In training, my pb’s have only come after there were no stretches before hand. Then again, when I stretch it tends to be 20 second stretches which would probably lower the elastic response.
I really need to improve my warm up routine so is this a good idea?
60 - 80m strides.
A few hold stretches. (6 - 10 secs.)
Dynamic warm up/drills
Dynamic or p.n.f stretches.
In that order. Now for an embarrasing question.
What exactly are p.n.f stretches? Is that where you tense the muscle in it’s stretched position for 6 to 10 seconds and then relax the muscle, still in the stretched position?
My advice would be to try gentle Dynamic stretches rather than static or PNF (unless its well supervised/experenced PNF).
Tonus is the key
Static stretches after.
Athletes in middle/long distance races, usually talk about getting a “second breath” - meaning that they do a thorough warm-up, to get rid of the initial “flat” and “lame” feeling. I am sure this is important for a 400m athlete as well - as my athletes complain sometimes that they get that “flat” feeling after 100m. (Pressure/stress included!)
Does it mean that you have to do enough run through’s to get to that point? A long time before the race, to have enough energy for when it matters?
Now that we have incorporated static stretching into every warm-up, I believe that my athletes achieve greater extension at top speed because their finish drills times have improved though I realize that this improvement could be attributed to many other factors as well.
Also, over time even in their warm-ups, they achieve greater ROM’s(that occurs over time and becomes permanent-though not an attempt to improve flexibility in the warm-up) fairly early in the warm-up and post work-out they are able to attain much improved ROM’s over the past limits.
We do include some dynamic work in the warm-up as well. Now that virtually all of them are more flexible they are better, in my opinion, able to demonstrate or utilize their strength and power to achieve greater extension without any loss of correct posture or reduction in frequency.
Due to CF’s recommendations, we have some time separating the static work and the speed work to prevent the numbing of the stretch reflex and hence and reduction in speed performances. Usually 20 minutes minimum is what I’ve been doing and I would guess that that gap or longer would be ideal.
Get the dvd if you have not already and you will get an excellent warm-up protocol and a lot more-sounds like I am getting paid to say that doesn’t it- but it is very good particularly in providing ideas for planning, warm-ups, how to pull the whole program together, and provides you with ideas for med ball throws, potential weight splits, and many abdominal exercises both bodyweight and med ball core work and more. If what you have described is your entire warm-up, though I don’t know the volume nor the duration, I’d say you need to greatly lengthen your warm-up.
[b]My competition warm up would consist of:
800m jog
Static stretch
Seagrave - dynamic drills (squats, lunges, hyland fling (like carioca, but the stretch is in the glutes), side lunges.
Form drills (ankling, buttkicks, single leg fast leg on a 3 count, complex fast leg on a 2 count), C-step (straight leg), leg swings on fence forward/back, and side to side, and leg cycles.
PNF stretches
Put spikes on, do one pop out and race[/b]
I would generally begin my warm up 40 min. before competition.
As far as static and PNF stretches. How long should I hold my static stretches? I would tend to hold it for a very, very short time. How long do I contract and relax while doing PNF? I usually would contract and relax for 6 sec. (very quick count) and push at 20%. I would PNF my hammy’s inside, middle, and outside of it, my quads, and glutes. Are these the correct stretches that I should be doing?
Any suggestions and considerations with this warm up and ways that I can enhance my performance with a particular warm up would be great!
I don’t know if you were looking for CF to respond or not but I would like to make a few recommendations to your warm-up. I was doing some of the Seagrave velocity/speed dynamics warm-ups until January including many of the gpp/calisthenic type exercises your mentioned and many others. I felt like it did help to prepare the athletes it might have done more to fatigue them as well. We only now, for the last couple of years, do the Mach drills(as they were originally intended) A skips, A runs(based upon the dvd most including us did/do these improperly), Ham/butt kicks, b-skips(depends upon the skill and flexibiity of the athlete, and even the A marches for the beginners or early season.
I would definitely extend your 800m jog to closer to 10 minutes duration. Also, you should probably start your warm-up to at least an hour before your race and probably more than that or your warm-up will either be too short or your warm-up will be completed too close to the competition-there should be some gap present between the warm-up and the comp. We tend to hold our stretches 15-20 seconds.For pnf I think it will be less than 6 seconds as some here have alluded to it might be a little more like AIS.
The best recommendation I can make is get the DVD if you have not already I have found the material there to be very useful and we have made many changes to our program already and I thought we were already implementing a CFTS type of program-we were but we were missing a lot of key elements. Hope this helps.
I’m looking for any responses, not just CF. I see what you are saying. I will try to do my warm up an hour prior to comp. Typically, I would complete my warm up and race 5 min. or sometimes less right afterwards. I don’t feel that the warm up is fatiguing me. My accels last for 50m followed by a 50m walk. I only do four of the dynamic stretches because they are the ones that help me the most.
Do you think that my 800m jog is too quick and should really just do a shuffle? I’m not sure though about stretching for 15-20 sec. for static. Is that what is says in the dvd video?
Do you have your athletes do any work prior to comp? i.e. 3 point starts or block starts? If so, how long and how many? I’m open to anything as I said before to help me perform at a higher level.
What do you think of this warm up?
60 min. or more prior to comp.
800m jog (10 min)
Static stretch (15-20 sec) (10 min. or <)
Dynamic stretches - Squats (50m accel/50m walk), Hyland Fling (Carioca)(50m accel/50m walk), Front Lunges (50m accel/50m walk), and Side Lunges (50m accel/50m walk) (15 min)
Speed drills (20mx2) Ankling, Butt Kicks, Single Leg Fast Leg (3 count), Complex Fast Leg (2 count), and C-Step. (10 min)
PNF Stretch (5 min)
That is a 50 min. warm up with 10 min. to spare. I’ll wait and see what you think and I can make other changes to it based on what you say from the what you saw on the dvd. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it.
I thought about this one after reading through all the posts.
60 min. or more prior to comp.
800m jog (10 min)
Static stretch (15-20 sec) (10 min. or <)
Dynamic stretches - Squats (50m accel/50m walk), Hyland Fling (Carioca)(50m accel/50m walk), Front Lunges (50m accel/50m walk), and Side Lunges (50m accel/50m walk) (15 min)
Speed drills (20mx2) Ankling, Butt Kicks, Single Leg Fast Leg (3 count), Complex Fast Leg (2 count), and C-Step. (10 min)
PNF Stretch (5 min)
3-6 build-ups in spikes over 60m - (15 min)
2-4 standing starts in spikes over 30m (10 min)
2-3 very short block starts in spikes (10 min)
This would be an 85 min warm up. That seems to be very, very long. Any opinions?
I agree an 85 minute warm-up would be excessive. By extending your 800m jog to 10 minutes I meant don’t worry about the distance and focus on the duration. I hope you will understand what I’m saying regarding CF’s dvd-I’m not trying to avoid your questions but I don’t want to get into too much of the specifics of the dvd since it’s not my material nor intellectual property as they say-get it and many of your questions will be answered. I think that a 50 minute or so warm-up including those specific parts you indicated seems to be okay and by that I mean you have a general section and a specific section to your warm-up and that would seem to be pretty good. 50-55 minutes with 10 or so minutes before your race seems to be a good plan. Anything else I can help you with or that I missed?
Do others have difficulty getting their athletes to keep their sweats on before and after races? I tell them constantly that it’s key to helping retain their warm-ups yet they resist until I pound it into them. They’ll even stand out in the cold during a meet shivering with their sweats piled up at their feet. Is this as big an issue as I’ve made it out to be and do others have to stay on their athletes constantly to put their sweats back on between races and jumps? Charlie?