DYNAMIC WARM UP -PREPARE TO PLAY!!Dynamic warm up is essential if you or your team want to ensure you play to their maximum potential. The purpose of any good dynamic warm up should be to prepare to play, but unfortunately far too many athletes and coaches play to prepare and this lack of proper preparation can lead to decreased performance and increased risk of injury The purpose of a warm-up is to raise the total body temperature, as well as the temperature of the muscles, to prepare for subsequent activity It is important to note, however, that warming up and stretching are not the same thing, but both play major roles in athletic performance or a lack thereof. A good warm-up will enhance performance by • Increasing the temperature of the muscles being recruited during the warm-up which will allow for increased reciprocal innervation efficiency (ability of the muscles to contract more forcefully and recover more quickly), thereby enhancing both speed and strength.This translates into dynamic speed on the field/court. • Increasing the speed at which nerve impulses travel (neural facilitation), which simplifies body movements. • Increasing the temperature of the blood as it travels through the muscle which decreases the amount of oxygen the blood can carry and therefore makes more oxygen available to the working muscles • Increasing joint range of movements because of the decreased muscle, tendon, and ligament resistance caused by elevated core temperatures.
A poor warm up(non dynamic) will reduce performance by • Reducing speed by affecting body muscles power output with a reduction of performance that may last for up to 60minutes. • Increase the potential for injury to the player(s)
Due to the physiological processes that occur with a good dynamic warm-up, most of the current literature warrants the use of stretching after a thorough warm-up period as a continuation of the warm-up to further prepare the body for the rigors of their particular athletic endeavor. Sadly, most pre-event warm-up programs consist of static stretching, which can result in several shortcomings in an athlete’s preparation Since static stretching is a passive activity, little to no friction of the sliding filaments involved in a muscular contraction occurs and therefore little to no increase in the rate of fuels being metabolized by the body occurs and there is no need for the intramuscular blood vessels to dilate resulting in minimal core temperature elevation. Therefore, the dynamic warm-up is part of the foundation of a successful practice session and getting fully warmed up, mentally and physically, is the key to achieving the training intensity and speed required to achieve optimal results in a game or practice . Sadly, many athletes and coaches neglect or take shortcuts in the warm-up procedure, which translates into a poor practice or game.
The best way to prepare for more vigorous exercise is to perform specific warm-up exercises because they provide a rehearsal of the activity and increase body temperature. Regardless of the types of warm-up activity used, the general purpose of warming up prior to physical activity is to increase core body and muscle temperature
The General Warm-up A general warm-up is probably the most commonly used technique and employs various movements not directly related to those in the activity itself, with the goal being to increase tissue temperature and improve the efficiency of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems for the demands and processes that will soon be placed on it. These may start with joint rotations and gently twisting and bending movements usually followed by jogging, cycling, jumping rope or light calisthenics. The (Specific) Dynamic warm up A thorough dynamic warm-up prior to practice or game should consist of 3 components: cardiovascular, neural, and dynamic flexibility The low/moderate intensity activities utilized in the general warm-up were incorporated into the warm-up to improve the efficiency of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems as well as to increase body core temperature. Although the cardiovascular and neural components are considered separate elements of the warm-up, it should be noted that many of the changes and responses due to exercise are note solely one or the other and in fact, the control over circulatory and respiratory functions are regulated via chemoreceptors, baroreceptors and muscle afferents. In spite of this, we need to discuss the nervous system aspects as they relate to motor unit and muscle fiber activation. Sale’s ramp theory of motor unit and muscle fiber recruitment states that a progressively increasing force recruits the motor units at a gradual and increasing level from a slow twitch force to a fast twitch force. Thus, as an athlete goes through a gradual progression of dynamic warm-up exercises that become more demanding, starting with joint mobility (neck rotations, leg swings, etc.), then moving to general movement preparation (dynamic flexibility exercises), then to multidirectional preparation (carioca, lateral shuffle, etc.), and finally to power moves (jump squats, squat jumps, burpees, etc.) the activation of more motor units will occur and this will allow the athlete to be completely physiologically ready at game time! The final component of the warm-up is dynamic flexibility training. Dynamic warm up training consists of functional-based exercises that use sport-specific movements to prepare the body for activity. This type of training has been used for some time, but is still not common knowledge among coaches and athletes , it is slowly catching on in other sports. While dynamic speed warm up is not as commonly used as other types of stretching (static, ballistic, and PNF); this type of training has some unique aspects that may warrant its use in an athlete’s warm-up. There are few sports in which the ability to achieve a high degree of static flexibility is advantageous, .Due to the principle of specificity, dynamic speed warm ups may be more applicable to athletic performance because it most closely replicates the movement requirements seen in training or competition. This type of flexibility training has been shown to improve movement flexibility, balance, coordination, proprioception, elasticity of the muscles and ligaments, changes the surfaces of joints in the process of long-term flexibility, and increases core body and active muscle temperatures.
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