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"Workout Preparation for Optimal Sports Performance"

By Jason Zaretzky

Workout Preparation for Optimal Sports Performance

The biggest mistake I see on nearly every athletic field today is the approach of the “warm-up”. You know coach blows the whistle and say’s take lap. This is then followed by the traditional “static” or stretch and hold routine where eight of the ten stretches are different types of hamstring stretches. While static stretching does have it’s benefits, performing this type of stretching routine as a warm-up can be very counter-productive in getting athlete’s ready for practice or competition.

Warming up or as I call it “work out preparation”, the goal is to wake the body up. The traditional stretching routines I’ve been talking about are in my opinion useless. I believe this to be true for a couple of reasons:

1) Static stretching is done without movement in a stretch and hold fashion. Well if the task at hand was stretching tight muscles… great mission accomplished. However, we are talking about getting athletes ready for performance right? The last time I checked most sports are done moving. Moving very explosively I might add!

2) The “Experts” say it is best to stretch after the body is loose and the muscles are already warm. If this is true then why do we insist on warming up by performing these static stretching routines. Sounds like a contradiction to me! : )

3) Similar to my first point sports are done by moving in various angles, speeds, and directions, so it only makes sense to me, to warm-up that way.

What I mean here is that it’s time to change our mind set for the better. We need to think Workout Preparation rather than warm-up. Instead of doing our static stretching first in our workout, practice or competition, we need to be doing this type of activity post-workout as a recovery/regeneration tool (more on this in another article to come).

So how do you warm-up, you ask, like I said it’s time to start Preparing for our workouts. We do this by performing a “workout preparation” program. This program will get athletes ready for more intense activity by moving the body through full ranges of motion while dynamically moving. By transitioning from going through your traditional warm-up and replacing it with workout preparation, it will boost heart rate, increase blood flow to working muscles, and most importantly it will improve function of the nervous system. If you follow these basic guidelines with the exercises and movements provided not only will you be more mentally and physically prepared, but you’ll also notice a dramatic increase in speed and power out put.

About the Author:

Jason Zaretzky is Owner and Program Director of Optimal Performance Training. He specializes in athletic performance enhancement, corrective exercise, and physique alteration. Jason is committed to optimizing your results. He has helped a countless number of individuals and athletes look, feel, and perform at optimal levels, through his system of scientific results oriented programming.

Jason Zaretzky is Rockland County's go to fat loss expert and owner of Optimal Performance Training Center located in Rockland County NY. For a FREE 1-week trial to his Rockland County Bootcamps, to experience the best fat loss training in Rockland County please visit RocklandCountyBootCamps.com

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