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​The new way to warmup and cooldown

Today the New York Times reported on a study about warm ups and cool downs, what works and what doesn't.

New ways to warm up and cooldown.

Today the New York Times reported on a study about warm ups and cool downs, what works and what doesn’t.

The Times piece focused on youth soccer players, and the results of the study were that using a progressive warmup where you start easy and ramp up to the level of intensity you’ll use during the game meant you’re 40 percent less likely to suffer a lower-body injury.

That story was about soccer, but here’s why it matters to you in the gym.

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The key to a good warmup is increasing core temperature, circulating blood throughout your body, and mobilizing the joints that are about to be used.

You’ll want to be performing dynamic movements that take your joints through a full range of motion, warm your muscles and prepare your nervous system for the movements of the actual workout to come.

Like the soccer study found, you should also gradually ramp up the intensity as you go.

For example, if you’re going to back squat, you’d start by performing hip and ankle mobility drills. Then you’d move on to miniband box squats for 20 reps with your bodyweight to activate your glutes and hone form and technique.

Then perform at least a couple warmup sets of 5 to 10 reps at 50 percent and 75 percent of your desired training load for that day to fully prep your body for the task at hand.

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For cool downs, the soccer study proved that icing doesn’t help anything. What will help is foam rolling and stretching sore and tight muscles, then elevating your legs while doing some deep diaphragmatic (belly) breathing.

This helps your body switch from a sympathetic to parasympathetic state, or from a fight or flight to a recovery mode.

To jumpstart the post-workout recovery process, commit to at least 5 minutes of foam rolling or stretching for high-priority areas (like the glutes and hip flexors) and 5 minutes of leg elevation with deep belly breathing to end your next training session.

This short 10-minute investment will make you feel like a million bucks and will go a long way to improving health and performance—trust me.

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