NewMoves Signature Dynamic Warm up

If you’ve ever trained or studied with us over the past 10 years, you will be familiar with our signature dynamic warm up. It’s been adopted and utilised by many coaches and facilities throughout Asia so let’s give you a breakdown of the sequence and why it’s so beneficial as a GPP warm up.

Firstly, we should be reminded that the body is a highly functioning unit, not a sum of parts and as such, should be viewed and moved in its patterns and mechanical pathways/sequences. The purpose of a dynamic warm up is to take each muscle through a stretch-shortening cycle, using functional movement patterns allowing for optimal neuromuscular efficiency to occur. So let’s break down each of the moves we use and understand what each of them is designed to target.

1. POS subsystem / Posterior sling
The Posterior Oblique Subsystem (POS) runs from one shoulder down to the opposite hip on the backside of the body creating a ‘sling’ that drives rotation through the posterior chain.

2. AOS subsystem / Anterior sling
The Anterior Oblique Subsystem (AOS) runs the same pathway as the POS, only down the front of the body. It is responsible for creating rotation through the anterior chain.

3. Lateral subsystem
The Lateral Subsystem (LS) is made up of the quadratus lumborum, glute medius, TFL & the adductors. It is responsible for frontal plane stability as well as pelvo-femoral stability in single leg movements (and balance). We have 2 ways in which we approach this dynamic stretch, one is with a step behind, creating a ‘balance and reach’ technique and the other is with a hip shift.

4. Posterior Chain
The Posterior Chain is simply defined as the ‘back side of our body’. In this dynamic stretch we can apply it either bilaterally or unilaterally, with the unilateral approach being the more ‘aggressive’ stretch and closer to mimicking posterior chain reactions in locomotion/gait.

5. Triple Flexion to Triple Extension
All forms of running & jumping take you through a mechanical sequencing of triple flexion to triple extension (load to unload). In this ‘squat & reach’ dynamic stretch, we take the body through this functional sequence while also stretching the Anterior Chain.

6. Multiplanar Dynamics
Now the we have lengthened and shorted every muscle and moved every joint through all planes of motion, it’s now time to start moving at faster speeds. We use 3 dynamic movements at this phase to effective prepare the neuromuscular system for the subsequent workout. They are:

– Jumping twists
– Lateral cross cross jumps
– Lateral bounds

With these 3 movements we move the whole kinetic chain in all 3 planes of motion, through acceleration and deceleration, both bilateral and unilaterally, through a continuum of slow to fast, simple to complex.

Now that you have a clearer understanding of the ‘why’ behind our signature dynamic warm up, try adding it as a general component of your next workouts warm up sequence and ‘intelligently’ get your body ready to train!