Warming up before a workout is beneficial to any athlete no matter what the skill level. It allow you to warm and prepare your muscles for intense exercise, by doing this gradually rather than quickly you give you muscles time to adapt and therefore reduce injury.  However, warming up does more than just prevent injury it also increases nerve activity and body responsiveness.

This allows for faster contractions and greater power output by the muscle groups.  Before a work out take 5-10 minutes to adequately prepare your body.

Warm Up:

Slow:

  • Knee to Chest
  • Lunge Walking
  • Toe Touches

Medium:

  • Power Skip
  • High Knees
  • Skip for Hight
  • Knee to Opposite Elbow (Right then Left)
  • High Knee Kick Outs

Fast:

  • High speed high knees
  • Butt Kickers
  • Carioca
  • 75%, 85%, 95%, increasing sprints

Overall Body:

  • Jogging in place
  • Jumping Rope
  • Jumping Jacks
  • Jogging 2 Laps

Static Stretches: (Performed with sub maximal effort at 10 second intervals)

  • Legs together, straight down
  • Deep Knee Bends
  • Quad Stretch
  • Left over Right/Right over left
  • Deep Lunge
  • Calf Elongation