By Matt Stone
Sometimes powerful and important reminders come from the most ridiculous and unforeseeable places. Like what happened to me yesterday for example. I was in a bad mood while driving, and asI passed by the local dildo shop there was a guy flying a small kite outside in the parking lot. Right there I was reminded to lighten up, and I immediately stopped brooding over what was annoying me at that moment (paying $35 for the worst Mexican food one could possibly conceive of)?and began thinking of ways I could frame this event on my Facebook wall. I lightened up?even more when a?pickup truck pulled up with a giant pig statue in the bed while I was watching the cock-kiting bandit from a’stopped position at a’traffic light.
I should know the benefit of doing a good warmup before exercise. I have had a crappy back since my teenage years that responds incredibly well to doing some light activity and getting the blood flowing before doing any heavy lifting. I have also had exercise-induced asthma since that age as well, which is completely non-existent if I do a good 20-30 minutes of warming up, but really aggravated if I jump right into a hard sprint – especially in cold weather. So I know, and have discovered by paying attention to my own biofeedback, that a warmup is a powerful thing. Yet I have pretty much ignored the whole warmup concept every time I’ve walked into a gym my whole life. I don’t have 20-30 minutes to kill before hitting the weights. I want to get cracking on all the stuff I wanna do before I get too tired or just want to get out of there and do something else.
Enter the ridiculous and unforeseeable reminder…
Although quite painful to admit this, my recent series on the benefits of low-intensity exercise as well as this post,?was inspired, in all honesty – not by Hans Selye or Albert Szent-Gyorgyi or Weston A. Price or any fomer Nobel Prize winner – but?by Ryan “Cowboy Abs”?Ehmann. Ehmann, unlike Szent- Gyorgyi, is a man who?appears to aspire to be the?Country Western?equivalent of Richard Simmons.
My dad has been following his “Lose 12 Inches in 12 Workouts” program and feeling a lot better and losing weight, instead of feeling worse and gaining weight trying to do higher intensity circuit training, HIT, HIIT, and other stressful forms of exercise (especially when done without a warmup!).?In Ehmann’s instructional video he claims, and I’m paraphrasing, “You have to do a 12-minute warmup, not 11, not 10, but 12. If you don’t your fat cells will?[makes a squish-like sound while clenching his fist] and you won’t burn fat. And you wanna burn fat. Whoo-hoo, that’s what I’m talkin’ about!”
As unimpressed by?Ehmann’s warmup advice as I was, I did begin rethinking the potential possiblity that maybe doing exercise without a proper warmup really could elicit a huge stress response. It?didn’t take me long, or much further research, to find that?immediately jumping to a high heart rate does in fact trigger a much greater stress and inflammatory response. Hey, if it can make my bronchioles seize up and my back much more injury-prone…
Anyway, take some time to do a warmup before you do any hard exercise. The Cowboy says 12 minutes. Phil Maffetone says 12-15. Alex Hutchinson says, for those with exercise-induced asthma, to take at least 20-30 minutes to warmup , and I suspect this is the most accurate – despite how tedious it sounds. It’s not just about limbering up your muscles either,?or even getting some good, warm, oxygenated blood circulating. I think it may be much more than that. It may be the difference between exercise “working” to’trim off some body fat and not working or even being counterproductive.
A proper warmup should consist of you slowly building your pulse rate higher and higher until you are ready to do some vigorous exercise. You can do it any way you want, from flying kites at a dildo shop to?flying dildos at a kite shop, as long as it is’slow and gradual and takes at least 12 minutes. Try it. Even if you don’t get some immediate “wow” experience from it, it’s still probably a good habit not to be overlooked or brushed aside – if only to prevent injury during exercise.
Now commence making fun of me, Ryan Ehmann, and?asking perverse questions about whatI was doing at a dildo store (even though I just drove past it) in the comments.
FIRST
I have never heard of Ryan Ehmann, but now I, like, totally want to learn all about him which I will soon do by plugging him into my google machine (wow! that 2x entendre was unintended but must be left in my comment thanks to you involving the ‘kite’ store in your post).
I always thought of warm-ups and cool-downs as major wastes of time, but since maffetoning it, I bit the bullet and just do both. The longer I take to get my heart rate up, the better pace I can keep at a lower HR. When I skimp on it, my pace suffers and I just don’t feel as if I’m getting the most out of session. Pretty soon I’m going to be one of those people who consults with their physician before beginning an exercise program.
Haha. Always… ALWAYS consult with a physician before doing anything.
Learning about Ryan Ehmann is at times painful, but overall a very entertaining experience.
Great. I googled and now I simply have to find out what my cowboy fit zone is. Damn you, internet, I’m piddling away my fortune on $10 dollar e-books. I guess it’s better than 5 and 10 dollar Double Trouble and Alf memorabilia on ebay. Not that I ever did that.
