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Part of your warm up each day is to get your blood flowing and increase your core temperature. Although in summer that’s probably already happened in your drive to the gym!
Many days we are just waking up or decompressing from a busy day and not much thought is put into HOW we do the warm up.
So this week, we’re going to cover the three most frequent warm up exercises you encounter each week and give a few tips on how to perform them more effectively: the Basics of Rowing, Running and Jumping Rope.
Pick one to look at this week and when you see it on the white board, apply one of the things you’ve learned. You’ll find that the technique work will make the movement more efficient AND help you get fitter. Even in the warm up!
The Rower:
Rowing is very similar to the Sumo Deadlift High Pull movement in the order of which your body moves. First, the legs straighten, then the hips open up, and last the arms pull. Then on your return, your body moves in reverse order: the arms straighten, the hips bend, and the knees bend as you slide back to the front of the rower. So the order is: legs, hips, arms, then arms, hips, legs. Say this to yourself to reinforce the order and you’ll find you can maximize each body part as you pull back and slide in. Here are a few other things to keep in mind the next time you find yourself on the row machine:
1- Relax your shoulders– keeping your shoulders down will relax the neck and allow you to pull in the longest stroke possible.
2- Keep your posture tall– lift your ribcage slightly to engage your core muscles.
3- Keep rigidity in your back as you lean forward– you can do this by keeping your shoulders pressed back as you hinge forward. Watch that your shoulders don’t round too much like a fishing pole casting out its bait.
4- Pull the bar as close to your sternum without touching– your power comes from pulling the elbows back at the back of your stroke. Aim to pull the bar at the top of your ribcage to fully tap into that power.
5- “Legs, Hips Arms… Arms, Hips Legs”– maximize your power by segmenting these moving parts and then blending the movement into one fluid pull.
6- “One O’Clock and Eleven O’Clock”– Envision you have an imaginary clock behind you.As you slide forward at the front of your stroke, hinge your torso to the 1 O’Clock position. As you finish your stroke, lean back to the 11 O’Clock position. This will lengthen your stroke and give you a little extra power each time you pull.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7HEm-fd534&index=21&list=PLdWvFCOAvyr1qYhgPz_-wnCcxTO7VHdFo
The Pose Running Method:
The Pose Running Method was developed as a simple running strategy to help runners prevent injury, make their stride more efficient, and increase their speed and distance.
Pose Running is broken into three main components:
- The Fall
- The Pose
- The Pull
Each component is an invariable part of your stride, and understanding what each is will help you tremendously every time you see the 100m run in a workout or a mile run for time.
The following video does a great job illustrating the three components of your stride: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXGIhtiZGqs
Here are some tips to practice when you set out on your next run:
1- The ideal place to on your foot to land is the forefoot strike. This has the least amount of impact time and your muscles are still elastic and not tense when you make contact with the ground.
2- Avoid heel striking since this action can lead to shin splints, plantar faciaitis and other overuse injuries.
3- Keep your shoulders hips and feet in alignment when making contact with the ground.
4- Lean slightly forward and let gravity pull you down and forward.
5- Watch pumping your arms or driving with your knees. This is unnecessary movement and won’t make you faster.
6- 180 steps per minute is the ideal pace for limiting impact time and strain on your muscle-tendon-joint connections.
The Jump Rope
If you haven’t tested out a few of our jump ropes, we highly recommend it. You will see there are a ton of variations to the jump rope (who knew?) from the length of the handle to the thickness of the rope to the type of mechanism used for turning. If you haven’t found a rope that you love yet, go back to the wall and try another. It does make a difference!
Thick vs. Thin: The beauty of a thick rope is that you can feel it turning. You have a better idea of when it has passed your head and is coming forward toward your feet. The disadvantage of the thick rope is that it’s heavy and doing a BUNCH of jumps will wear on your forearms.
The reverse is true for the thin wire ropes. While tough to feel out when you are a beginner to jumping rope, their advantage is when you crank up the volume of your jumps and especially when you transition to double unders. Having a light weight rope that you can spin quickly is important and allows you to stretch your set of jumps beyond the fatigue of the heavier rope.
If you have not jumped rope before or struggle with the coordination part of jumping rope, we recommend you start with the heavier cable. Once you’ve established consistent singles and maybe a few double unders, we recommend you lighten the wire and go with a smaller diameter rope.
Length: To determine the right length for you, step on the middle of the cable, take out the slack in the cable and then turn the handles horizontally. They should end somewhere in the chest area of your body. If the handles land around your waist, the rope is probably too short. If they land up by your neck, yep you guessed it, the rope is probably too long.
Many of our athletes have their own rope. They purchase one they like, after trying many of ours, and then have the rope cut to their ideal length. This is a great strategy if you like your own things and don’t want others changing the length of your favorite rope. We keep a few on hand if you want one or can point you in the right direction about ordering one. Just ask!
Tips for getting the Single Under:
1- Jump both feet, not one at a time.
2- Minimize your arms swinging and use your wrists to spin the rope.
3- try to find a comfortable speed and stick with it.
4- keep your elbows pressed into your ribcage.
Here is a short list of goals to progress you from single unders to doubles to even triples:
1- Jump 50 singles unbroken
2- Jump 100 singles unbroken
3- Get 1 double under
4- Go for unbroken sets of double unders, shoot for 5 or 10 unbroken
5- Learn to breathe and double under at the same time
6- Progress toward 25, 50, 75 and 100 unbroken dubs
7- You’re ready to watch the triple under video and go for your first triple!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCuXYrTOMxI
Tips for the getting your first double under:
1- Jump higher on your singles to get used to the increased height.
2- Jump and count “1-2” in the air to get the cadence of the rope spin.
3- Keep your feet together to minimize catching your feet on the rope arc.
4- Stay upright and bring your knees up if you need to but try not to lean forward.
5- Keep your elbows tight to focus on wrist turn instead of arm movement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tF3hUsPZAI
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