What’s Great About a Warm-Up?
Here are some insights about warm-ups from both a yoga perspective *and* a movement science perspective!
On the yoga side of things, a warm-up can be a good tool for drawing one’s attention right to their body on their yoga mat.
Warm-ups typically involve dynamic movements. There's something about these rhythmic movements that encourages that attentional shift as we start our yoga practice (or any movement practice)!
In fact, in some less traditional practice settings, a yoga class might even begin with some sort of focused, moving warm-up flow rather than a seated and still meditation.
In the right context, this approach can work well!
On a movement science level, a warm-up can help to
increase our body temperature
increase blood flow to our muscles, and
prime our muscles to work more efficiently.
All of these qualities can help improve performance and reduce injury risk in the activity we're planning to do after our warm-up.
Warm-ups and Range of Motion
Warm-ups can also help open up ranges of motion we’ll be using in our target activity.
For example, suppose our target activity is a yoga pose that involves some end ranges of motion we don’t have easy access to when cold. Including those ranges of motion in some dynamic warm-up movements can help optimize our ability to move in those directions.
Now suppose our target activity is a strength training session with weights, and we’re planning to include *squats* in that session. Moving through some unloaded (bodyweight) squats in warm-up might help open the ranges we’ll be using under more load later.
So we're definitely fans of warm-ups at Strength for Yoga! However...
...a little bit of warming up goes a long way!
When it comes to strength training, it doesn't take very long to optimally warm our body up.
And if we spend too much time warming up, this can reduce the amount of time we have left for our actual strength training session. This can be counterproductive!
A short but effective warm-up is generally our best bet to maximize the benefits we receive from our strength workout.
That's why the yoga warm-up flows we include in our flagship Remote Group Training program are around 10 minutes long, and that's it!
Each month in Remote Group Training, we include two yoga warm-up flows taught by Jenni. These flows are designed specifically for the current monthly phase and its theme.
Are you interested in bringing strength into your movement practice, but don't know where to start?
Start with a 7-day free trial of our one-of-a-kind RGT program – designed specifically for yogis new to strength training!
We’d love to connect with you through this one-of-a-kind offering!
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