Just do the Maffetone caluculation. He considers that to be the minimum range, and 20bmp above that to be the maximum range. Roughly. Or the Maffetone calculation will fall right in the middle.
Do I need to consult with a physician before consulting a physician?
Yes. You need to consult with your physician’s physician before consulting with a physician.
So what were you doing at the dildo shop?
Looking for cowboy porn starring Ryan Ehmann. Hey Ryan, don’t forget to spell your name right.
I’m guessing that half an hour walking to the gym doesn’t really qualify as a warmup?
Yeah, it could, maybe building to a light jog right before you get there.
I always thought programmes that include separate phases, like warm-up, stretching..are unnecessarily complicated or that the authors don’t really know what they’re doing and try to make a “comprehensive” programme. What warm up should I do for my warm up?:-) I think proper strength training already gives us all the benefits of warm-up when you start slowly, all the benefits of stretching as you gain flexibility through strength training, and all the benefits of cardio if you move quickly between exercises and go to failure.
If I trained frequently, as a powerlifter, I’d do warm up…
It’s normal, during the time after workout, that I have to pee more frequently?
Sounds like a stress response, you pee more frequently when stressed.
If you are just starting out with some stuff Eduardo, it can be an initial shock. Stay with it for a little bit and see if you are still peeing a lot after workouts a few weeks from now.
Thank you matt. :)
An interesting article thanks Matt.
I know I can get more out of my body if I warm up properly,
ie, lift heavier weights more effectively.
But it does take time!!
I’ve always noticed a substantial benefit to doing a 10 minute warm up before intense exercise. I don’t have asthma but if I don’t warm up before I run I get winded and fatigued very easily.
O’hoy cowboys and cowgirls! On excercise-astma, this breathing through the nose optimizes the air, it might be something for you to check out: http://consciousbreathing.com/blog/thenoserace/ something to try next work out (tape your mouth and see if it makes a difference). I know I will huff and puff when I go for a hike or go biking, when I breathe through the mouth, also I will feel tired in my legs. It doesn’t happen when I do nose breathing.
Running http://consciousbreathing.com/blog/thenoserace/
Astma http://consciousbreathing.com/blog/lottie-stjernqvist/
I remember my surprise when I didn’t just warm up with muscle stretches but did a warm up for the joints. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed running as much. It was so much easier, smooth and fluid, oh and fun. Well worth looking into. I used Scott Sonnon’s intuflow which is available for free on YouTube.
I’m a Shark Tank super fan. I remember seeing that low intensity article shortly after Ryan was on Shark Tank. I just thought it was a coincidence that you had an article on low intensity workouts. I was gonna bring up that guy and his training based around heart rate, but never gotten around to it. I’ve been working out most of my life, played college football and still baffled at the concept of cutting fat. How is me and every other college O lineman do the same workouts as the smaller guys, but stay with extra fluff?
Having seen every episode of Shark Tank I found Ryan to easily be the most compelling person to appear on the show with a health/fitness product. So, I recently bought a heart rate monitor and his software to give it a try. I’ve only done one workout so far but it felt great. Can’t wait to see what results I get.
I bought a heat rate monitor a few weeks ago and started walking per Maffetone method. I am liking it so far and not feeling fatigued like I used to after HIIT and Zumba. I am calling it low stress exercise. I can already tell a difference in my aerobic capacity and have to add some hand weights or incline to keep my heart rate on target.at the same speed (use treadmill). It’s a little dull but listening to good music helps.
I was just reading something (if I can remember/find it, I’ll be sure to link) about vigorous exercise causing turbulence in the arteries which injures the blood vessels. Ever heard of that?
Found it! http://www.alignedandwell.com/katysays/more-blood-physics/
A teacher who is a flute player once told me: “I never warm up.” I was curious and asked him to elaborate. He explained: “I never cool down.”
Why is that kid holding a dildo in his left hand?
never mind
$35 for Mexican food, that’s pretty bad.
I’m not doing any real cardio, now or for for the foreseeable future, so I’m also not warming up.
Hi Matt,
I’ve just started on my refeeding adventure, coming off a year of low-carbing it preceded by a few months of weight watchers and before that about 20 years of not giving a shit about what I ate and generally being slim and happy–so desperately trying to get back to that. Anyway, my question for you is about exercise. I only had about a week of refeeding in before I went to my first crossfit workout (a work friend who is a crossfit junkie recommended it). I want to be strong and fit and (yes, awful societal influence that I should probably just get over) have a flat tummy (the one thing I’ve never really had but seriously the only fat on me so I should just get over it is what you’d say, right?).
So should I wait and rest or can I start refeeding and crossfit at the same time?
I have had icy freezing hands and feet and urinary frequency (to put it lightly) for years and years, and so freaking badly want to not be that way anymore.
Crossfit was grueling, and I am sore. What should I do???
Thank you for books and blog, I’m so glad I came across your work and am holding out hope for this logic to be real.
Anna