Training Principles

A great saying is ‘methods are many, principles are few’. Principles are the guiding force behind the methods we choose when designing training programs for our clients. In the following weeks, I will outline our principles of successful training programs and also nutrition and diet.

Training Principle 1 – Have a warm up strategy

This principle comes first for one main reason – it is the part of a training session that 99% of people neglect and do not do properly! Many trainee’s have a great training program, sound nutrition and many other factors but neglect a proper warm up! Some of the benefits of a good warm up include:

• reduced risk of injury
• better athletic performance
• increased range of motion
• better recovery

Our philosophy on warming up is an amalgamation of many different people including Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson, Alwyn Cosgrove, Scott Sonnon, Mike Boyle, Bill Hartman, Chad Waterbury, Gray Cook and Mark Verstegen. We have integrated all of these different perspectives to create a unified approach to warming up. How much work we do depends on the time available and training needs of the client. For example, if a client has orthopedic concerns and a current injury, more time is dedicated to specific joint mobility and muscle activation drills. However, if the clients main goal is weight loss, our warm up will be more metabolic in nature to create more of a training effect in the exercise to come.

This is the general order of our warm up system for a client with movement imbalance issues.

1. Restore total body joint mobility – We do this to ensure each joint has good lubrication and nutrition. All joints get restored to their natural ranges of motion in all directions. This also has the effect of limbering up the nervous system.

2. Foam roller and self myofascial release – This serves the function of removing muscular adhesions and trigger points. This will help with muscular strength and range of motion. It also improves the quality of the soft tissues, not just their extensibility.

3. Static stretching – Studies have shown that static stretching before exercise leads to a decrease in power and muscular strength in the muscles being stretched. This is ok, as we are trying to relax overactive muscles so our weaker muscles can function more effectively. Many coaches have totally eliminated static stretching from their programs, but I believe this is an over-reaction to the downsides of static stretching. It can be very useful in restoring the body to correct function and the decrease in performance is so slight that it only truly applies to elite level athletes.

4. Dynamic stretching, movement preparation and muscle activation exercises – These exercises are designed to improve range of motion deficits and also prepare the body for the specific training movements that are to follow. Activation exercises such as glute bridges to increase gluteal activation allow us to get more out of our exercise program.

5. Warm up sets: We will generally do one warm up set for every 20 kilograms of load we are planning to use for a given exercise.

Once we have completed that, the body is well and truly ready to train. In our next post, I will go over our next training principle, internal before external resistance.

A great program with a very comprehensive warm up system that is similar to ours. Check it out!