Allan Macdonald

Please note: I recently found some old articles from my old physicalengineering blog. I wrote many of these articles in 2015-16. I am not sure if I would agree with the contents in their entirety; however I am posting the articles to help keep track of my previous perspectives on certain topics. I hope you find them interesting, thought provoking, or if nothing else slightly comical.

July 25, 2016 Allan Macdonald

In this article I’m going to outline the progression of warm ups prior to sport-specific sessions that I’ve used since beginning work with Performance Judo athletes in 2009. Also, some of my previous posts have been rather lengthy so this one is deliberately short, with more examples of what I’ve done/are currently doing. I’ve used the original templates for the warm ups – it is quite funny how little the template has changes over 7years! It’s also worth noting that these were the framework for the sessions although its likely I deviated a little bit from them as I enjoy experimenting in the warm ups with different things I’d seen from other coaches and online.

Summary in case you’re short on time:

• The R.A.M.P protocol involves Raising the heart rate and body temperature, Activating key muscles and movements, Mobilising key joints and muscles, and finally Potentiating future activities though some explosive or coordination based movements.
• Good coaches use the warm up to generally prepare the body physically for the main content of the session.
• Great coaches use the warm up to set the athletes expectations for the main session content by deliberately selecting specific skills & drills to practice.
• Great coaches also use the warm up to identify changes in the athletes mentality, coordination and movement capabilities and then inform the warm up content and future session content.
• The warm up is an excellent opportunity to practice basic movement skills and set a culture of attention to detail and precise movement execution on the mat.

Across the last 7years my views on what a warm up session are have evolved quite a bit. To begin with a saw the Warm Up with the single focus of generally physically preparing the athletes for the activity they were about to complete. Get them generally warm, stretch of the main joints of the body and then do some more dynamic skills. Up until 2013 I was writing the Warm Up’s exclusively, however as part of an injury prevention project in Scotland Physiotherapy began screening athletes and then used the screening findings to design “pre-hab” content which would replace the general warm up for the session. I was never a big fan of the terminology “pre-hab” as I couldn’t image a Gladiator doing activation and injury prevention work prior to fighting for their life in the Colosseum. From my perspective I also saw “pre-hab” as a rather unnecessary training component – either athletes are training to meet the physical demands of their sport or they are not, why include additional injury prevention work when this is what intelligent training should be. The “pre-hab” may have been designed to reduce/prevent injuries but it left athletes not properly prepared physically or mentally for the sport-specific sessions.

In 2014 I moved jobs and the term “pre-hab” had kind of stuck in this environment too, until this year actually when coaches agreed that “Warm Up” was a better term and that we were, in fact warming up.

Today I see the warm up has having many key aims. The first aim is that the warm up is an opportunity to prime that athlete’s mindset for the specific session they are about to take on. I do this by focusing on individual movement skills, partner compliant movement skills or partner evasive skills depending on what session the coach had designed on that day. By priming the mindset hopefully the coach can optimise the time spent in session as the athletes are ready to go as soon as I hand them over. Additionally, I have set expectations through drill design and coaching cues/behaviours to make the athlete is aware of the session intensity will be so they are focused and this should reduce injury potential.

Secondly, I see the warm up as an opportunity assess the movement quality of the athletes and then use this assessment to inform the mobility & activation components of the warm up. To do this I use basic squat, lunge, hip-hinge and jump & lands in sagittal, frontal and transverse planes and use variations of the movements to identify restrictions in sport-specific positions. By consistently repeating the same basic movements every day it makes it very easy for me as the S&C coach to identify inconsistencies in athlete’s movements on a given day and deliver an intervention or investigate further. It might sound complicated but essentially if the athlete is missing some hip extension identified through lunges, or calf dorsi-flexion as identifying through squat I will include some more of this work in the mobility component of the arm up – fairly simple.

