Use the following and adapt them to suit your own personal preferences and condition. Do you always train after work or uni for example, and feel tired before you get into the box? Get some pre-workout into your pre-WOD ritual.
Or are you getting enough out of your warm up? Do you cover the three important outcomes for a proper warm up? Use the following points to prime yourself for success.
1. BREATHING EXERCISES
It is undoubtedly obvious why proper breathing is important. But when we relate this to athletic performance then one good thing to remember is that the longer your body is deprived of oxygen, the more acidic your blood becomes, and thus performance suffers.
Proper prepping of the body with breathing exercises can improve blood flow and also create a kind of “euphoria” allowing your body to perform to a higher level than if you weren’t focusing on your oxygen intake, both physiologically and mentally.
Being focused on the task at hand is just as important as performing the said task. In order to do that, the brain needs to have as much O2 as possible. Focusing on breathing correctly will create better work output, more precise responses from our central nervous system and even quicker reflexes.
Controlling your breathing before you workout or take part in a competition will also help to keep nerves in check if you feel anxious before a WOD.
One of the most simple breathing techniques you can use pre-workout is to inhale and exhale for 4 seconds each. Breathe in slowly for 4 seconds into the base of your lungs. Breathe out for another 4 seconds. Find a quiet place to yourself for 2 minutes and try this before you start to train. It will elevate the oxygen levels in your blood and help to concentrate your mind.
Use the tool below to assist you with this exercise
2. TAKE PRE-WORKOUT
A powerful pre-workout will help to give you a decent boost before you train. Take this around 15 minutes before you begin.
Olimp Knockout 2.0 offers 200mg of caffeine per portion and will blow up your focus for your WOD! Caffeine is one of the most proven performance-enhancing supplements as it increases performance, decreases fatigue, and promotes fat burning. This pre-workout also contains L-Arginine and L-Cytruline
L-Arginine and L-Cytruline
L-Arginine is a conditionally essential amino acid involved in protein synthesis, detoxification of ammonia, and conversion to glucose as well as being catabolized to produce energy.
L-Cytruline supplementation results in reduced fatigue and improved endurance for both aerobic and anaerobic prolonged exercise.
3. MINDFULNESS TRAINING
“Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what is going on around us”.
If you are 100% focused on the workout ahead of you then you will perform better. Mindfulness can help you to achieve this mental state.
Next time you’re headed to the box, aim to get there slightly earlier and find a quiet corner. Put a timer on for five minutes and get comfortable the floor. You can choose to stay seated or lie on your back (try not to fall asleep).
Allow your eyes to gently close and focus on a positive event that happened during the course of the day. It doesn’t have to be a grand event, sometimes it can be something as small as having been able to make it to the box. It is less about the actual event and more about the emotions that you felt.
Allow your mind to create a vivid memory of all the positive emotions that you felt in that moment, focus on the euphoria, the sense of achievement and happiness that you felt. When you’re done, focus on holding on to the positive emotion/s from that past experience, through every present movement that your WOD will consist of. Visualise yourself completing each rep, moving through the movements with precision and good technique and imagine yourself successfully completing the workout. This will help to prime your mind for the forthcoming action.
4. WARM UP PROPERLY
Every warm-up should be time efficient and fit for the purpose ahead. It should have a general and skill specific portion, and always establish an optimum body temperature.
A winning athlete will undoubtedly want to achieve two things every session
- Perform at their best for that given day
- Prevent any injury occurring.
Too many mobility drills may distract the athlete from the purpose ahead, and would be better placed in a training session dedicated to addressing mobility issues. It takes a little experimenting to find a balance between effort, time and effectiveness.
A full warm-up should last between 15 and 30 mins depending on the sport. It is important that the athlete’s warm-up is as efficient as possible and waste little time. The warm-up is not the time to address mobility or flexibility issues. This should have dedicated time given to it.
A warm-up is preparation for the task. I feel that far too much time is given to mobility drills and foam rolling and these have become the core of many warm-up routines. The popularity of movement as a performance variable has allowed some to go overboard and neglect other aspects of their preparation.
The main priority is getting the desired increase in body temperature, especially in colder environments.
The skill specific portion should be relevant for the forthcoming training, and prime your body for the movements and exercises that you will be performing. If you feel tired or sluggish during your warm up, a pre-workout is a great way to give yourself a boost.
It must also be noted that warm-ups should be performed as close to the event as possible and great care should be taken to maintain body temperature if there are periods between the cessation of the warm-up and the start of competition.
These are the core components of an efficient warm-up. The exact drills and procedure will depend largely on the sport itself. If your warm-up is lacking any of these components then it would be very beneficial to look at ways of adding them in.
PERFECTING YOUR PRE-WORKOUT ROUTINE
These 4 elements combined can help prime you to become the best athlete you can possibly be and hit every workout as hard and as effectively as possible. Take the time to experiment and find out which works best for you, so you can optimise your results every time.
Athlete with Weights Plate © Olimp
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