Dynamic Warm Up

Hi everyone,

After some inquiries and requests, I decided to record my warm up routine. I don’t need to highlight the importance of warming up before taking part in any workout, let alone an intense one, or indeed one with added resistance such as kettlebells. The whole point of a warm up is to loosen and release tension in the muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints, allowing full range of motion therefore reducing the chance of injury. If you happen to have an area that maybe was injured before, is weaker, or just is more prone to injury (due to arthritis for example) then I would recommend adding extra warm up exercises for that area. Don’t take away from the rest of the warm up, but spend special attention on that vulnerable area.

My warm up is pretty straight forward and there is nothing really that special about it, but it does do a very good job of warming me up nicely for whatever lies ahead. The warm up took just over 10 minutes to complete and it consists of about 15 different exercises/movements.

The warm up exercises are:

1. Neck Up and Downs (keep tongue touching the roof of the mouth when looking up and tuck the chin to the chest on the way down) 15-20 reps total
2. Neck Ear to Shoulder (try not to shrug) x 20 reps total
3. Neck Side to Side (do not move your upper body, just the neck) x 20 reps total
4. Shoulder Rotations Forward then Backward x 20 reps total
5. Chest Opener x 12 – 15 reps
6. Jumping Jacks x 30 seconds
7. Body weight Squats x 20 reps
8. Hip, glute, hamstring and hip flexor warm up (don’t know the name) x 8 -10 reps total
9. More Body weight Squats x 20 reps
10. Sumo Hamstring Squat x 10 reps
11. Forward Lunge and Touch x 12 reps total
12. Back Extension to Hip Flex x 10 reps
13. Kettlebell Halos x 15 reps each direction
14. Two Handed Kettlebell Swings (light weight) 2 sets of 30 seconds

So there you have a great choice of exercises to include in your warm up.  Warm ups are also a great way to mentally prepare yourself for the workout ahead.

I will be back soon with a new workout and also I will be filming a cool down video to show you what I do to stretch out at the end. So for now, I will see you all soon.

Cheers

Marianne