The Warm Up

The warm up is absolutely vital for safe exercise in whatever your chosen sport. They can take on a bit of a life of their own however. When I was first asked to teach my  Instructor would often ask me to take care of the warm up for him, usually for him to do all the club admin, I realise later with my own experience there is nothing more tiresome than hearing your own voice over two hours so that probably played a part. So I used to give the guys a bit of a hard time. Thinking that I was actually doing some good making them sweat and groan as I kept counting out the push ups. How boring! The sweating and the groaning should happen throughout the class not just in the first part! This was the problem, the warm up had become an event in itself completely detracting from the time the senior Instructor had with the students during which time they would actually learn stuff. Push ups, sit ups all need to be done but they don't have to be hammered out without mercy! All of a sudden the warm up was taking between 30 and 40 minutes. Although I teach, I still train. I take my place in the ranks and get on with it. Nothing bores me more than a warm up! Especially when the warm up has nothing to do with whats going on in the class plan. Why do push ups if you're working stances? The legs are warmed up and mobilised so that you are safe from injury when the real work begins. Don't lose sight of your training goals there are hundreds upon hundreds of full body workouts that take less than 10 minutes. They are not warm ups however, they are actual exercise programmes which still require a warm up. There is no reason to do a half hour warm up for a 10 minute programme. With all Combat Arts there is much more interesting stuff to be getting on with than push ups and sit ups. What you are doing, be it punches, kicks, wrestling or stances these are the things that will help your strength, help your core and generally help your fitness levels. Take 5 minutes to get the blood pumping then the rest of the night is yours to get the brain working and the techniques working. So today's meditation is an oldie but a goodie, enjoy your training, don't endure it!