When you go to the gym, you see strange things. One of those things is how people warm up.
This is often what I see:
- Some people do nothing – jump on the leg press, stack up the weight and go.
- Some people do some leg swings and then jump on the leg extension.
- Some people sign up for their piece of cardio equipment, jump on and go full effort.
My approach is none of those.
I combine several approaches to my best warm-up; my warm-ups are joint-focused and depend on what I focus on during that day.
I don’t look at what I do as a warm-up. Then I look at it as more of a primer. And I am working on priming up the joints, muscles, ligaments, tendons, stabilizing muscles, and main muscle for what I will be working on.
When it comes to priming, it is very much like what race car drivers do with their car engines. They are constantly tweaking, testing, and preparing the engine for the race. That is what I do with my primer workouts.
My primer workouts are not just a bunch of movements or exercises I throw together. I think out all the movements, test them on myself, and give them to others.
Plus, I make sure my Primer Workout contains these six things:
- P – Preparation – They should prepare the body for the activity that you plan on taking your body through.
- R – Range of Motion – The workout or the exercises you do should move the joints through a full range of motion. With most of our lifestyles, the lack of moving our bodies through a full range of motion has led to muscle imbalances which have led to injuries and pain.
- I – Isolation – Some movements must focus on isolation and targeting specific joints. For example, my Knee Primer Workout focuses on the knees.
- M – Movement – It is all about movement. Get the joints moving and the body moving because, in many cases, before your warm-up, you were sitting and doing nothing.
- E – Endurance – We want to focus on stabilizers, the most important muscles that protect the body and joints from injury. These muscles are activated with low load and higher repetitions. You need to activate the vastus medialis and gluteus medius for the knee.
- R – Resistance – You need to add some resistance to your warm-up. This can be done with bodyweight, resistive tubing, medicine ball, kettlebell, bar, etc. Along with isolating the joint and moving it, so the joint lubricates itself through a full range of motion, you also need to add load so the muscles around that joint activate, get ready to do their job, and build endurance.
Now, look at what you do for your knees. Check to see if your knee warm-up hits the areas that I talk about or if you are one of THOSE people in the gym.
Rick Kaselj, MS
Knee Primer Workout
As you know, I have released Fix My Knee Pain with Mike Westerdal this week.
I have put together the Knee Primer Workout I use on my knees before my workout. Doing this routine gets my knees ready for my workouts.
As a special bonus for Friends of EFI (Exercises For Injuries) and me, if you order Fix My Knee Pain from me, I will send you my Knee Primer Workout.
In Knee Primer Workout, you will get:
- Video descriptions of each of the exercises that I do
- Follow along with a video of each of the exercises
- Exercise manual where I go into the exercises in more details
Now to the small print. This is the deal. I am done with the videos for the Knee Primer Workout. I am working on the exercise manual that goes with it. It will be done tonight.
I will send you the Knee Primer Workout next week if you order through me.
If you can’t wait and want it right now (as my kids say), email me at support@ExercisesForInjuries.com, and we will send it to you immediately.
