Don’t Warm Up Like THIS After 50! (Do This Instead)

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Will Harlow is a physiotherapist, best-selling published author and YouTube creator who specialises in helping people over the age of fifty. Will is a fully qualified physiotherapist with a Master’s degree from Brunel University in London. His credentials include a BSc and MSc. More about Will Harlow here: https://willharlow.com/

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Most people think that cycling on a stationary bike is the perfect way to warm up after 50. But the truth is, I’ve seen way too many injuries caused by this mistake. It might feel like a good warm up, but it’s not preparing your body for exercise in the way you think it is. In over a decade of practice as an over 50s physio, seeing people not warm up properly is one of the biggest causes of injury that we see, and almost all of them are preventable. So, in today’s video, I’m going to reveal why cycling on a stationary bike is the worst way to warm up after 50 and what to do instead to protect your joints and improve your results. One of the worst ways to warm up is this, sitting on a stationary bike. And while sitting on a bike does increase your heart rate and get your body warm, it does almost nothing to prepare you for a resistance training workout or anything else for that matter. You want your warm-up to be specific to what you’re about to do in your exercise session. So, unless you’re about to go for a long or intense cycle ride, warming up on a bike is probably not the best thing you can do. Let’s have a look now at how to design a warm-up that’s specific to your exercise session. So, there are two components to the perfect warm-up. And the first component is to practice the movement we’re actually going to be doing in our working sets. So, let’s say you’ve planned to do goblet squats as part of your workout. That means we need to practice squatting movements before we do our working sets. And let’s say that your working weight for the goblet squat is this full stack of weights, the 12 kilo weight. And your goblet squat is going to look like this. Now, it’s no good just picking up that full weight and going straight away because you’re not warmed up and you’re at a higher risk of injury. So, here is what I would do instead. You leave your weight alone for the first moment. And what you’re going to do is just practice that movement with no weights whatsoever. And you might do 10 repetitions just to get your brain and your muscles engaged for what’s to come. The second thing you might do if you normally do a 12 kg set is drop the weight to five or six kg. So you get your weight set up, pick up five kgs, hold it like this, and then you might do another quick set of 10. Now, this doesn’t have to be a full working set. We don’t have to wait 2 minutes to do the next one. We’re literally just getting the movement pattern working in our brains and the blood in our muscles. Once you’ve done that, you can put the weight down. You might then just slightly increase it again. So this time I’ve got 8 kilos. I’m going to hold it to my chest like this. I might just do another five repetitions just to get my brain and my muscles ready for what’s to come. And then the final thing I might do is put the entire weight stack on the dumbbell. So get my working weight ready, the full 12 kilos, hold it in my hands, and just do one or two repetitions just to prepare myself for the weight I’m about to use. Once you’ve done that, you put your weight down, rest for 30 seconds, and you’re ready to go for your first working set. And you can repeat that for any muscle group that you’re going to work that day. Now, you might be thinking, do I have to do this for every exercise? And the answer is no. But you do need to do it for every new muscle group. So, let’s say you’re going into the gym and you want to do a leg based workout. you’re going to do squats and leg presses and knee extensions. You only need to do this warm-up protocol for the first exercise because then your legs will be warm and ready to go. But if you went and worked your legs, but then you wanted to do some bench press, you would have to repeat it for the bench press and chest movements to get those muscles ready to go. And I know this sounds like a lot, but now you’re over 50, you have to do more than you did in your teens and 20s. The second element of our perfect warm-up is to mobilize any joints that are stiff or tight for you personally. Now, we’ve all got different areas of our body that are our sticky areas, bits that don’t move quite so well, or maybe you’ve had a past injury there. Your job is to know what they are and then warm them up thoroughly before you start your workout. So, let’s stick with the squat for an example. And one area for people who squat that could be a problem is a stiff ankle. So first I’m going to show you how to loosen that stiff ankle to improve your squat. Now before I show you these exercises, these are just given as examples. So they’re not suitable for everyone and please avoid them if they cause you pain. The first thing I would do if I had a stiff ankle for a squat is the chair dorsif flexion mobilization which improves this movement. Bringing your toes up towards your shin. What you’re going to do for this is put your foot on a chair like this. And then you’re just going to take your knee over your toes like this until you feel a pull here. And then you’re going to come back and repeat. And you’re basically going to glide in and back out. And do that repeatedly. Now, each time you do it, you’re going to feel a bit of tightness. Now, when you get your knee further over your toes, that’s a good thing. That means that you’re stretching either the muscle or the joint capsule. I would just keep doing this for maybe 15 or 20 repetitions. do both sides. And if I had a stiff ankle, that would often be enough to warm it up. Ready for a squat. Let’s have a look at some more exercises for different problem areas of the body that you can do. And by the way, if you’re enjoying this routine so far and you want more help in improving your strength and your mobility, the best thing you can do is come and join us in my lifelong mobility program. There’s tons of workout routines inside that you can do at a pace where you follow along with me at home. and you can find details of it in the description box below this video. The second mobilization you could do is one that improves the mobility of your hips and your knees. It’s really simple to do and I like to tell people to do this just before they get started with their full routine. Go and lie on a mat somewhere or on your bed and do this. It’s really simple. You lie on your back like this and with the leg that feels sticky or stiff, you’re going to first of all keep it nice and straight. Then bend it right up as far as that knee can go. So bring your heel up towards your bottom and then pull the whole leg up towards you and hug it to your chest. Hold it for a couple of seconds and then let it down all the way down and flatten the knee. So flatten the knee, bend the knee, bring your toes, you bring your heel up towards you, then your full leg, hug it into your chest and repeat. And what this does is works the full flexion and extension of your hip and your knee at the same time. It’s a really effective way to loosen you up. It takes 30 seconds. So you do 30 seconds on the side that feels stiff. And that will make a big difference to your workout if you do it before you start. If you’re one of the many people that finds instead it’s your lower back that gives you problems when you lift or when you do exercise, try this instead to get you ready for your workout. Lie on your back like this with your knees bent up. Put your hands down by your sides and then roll your legs over to one side allowing the buttock on that side to lift up off the bed or the mat and then go the other way. And what this does is moves your pelvis and then slightly rotates your lumbar spine as well, which kind of exposes it to movement before you’re doing anything too strenuous. It really does help to loosen those joints there and gets you into your workout quicker and more safely. Again, I would just do a minute of this maybe just before you work out or just before the exercise that usually troubles your back. It’s a brilliant way to loosen up those stiff areas and avoid injury. These are just some examples of movements you can use to loosen stiff areas. You certainly don’t need to do them all. Just choose the ones that apply to the areas that you find are stiff or sore when you first start working out. So, I hope that makes sense. Please drop a comment below if you’re going to give this new type of warm-up a try. There’s another video on the screen right now which will help you get even more out of your strength workouts. So, click on that if you’re interested and I’ll see you again on the next one.