Finally, I use the warm up to practice basic, foundation movement skills and I scale them across the group – the best athlete’s in the world deliver the basics better than everyone else. It’s a key objective for us to have the best moving judo athletes in the world, therefore daily practice of jumping & landing, squatting, lunging, hip-hinging, pushing, pulling, bracing, carrying, throwing and tumbling ensure the athletes we support do the basics better than anyone else. This means that we can shape athlete expectations so that on the mat there is a culture of high quality, precise movement and we can set the weight room expectations as that of heavy and explosive training for developing high force and velocity.

Anyway please see below the quick historical trip throughout my Warm Ups.

2010 Key Themes

• Group Warm Up
• Basic structure of general activity, into stretching, finally into some explosive and movement work.
• Session always begins with some general movement or game to increase heart rate.
• Foam rolling has just come out so lots incorporated this into general mobility with utilised both static and dynamic stretching.
• Activation work includes explosive work and then some individual gymnastic skills followed by partner compliant skills.

2011 Key Themes

• Group Warm Up
• R.A.M.P Protocol (raise, activate, mobilise, potentiate)
• Dynamic stretching to improve joint and range of movement and not impact rate of force development.
• Dynamic Mobility (range of movement with control) using mostly sport-specific movements.
• Potentiation involving fast-SSC jumps followed by sport-specific movements.
• Final component sport-specific drills to blend into primary session content.

2013 Key Themes

• Individual & Group “Pre-hab”
• This was the first time we had athletes complete a physiotherapy screening so we took the key findings and designed a “pre-hab” session.
• Athletes had a sheet which put them in a “shoulder” or “knee” group so would complete the exercises from the group they were in.
• Single leg hopping game with hand-eye coordination component as the coaches thought most athletes were deficit in this basic skill.
• The physio at the time didn’t believe the athletes needed more range, instead they required more control & strength through their existing range so there was no mobility component but instead lots of general activation.
• We included static stretching post session which I delivered to address the joint range improvements which the technical coach wanted.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAdPrzvSpKw

2014 Key Themes

• Group Warm Up
• Usually some constrained intensity warm up to gently increase heart rate and temperature.
• Large focus on total body range of movement, with particular focus on hips.
• Lower limb “reactive” balance focus with non-compliant partner disrupting movement using sagittal, frontal and transverse hops.
• High speed potentiation with ballistic lower body, upper body and change of direction.

2015 Key Themes

• Group Warm Up followed by 15mins Individual “Pre-hab” to build athlete ownership
• Session is briefed with short 2-3minutes introduction into how knee & shoulder injuries occur for example what the undesired observables are with respect to foot, knee, hip & trunk position and in which throws these occur.
• Specific focus on Medial Gluteus abduction strength as well as scapular positioning during single arm pushing.
• Mobility focus on pec minor length and shoulder end of range control by utilising overhead positions with judo belt. Large focus on thoracic extension and rotation to reduce forces around shoulder during throws.
• Daily balance work due to the findings from the physiotherapy screening
• Partner based change of direction drills to promote reading body positions to anticipate partners movements.
• Develop posture and shoulder strength at end of range using “loaded” exercises.
• At the end of this group warm up athlete were either in trunk, shoulder or lower limb groups depending on their screening test results and then would complete individual exercises.

2016 Key Themes

• Group Warm Up
• Basic Movement Screening at the beginning of the session to inform subsequent content and prioritise time.
• Significant focus on basic lower body movement competency (jump, squat, lunge, 1-leg squat, hip hinge) due to high number of junior & visually impaired athletes attending sessions.
• Consistent lower limb stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) development with mixture of double leg & single leg slow-SSC and double leg fast-SSC exercises always on a Monday when athletes are fresh.
• Opportunity prime subsequent sport-specific session based on its content i.e. prior to fighting session typically partner evasive skills will be developed, prior to technical session individual gymnastic skills will be developed.

Hopefully the above has been useful and provided some context as to my thought progression as to how warm ups can be used in addition to simple getting the body ready for activity.

Cheers

Allan