Developing correct warm up sequence of exercises

Hi everybody,
I see that many people are asking for specific needs for warm up...may be you had serious injury, may be you don't feel mentally ready or simply you like to do something with your teammates before the practice.

1. Why we have to warm up?
There are coaches who think that warm up is not necessary at all. There are other coaches who always do just the same warm up. Always.
I would like to ask you to think for the warm up as getting ready. So than the right question should be:
What should we get ready for? I don't know . I hope you coach knows .

2. What the warm up is and what can be?
You should be ready for everything what is going to happen on practice.
This means that first you should know what is going to happen at practice. Sometimes we - the coaches - "forgot" to tell to our players what we are going to do at practice and we are "surprise" why they are not ready for it. My personal experience is that as much as they know, as much ready they can be.
We think for the warm up as only physiological preparation. But it is much more.
- It is getting ready mentally for all the effort you have to make at practice to achieve the dream result. You can call it to get to the right "frequency".
- It is putting away all the thoughts not connected with the training activities. All your worries, troubles, school, girls and boy friends....everything what stops you to live the only moment that counts - the "now" moment, as doing what you love;
- It is socializing element and can be team building. Sometimes you can use the warm up to "clear" some conflicting between teammates and practically to use the warm up as team building exercise;
- It is physical preparedness and can be GPP (general physical preparedness) or SPP (specific physical preparedness). If you ask me, it should be at least GPP and partly SPP.
- It can be testing; If you are not sure that you players are ready for the intensity or the volume which you have prepared for them, so why not to test them?
And it can be anything what PREPARES you for the TRAINING what is coming after it.

3. Is there any kind of Warm up routines and what they look like?
The idea is to develop specific warm up routines so you can get your players do them on their own.
It is a kind of self awarness sessions and the players also have to understand the routines and being able to control and push themselves, otherwise they will detrain at the routines, instead of getting ready.
Also it is important to understand that the routines stile HAVE TO be related with WHAT IS THE FOCUS of the training. Normally if you train a elite team you don't change the team and the individual focuses every week, so at least for 1 to 3 months you will work over the same goals. This allows you to use the routines warm ups, but please don't forget the purpose of it - to get the players ready for what is following. If the routines starts being to boring, better change the exercises with the same idea behind, instead just to push the players.

So, what should the warm up session be?
First, don't forget the SSL model for periodization - 1) mental, 2) physical, 3) technical, 4) tactical.
This is vital especially during complete warm up and ESPECIALLY warm up BEFORE MATCHES.
You want to perform at your best? Better warm good and WARM IT ALL!
1) mental warm up - get you mind at the right frequency. Use imagery method and visualization to free your mind and prepare for the practice or the match. Here is very important that you observe how nervous you are. If you are too nervous or too little nervous, you are going to perform pure. You can use music to relax you, if you are too nervous and music to "wake you up" if you are not nervous at all. I use the word - nervous, not anxious - with purpose. Most people mix the real meaning of nervous and anxious.
2) physical warm up - getting ready all your joins, ligaments, tendons and muscles for the coming work. Getting ready up to the "right point" or the right training zone. It is really good idea of you study a bit exercise physiology, so you can develop really perfect warm ups. Anyway here are some things to help you:
- warm up first the cardiovascular system - why? you need enough blood in all your body up to each join, so you can work with the join mobility and the rest. The first rule is from big muscles to smaller muscles. It is good idea to start with running, running combined with hands rotations, cross forward cross backwards, backwards, badminton specific footwork (not on court, but while running), don't forget the ham strings. Be sure that it is at least 5 minutes without making breaks.
- stop it and continue with the join mobility and flexibility, so you can "open" the joins and refill the muscles with energy. It is good idea to drink right here and it is better to be something energizing (not Red Bull, please...). Make yourself water with lemon and honey (max 4.8% honey...) - thats one of the best home made real energy drink... Don't stop for more than 3 min, otherwise you will be cooling down...
- continue the running, get on court if you want (no technique yet). The purpose here is to get to right training zone (mean the right pulse) for whatever you are planed to do afterwards. We call it also the SPP part of the warm up, so it will depends on what you want to train.
3) go technical on court.
You can develop a technical routine for the specific period, so you can observe how much the players are actually learning the technical elements. If the period which you have is before competition, go as much as possible with match like exercises. As far you are from any competition, as much as you can go to playing patterns exercises which combines the technical elements you are training. Don't forget that they have still to be warm, so the exercises has to combine strokes + movements.
4) go tactical.
This is a step, which is normally skipped almost always. Make them think. Make them clever and they will become better players. Make some tactical games and they will have a lot of fun and will develop the necessary tactical skills for become better players.
! IMPORTANT ! If you have never worked with your players for tactical exercises be sure that in the beginning you construct the exercises right, so they can handle it, otherwise they will become too frustrated.

Now they are ready for extremely good practice, so it is better be extremely good practice

How much time you should spend on each of the 1)-4) parts?
Depends on what you want to focus and what you are going to train most. If you think how to get them ready for whatever is coming, you most likely wouldn't do any mistake.

Please, don't forget that the cool down is part of training as well.
The purpose of it, is to relax the body, mind and even the soul (simply means emotionally) from whatever happen at practice.

If you like this, I will write special topic for the cool down part of the training and its importance and sometimes it is more important than anything else, especially if you are dealing with injuries...

