What is a Primer Workout?

When you go to the gym, you see strange things.

One of those things is how people warm up.

This is often what I see:

• Some people do nothing - they jump on the leg press, stack up the weight and go.
• Some people do some leg swings and then jump on the leg extension.
• Some people sign up for their piece of cardio equipment, jump on and go full effort.

My approach is none of those.

I combine a number of approaches when it comes to my warm up; my warm ups are joint focused and depend on what I am focusing in on during that day.

I don't look at what I do as a warm up. I look at it as more of a primer. I am working on priming up the joints, muscles, ligaments, tendons, stabilizing muscles and main muscle for what I am going to be working on.

When it comes to priming, it is very much like what race car drivers do with their car engine. They are constantly tweaking, testing and getting the engine ready for the race. That is what I do with my primer workouts.

My primer workouts are not just a bunch of movements or exercises that I throw together. I think out all of the movements, test them out on me and give them to others.

Plus, I make sure my Primer Workout contains these 6 things:

• P - Preparation - They should prepare the body for the activity that you plan on taking your body through.
• R - Range of Motion - The workout or the exercises you do should move the joints through full range of motion. With most of our lifestyles, the lack of moving our bodies through full range of motion has led to muscle imbalances which has led to injuries and pain.
• I - Isolation - Some of the movements need to focus in on isolation and targeting specific joints. For example, my Knee Primer Workout focuses on the knees.
• M - Movement - It is all about movement. Get the joints moving and the body moving because in many cases, prior to your warm up, you were sitting and doing nothing.
• E - Endurance - We want to focus on the most important muscles in the body that protect the body and joints from injury and those are the stabilizers. These muscles are activated with low load and higher repetitions. For the knee you need to activate vastus medialis and gluteus medius.
• R - Resistance - You need to add some resistance to your warm up. This can be done with bodyweight, resistive tubing, medicine ball, kettlebell, bar, etc. Along with isolating the joint and moving it so the joint lubricates itself through full range of motion, you also need to add load so the muscles around that joint activate, get ready to do their job and build endurance.

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