Learn About Dynamic Warm Up

Casey Bass: We talk all the time about how to get better, how to be faster, how to be stronger, how to field the ball correctly, and throw a touchdown pass. What about before that? How do you properly warm up your kids to make sure they don't get injured? Well, today with our top doctor of sports, we're going to help you do that. We are joined by a friend in the show, and a really favorite guest, Crissy Rapp. Crissy, thanks for hanging out. Crissy Rapp: No problem Casey bass: We're going to talk about how to properly warm up correct? Crissy Rapp: Correct, yeah. Casey Bass: Alright, so first of all, what's the importance of warming up? Crissy Rapp: The importance basically is to, first of all, prevent injury for the kids. A lot of time they just want to get out there, and get going but it's very important to warm up the body before the workout, especially in here with some of the equipment that we use. It can be pretty strenuous that we want to make sure that the muscles are warmed up and blood is flowing and heart rate is up prior to just diving right in. Casey Bass: So, all the exercises, that you are about show us, are they only for when you are getting out to do a workout, like we're going to talk about, or are they for before practice as well? Crissy Rapp: It's very helpful to do this before a practice. It's pretty much anything that you're going to do engaging in physical activity. It's a good habit to form if nothing else, because as the kids older, they won't be as flexible and limber and it's important to have this as a habit, just to get used to warming up the muscles correctly. Cassey Bass: What about for youth coaches who only have a certain amount of time with their kids during a week? How do you convince them that this is not a waste of time, and the kids, not only are warming up but are getting better? Crissy Rapp: Basically, it doesn't very long. So there isn't a valid reason why they shouldn't take these five minutes because it's better to this and prevent the ACL tear, whatever it might be where the kids are going to be out for the season, and then the parents would come back to the coach and say, why aren't you warming up? So, it's the right thing to do, and it doesn't take very long and we're going to show you some basic exercises for a warm up that you can easily implement, if you don't already. Coach Lou George: It's important to warm up properly during any physical activity that you're going to do. The importance of it is to promote flexibility and to prevent injury. So while we're doing these exercises, we're going to warm up the whole body from top to bottom. Alright, guys, we're going to began with the bunny hops, going down to the ten. Ready, go. Next group, go. Excellent job, excellent job, good job. Coming back, skipping back. Go in that way. Ready, go. Next group, ready, go. Now, while we're doing our active dynamic warm up, what we would like to do is work in coordination as well. Here you go. Good job. Now, walking knee hugs. Ready, go. So also while we are doing our warm up, we like to do stretches as well as exercises that get the heart rate up. Toe to the nose. Gevin Reynolds: I think I'm much more flexible and agile now than I come here, and the strength trainings also make me stronger in other things also. Coach Lou George: Good job, excellent. Now, we're going to do walking lunges backwards. Hands on the hips. Remember, good form. Do not let your knee to go over the front of your toe. Ready, go. Now, what we are looking for, as coaches is making sure they do in proper form at all times, no matter what exercise or activity that we are doing. Alright, with this exercise, especially with the lunge, make sure the front foot is flat, and making sure that the front knees doesn't go over the front of the toe. Take your time, Savon, excellent. Like I said earlier, it's very important no matter what activity that you're doing, physical activity you're doing, that you're warming up the body. Next exercise is going to Frankenstein, Frankenstein. Straight leg march. Ready, go. This exercise helps strengthening and flexing the hamstrings. Kathryn Murray: I get more play-time now and my coaches are proud of me, and I feel good about myself. Coach Lou George: Good job, good job, good job. Give me a nice back paddle back, a nice back paddle back. Ready, go. Nose over toes, nose over toes, working the arms, don't let the heels touch. Excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent. Good job guys. let's do walking quad stretch next. Walking quad stretch. Ready, go. This exercise right here, what we call walking quad stretch is to help stretch out the quadriceps. Dillon Mabrey: I feel safe, I can run faster and longer and when I do the 40-yard dash, and then for a football, I have more endurance and I can take hits harder. Coach Lou George: Good job. Now back paddle back one more time. Ready, go. We'll do one more stretch. Ready, go. Good job. Now let's do leg press. Hands on the ankle, pulling out nice and high, going all the way to the tip of the toe. Ready, leg press, go. Good job. Savon Richardson: I'm getting a little stronger from the old jeopardize and I'm getting a lot faster for my running. Coach Lou George: Excellent, excellent, excellent. Now let's back paddle one more time. Ready, go. Ready, go. Good. Now those are just some of the activities and stretches that we do during our active dynamic warm up. We like to do our active dynamic warm up in the beginning of our exercise to help fire, and trigger the muscles, getting them fired up to let us know that we're about to do exercise. Now we do our static stretching which is your -- you know, go down and grab your ankles for 10 seconds, 20-30 second, hold towards the end of our workout, just because that helps to cool the body down, that puts the body in relaxation mode. So, when you're working out, you want to do active dynamic warm up in beginning for about 10-15 minutes, and a static stretching at the end for 10-15 minutes.