AGAIN! Warm up for what ever is coming after the Warm up! Put your focus of the warm up exactly onto this what is going to prepare you and make you READY for the real training, but still don't ignore fully the other areas. They are always overlapped.

Enjoy!

P.S.: If you are injured or you have injured player REMEMBER that he/she starts from -1, not from zero, when they start to warm. I normally have special individual warm up for the injured players before the team warm up, so they can go to the 0 level and being ready for the team warm up.

www.ljutzkanov.com
www.badmintonplanet.org

 

Hi, Viver - thanks for your questions!
I personally do not recommend and I don't use "normal" stretching exercises. Only PNF stretching (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation) and only at the end of the day as part of the cool down session. There is a prove that the dynamic stretching activates almost all motor unites when it is done correctly, but I don't recommend it as far as it increase the length of the tendons, therefore steals from the strength as shortening the possible distance for contraction. I will search for the study for you. I know that, from some Japanise coaches as well, but I personally prefer to activate them using join mobility or strength exercises.

I don't use stretching in warm up. The join mobility exercises also affects the tendons and the ligaments as well as partly the fibers, so combined with the kind of running exercises does more than enough. Don't forget that all the "Chinese warm up" as we call it sometimes, is actually dynamic join mobility exercises provoking to use own muscles to open the perimeter of the joins (range of motion). I use a lot of dynamic join mobility exercises combined with own body weight exercises (side to side dynamic lunges from basic position are good example), so I can be sure that the players develop the join mobility, therefore the flexibility as well and the relative strength as well and agility as well .

Also I have seen that most of the badminton players are getting hyper mobile (elbows, shoulders) and this is one of the main reasons for getting injured, so I make sure that I keep the balance using enough strength exercises than making them more hyper flexible through more flexibility exercises.

Many elite athletes are used of stretching after match or practice for a long time, because they report that the stretching helps them to restore faster. It does (as shortening the length of the fibers to the normal relaxed length), only if it is done correctly (only than during the extension of the fibers you don't overextend the tendons but activates properly the myotatic reflex which brings the fibers in the normal length). Also the player has to be sure that the time for rest is enough (min 2 hours between the game) so the stretching can have only positive effect. As correct stretching here I mean PNF stretching combined with Dynamic stretching. I have to mention that the Dynamic stretching can be very dangerous if it is not done correctly. The PNF also, but the risk is lower. Don't forget that the PNF is just a technique which combines passive stretching and isometrics contractions.

Take a look at this article: http://www.marykaa.com/fitness/PNF/pnf1.htm
It explains pretty well what is about at the PNF stretching and some of the exercises for Badminton as well when you go to the second page: http://www.marykaa.com/fitness/PNF/pnf2.htm.
However the PNF can be dangerous if you use complected techniques. The author also point at this.

I personally always take my athletes after the match to help them getting restored as using very different techniques from mental through physiological to nutritioning until they build up the habit to take care for this. Also I make it more individual. Example: I have a boy who has big problems because of less join mobility, so I will restore him in very different way that one girl who has problems because of hyper mobility.

The studies are coming soon . I have more than 2200 studies, researches and books about badminton and many things for stretching as well, but even that it is very well organized it takes me some time to find what I am looking for.

 

Hi Viver and everybody!
Please, excuse me that I write so long after my last reply to the thread, but a lot of time without internet .

Now on the point. Studies and articles about stretching.

Lets start with this link: http://www.brianmac.co.uk/articles/scni43a4.htm
This is an article which I had before, it is written for soccer, but badminton has exactly the same issues.

The author very clearly shows the differences between dynamic and ballistic stretching, which most of the players always confuse.

The references and the studies are also properly chosen. Don't forget to see the links mention in the references as well. I have some other NSCA and Peak Performance articles about stretching, but this one combines them in better way.

1) Raphael Brandon, “Dynamic versus passive stretches”, Peak Performance Issue 150, page 10
Rod Pope, 'Skip the warm-up,' New Scientist, 164(2214), p. 23

2) Gleim & McHugh (1997), 'Flexibility and its effects on sports injury and performance,' Sports Medicine, 24(5), pp. 289-299.

3) Mick Critchell, Warm ups for soccer a Dynamic approach,page 5.
Rosenbaum, D. and E. M. Hennig. 1995. The influence of stretching and warm-up exercises on Achilles tendon reflex activity. Journal of Sport Sciences vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 481-90.

4) Knudson, D., K. Bennet, R. Corn, D. Leick, and C. Smith. 2000. Acute Effects of Stretching Are Not Evident in the Kinematics of the Vertical Jump. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport vol. 71, no. 1 (Supplement), p. A-30.
Tomas Kurz, www.scienceofsports.com

5) Mann, Douglas, Jones Margaret 1999: Guidelines to the implementation of a dynamic stretching routine, Strength and Conditioning Journal:Vol 21 No 6 pp53-55
www.cmcrossroads.com

6) Boyle, Mike, Functional Training for Sports, page 29
Kurz, Tomas, Science of Sports Training, page 236

7) Hendrick, Allen, Dynamic Flexibility training, Strength and conditioning Journal, Vol 22 no 5, Pages 33-38.

8) Frederick Gregory 2001 Baseball Part 1 Dynamic Flexibility, Strength and conditioning Journal Vol 23 No 1 Pages 21-30.