Warm Up Drills to Use for Your Athletes

What does a properly designed warm-up program mean? Running fast and performing explosive movements are extremely complicated activities from a neuromuscular standpoint, so there are certain things to consider and rules to follow.

If you want your athletes to be able to perform at a high level in their sport, a proper warm-up is crucial. Not only is it our goal to get our athletes ready to compete and perform to their full potential, our role as coaches is first and foremost to prevent injuries. There is nothing more critical in reducing the incidence of injury then putting our athletes through a well structured warm-up program.

What does a properly designed warm-up program mean? Running fast and performing explosive movements are extremely complicated activities from a neuromuscular standpoint, so there are certain things to consider and rules to follow.

Slow to fast, simple to complex

Those are the words to live by when creating your warm-up routine. To prepare your athletes to be ready for practice or a game, you need them slowly work their way up to full speed. As you progress through the warm-up, your athletes will make a simple transition to the more complicated and faster movements. We want to stimulate and create the intensity of the upcoming practice or competition by the end of the warm-up.

A good warm-up should take at least 20 minutes to complete in order to raise the core temperature and really get the muscles fired up and ready to go. We always tell our athletes that their warm-up should have made them break a sweat. If they aren't lightly sweating and slightly out of breath as the complete their warm up routine, then they are not ready to compete. Too often, I have seen some athletes just going through the motions and they have not prepared themselves to do anything, let alone sprint. This is where injuries happen. Explain to your athletes the importance of performing their warm ups and how they will help contribute to top performance.

We do not want our athletes to be too fast too soon, and this is where a properly designed warm-up comes into play. There is a progression of movements that you must follow in order to get the most out of your warm-up. The purpose of the warm-up is to loosen and bring blood flow to the muscles, take the body through the ranges of motion they are going to compete in, and match the intensity of the competition the body is about to encounter.

The flow created from your warm-up program is going to set the tone for the rest of your workout or game.

Should every workout have the same warm-up routine?

No. When preparing for practice we must take into consideration what our goal is for the day. Is it a speed/power day, a recovery day, a light day (like the day before a game)? how do your athletes feel? (stiff, sore), etc. Different warm-up programs and volumes can be used dependant on all of these issues. There are some drills we like to use each time there is a speed and power day workout - our core drills.

To keep athletes fresh, and not bored with the same old warm up routine, you need to change up your drills and exercises. When athletes get bored of certain exercises they get lazy and their technique suffers. That being said, try not to add too many new exercises at once. Although we do not want the athletes to get bored and we want to keep the warm-up interesting, we always want them to perform each drill with perfect technique. Make sure your athletes can do the drills properly before adding in new exercises.

Before I show you some sample workouts, I need to address static stretching. If your athletes want to be explosive, fast and powerful, static stretching which makes the muscles long and loose, is not ideal to perform prior. Static stretching right before an activity will definitely decrease power output, and that is why I try not to use it before most practices.

So can static stretching be used?

Yes... well sort of. Static stretching before any speed workouts should be avoided although it is not the end of the world if your athletes are performing those stretches now- there are ways around the negative that those drills cause. All I am saying is, I do not think static stretching is ideal to use right before a practice or game.

There are coaches on some teams that want their athletes to static stretch before the practice and there is nothing you can do about it; that's the way it is. You can't change some coaches' minds, so we need to learn how to work with them to achieve the same goal of helping the athletes become successful. Adding a dynamic warm-up right after static stretching will be of great benefit. If those athletes are performing a dynamic warm up routine right after the static stretching, the issue of decreased power output will be less of a problem. If you use a dynamic warm-up right after static stretching, the amount of time it takes to do that warm up, will help decrease/negate the negative effects to explosiveness caused by the static stretching. So, unless your athletes are performing a vertical jump or running a full sprint right after static stretching, without a dynamic warm-up in between efforts, then you should be all set and can get away with static stretching before practice (although I do not recommend it).

What if your athletes are sore? Wouldn't you want them to static stretch?

Some coaches like to have their athlete's static stretch before practice if they are sore. If my athlete's muscles are sore, then I will have them go through a light workout (not performing anything explosive) and static stretch at the end of the workout. If you have sore athletes and you have them running full speed or working on a lot of power movements then you are asking for an injury. In these circumstances it will take the athlete a lot longer to recover. So, simply put, we would not have our athlete's static stretch on a speed/power workout day because they wouldn't be performing a speed/power workout if they are really sore.