Every time we move our warm up to the basic calesthenics, we feel the need to repeat what’s in this very old but very relevant post from Coach Glassman. It’s funny – I still shake my head when I see people going through extreme gyrations of mobility before they start to move, versus moving slowly into the correct depth on the squat, depth on the pushup, and depth on the pull up. Movement is lotion. And basic, essential movements ARE therapy. We’ve just gotten so fancy we discount that we’re OLD! And it may take 10-20 reps of working into that movement to warm them up.
I love this article. I love this warm up. And it works.
If you belong to our gym then you know that we continuously brag about being a young CrossFit affiliate in 2010. THIS was our warm up. We gave you 15 minutes to complete it. Start with a 400M run, a Samson stretch, and then 3 rounds, 10 reps each of squat, push ups, pull ups, sit ups, hip extensions and tricep dips. It worked. It was at your own pace. The coaches had the opportunity to move around, correct movement, progress athletes…and the vast majority of our gym who’d been with us for 3-6 months had the RX version of all of these movements.
About 4 years into our affiliation, some of our coaches convinced us that this warm up was repetitive and boring and that we should shake things up. So being a democracy, we complied. Within 6 months we had an affiliate where less and less of our athletes had the foundational strength to perform the basic calisthenics Rx. It was a wonderful test of what works and what doesn’t when physical competency and dominace are the goal.
And so here we are – I love this post from Coach Glassman. Please read it. It’s factual, basic and effective.