How to make your warm up sport specific

Is your warm-up sport-specific?

As many people in the world know and understand you can learn so much by watching and observing other people.

How does society work? How people act in different situations, being a couple of examples.

This skill, of observing and reflecting is so important to a coach’s personal and professional development. I have had the chance to work with some excellent coaches over the last 5 years and from each, I have gained new skills and qualities.

While waiting for Matt, (as he was late to our meeting) I have the opportunity to watch two teams warming up for a game of Netball. As I was watching I noticed that both teams were doing the same drills and activities. And I got thinking…… is this normal? Does every team warm-up the same? If so does that mean that each person that plays that sport is the same? Is that warm-up effective for them?

Planning your Warm-Up

This is a message that I deliver on our Athletic Development Coaching Course We spend time planning and reflecting upon the coaches’ individual and team warm-ups and how they help prepare their teams before they compete and it has proven to be very useful for their athletes.

Here are some tips:

Have a plan. Write it down if necessary. Make it simple.

• Make it personal to you- don’t copy what anyone else is doing.
• Move generally before you get ready for your specific event.
• Use large muscle groups first, get warm and sweaty.
• Introduce technical drills for form.
• Build up speed and intensity.
• Integrate speed work with mobility, so that you don’t get fatigued.
• Practice in training and experiment with what works for you.
• Keep it short- that way if you are called up sooner than expected you won’t panic.
• Routine is key; it will be a comfort before you compete.

What I saw and what I was thinking….

While watching the Netball warm-up I saw:

• A lot of running in a straight line (A to B)
• A low to medium intensity of running, and not explosive movements, high-intensity actions
• Limited decision making and interplay between players.

When I look at Netball, I see a high-intensity game (for those actually involved with the ball), that is multi-directional and at varying intensities of movement thought-out the game. When in netball does a player run completely straight with no change of pace or direction. Did the warm-up resemble the actual activities and movements required in the match? Probably not.

A warm-up is so important to mentally and physically prepare athletes for competition. Yes, we can physically prepare athletes with the implementation of correct movements and actions, but who can we mentally prepare them? As each athlete has a different makeup and needs.

What we can do is to stimulate each athlete’s sensor systems, so that they make fast, and correct decisions in the heat of battle. This means including decision making in a warm-up, especially for team evasion sports. The video below shows athletes choosing a movement across the base of the square and then accelerating across the diagonals.

My favourite is Keep-Ball, a simple game that requires the players to make a number of passes between each other, without letting the opposition gain the ball. This activity is multi-directional, with a variety of intensity and movement. It includes communication and decision making.

 Ask yourself, are you actually preparing your athletes for competition?

Read more here

• Do warm ups affect performance?
• How to implement a dynamic warm up