warm up specific to the task I found makes the warm a bigger part of the session rather than just going through the motions saying you have done a warm up. With participants I coach they are adults who have been at work all day and this structure not only improves the physical readiness but also mental preparation.
Rob
James,
Having worked with younger athletes that have short attention spans, I feel that changing the warm up every few sessions and incorporating different mobility exercises helps keep the athletes enthused and has them learning batches of new movements that they can then carry with them into the foreseeable future. As this article states; you can’t go far wrong by focusing on dynamic primal and animal movement patterns that have the body working as one big integrated unit – just like it should do.
Cheers,
Kyle
Hi James
Having completed and passed my level 1 on Saturday, I took my sons U13 rugby team for warm up and cool down yesterday and most feedback from the parents and coach was how professional it looked and the boys said they enjoyed their session! I’m sure I broke loads of rules like talking too much etc… But I did have the satisfaction of telling the boys that ‘ shooing the chickens’ was a cool down exercise and not a warm up exercise (chuckling to myself)
Thank you for a great course and learning experience, here starts the building of Rome!!
Kathryn
Hi Kathryn,
really good to see that you are applying the newfound lessons. It will be interesting to see how this affects your team’s performance.
Hi James,
Really good day today on the level 1 course I learn’t a great deal. Looking forward to putting it into practice tomorrow (Day 2) and into the future.
Kevin Rainford
Hi James.
Managed to find the page.
I would find the dynamic warm up exercises beneficial for my clients especially in my bootcamps to get multiple muscles working and by making the warm ups more enjoyable.
Thanks
Allan Barnard
Thanks Kevin, and for your input too.
Remember Allan that the warm up we did today was for multi directional team sports: the warm up must relate to the activity to follow, bearing in mind the capabilities of the athletes.
My opinion on warm ups has changed completely from the course. I will be changing what I do and ensuring that I can justify why I am doing what I do. Thank you.
Gary Beasley
Hi James,
Really good article which highlights and exposes the old school way of doing things. I work with a lot of older coaches who insist on warming young athletes up by shooting chickens because that’s how it has been done for years. I can certainly see the benefits of breaking the norm and using these fun, innovative and sport specific stretches to warm up.
Ed
Hi James,
I always realize the importance of a warm-up, now i know how important it really is to be coach led with my group of players (Colts Rugby) & the content of it. I know a little more of what to keep & what to shoo away! Thank you.
Regards
Roy
I believe that the standard warm ups just don’t benefit you in a positive manner. These common warm ups were extremely boring and even draining as a player so I will be usuing this information to make sure not to follow suit.
It is always good to see and learn different ideas, rather than just going with the norm, even though every sport does it at all levels!! Keen to try new things (Open mindset)
DB
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Good little video, really looking forward to this weekends S&C course
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Again great ideas. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to this weekends course.
Was very interesting to understand what should really be in a warm up and why we should make sure we use it to our advantage when teaching teams but also someone on a individual basis.
I will now be adding these and changing my warm ups regularly to give the participants the best start.
A very helpful video and article, which will encourage me to vary and to improve the effectiveness of my warm-ups.
Really useful article and having more understanding for worming up in different sport
Great ideas. Correct warm up is important before training.
Dawid
Today we had the level 1 strength & conditioning course in westway and was the great course ,,so much to learn and lots of new knowledge about coaching and the main work up ,,very great atmosphere ,,good coaching and lots of learning and at the same time we had the great time ,lots of fun and the taking part of trading sessions such as ,,bodyweighy,skipping,rolling,flipping ,…..thanks James
Shahla
Great article, this dynamic warm up would be perfect for my teammates on the cricket field to get them ready for the fielding warm up, as fielding requires you to move in all directions at differing pace. The animal movements would be great for the bowlers to get warm and loose for such a powerful movement.
Great article on the use of dynamic stretches. In Netball we do very similar warm up exercises to this including arabesques, spider men, sideward skips, glute bridges etc. We also use a lot of landing skills technique before a game such as one leg jumps, bounds, broad jumps, 90 degress one leg jumps etc. These warm up techniques can be used in netball to not only activate key muscles but also to prevent injury as netballers are prone to knee and ankle injuries.
Excellent warm up exercises! It’s so important to explore the three planes of motion on everything we do, regardless of being an athlete or not.
Lots of interesting ideas on different movements to use. We use a lot of animal movements in rugby but could develop landing techniques a lot more to develop strength and reduce injury risk. Does anyone progress their warm ups to using a ball or should the focus be on the movement?
Very important concept of training functional movement and the transfer of forces through the myofascial slings, in order to protect the load on the joints. Similarly on return to sport following injury, retraining and conditioning the tissues to absorb load with basic landing techniques to more advanced skater hops and rolls for lower limb and medicine ball training, etc for upper limb.
Get a ball involved, but the movement is what is lacking in most warm ups.
Made for a good read! look forward to this weekend.
Interesting article using sport specific skills for warm up which is particularly important in a sport such as netball where the players are prone to ankle and knee injuries. The article highlights the necessity for dynamic warm ups to prepare for the game ahead. In netball these would include high kicks, Spider-Man, arabesques etc.
Really helpful advice to making warm-ups fun and sport-specific.
I really like the idea of combining animal walks and gymnastics to activate and mobilise. The walks and rolling can be increasingly made more relevant by throwing in a ball and competition or making the activities closer to sport technical drills (body positions or movement patterns) i.e. bear walks can be made to rehearse good scrummage positions in Rugby.
Regards Stephen C. L1 21 July 2018 Westway.