The importance of a solid warm-up should not be underestimated.  The warm-up sets the tone for the rest of the workout session, i.e. if your warm-up is lackadaisical and unstructured, often times your workout will follow the same trend.  Warm-ups also serve to prepare our bodies for increased physical intensity a number of ways.  This link points out that warm-ups help raise the body temperature by 2 to 3 degrees which:

• Allows muscles and tendons to become more extensible and easier to stretch lowering the incidence of muscle strains
• Increases blood flow, which in turn increases in oxygen flow to muscle tissue
• Increases the temperature of the blood, changing the partial pressure of blood gases (In Layman’s terms:  More oxygen leaves the blood and enters muscle tissue)
• Raises enzyme and metabolic activity improving the efficiency of muscle contraction
• Activates neural pathways and speeds up reaction time

Another purpose the warm-up serves is to prepare us psychologically by focusing on the activity to follow.  You’ll likely see activities and exercises incorporated into our warm-ups that not only serve the purpose of raising the body temperature, but help to get you in the right frame of mind to attack the WOD head-on.  Our goal as trainers is to take everyone through a warm-up that leaves you feeling like you can conquer any workout thrown at you and asking for more in the cash outs.

WOD 11.21.09

Make-up WOD for those that missed it during the week.

2 rds:
25 Deadlifts
25 Wallballs
25 KBS
25 Push Press

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