Quick question

sorry guys if this is a very noob question but before you start a martial art activity should you stretch first or warm up body first like push ups and all.

 

Any physical activity requires a period of gradual warm up prior to commencement. In terms of order you should raise the heart rate and warm the muscles before stretching them. Running, skipping rope, light shadowboxing etc all can do this.

Equally important is to cool down at the end too

 

ahh thanks guys and happy new year by the way gents

 

Dissenting viewpoint arriving at platform 7....

PLATFORM 7

Whilst it is good to warm up from an exercise safety point of view, it is also good to sometimes start a class with specific drills that teach attributes that you (or the instructor) feels should be always available...

It's not likely that in a self defence situation you could say to an aggressor, "Hold on, whilst I warm up" so you need to have useable and well practiced effective techniques that you can perform on a cold dark night wearing a heavy overcoat (not that I actually wear a heavy overcoat) ...

 

Yeah, not much needs adding to the existing replies. All I'd say is your warm-up could be split into two phases: general warm-up and sport specific warm-up. Do simple things like jogging on the spot and marching with arm circles in the general warm-up. Do exercises that closely resemble the main part of your workout in the sport specific warm-up. For example, you could jog for several minutes before doing kicks with increasing range and speed of movement (start low and slow and build up to high and fast) in your preparation for a taekwondo class.

 

so umm how about punches Van Zandt? if you don't mind and umm blocks? trying to shape up, got national service coming up

 

You are unlikely to practice a 24 movement form prior to engaging either but that does not mean your daily practice should not include that to make your overall game better.

Warming up has a knock on effect meaning that you train smarter and longer and when it does go off "cold" your body is generally better prepared all round

 

I don't know anything about (Malay?) national service but I guess you will probably do a lot of running and callisthenics. If correct, then I would focus more on those activities because athletic carryover from punching and blocking will be limited.

But - to answer your question - do the general warm-up as I described followed by a couple rounds of shadow boxing, increasing your exertion gradually as you proceed through the sport specific warm-up.

 

As a side note, from my experience when you're not in the best of shape and are trying to design a workout program your warm up can actually be (or feel like) your workout for a week or two. I can best describe this using running track for an example.

I practiced with the track team in high school and they had an awesome coach. Our first two weeks of "track workout" consisted of track drills. There were about 8 - 12 different drills (stuff like high knees, lunges with a high step, cherokee runs, etc.) and he had us do them for 40 meters back and forth (80 meters total). This resulted in 640 to 960 meters of track drills that really strengthen and loosen up the legs. Since all of use were new and out of shape for track, this was a devastating workout and you would be surprised at how sore it will make you.

Move down the line two weeks later and we did this as a warmup, didn't even phase you. At this point we moved off into workouts involving something like 2x400 meter sprints/2x300 meter sprints/6x200 meter sprints/6x100 meter sprints/x? 6 meter sprints (this turned into racing).

A good warm up at the start of a fitness goal should wear you out and you don't need to push much beyond it, but that phase only lasts a short time before you start adapting. For calisthenics and running warm ups I would recommend track drills (I can post videos if you want) and calisthenics like judo pushups and inch worms and turkish getups (without weight, I can also post videos of these as well).

Warm ups can be the reason you don't injure yourself and also be the reason you have an amazing workout. The older you get the more necessary they are and at 25 (still young) I would say they are extremely necessary.

 

Followed by, "You can give advice when you're my age!" and "I'll never be your age, you're always getting older!"

 

To chime in on the ambient discussion regarding the effect of warm-ups on general physical readiness - I say just because you can do [x] without a warm-up doesn't mean you should. You won't warm up before a self-defence situation but you won't be doing an hour-long class during it either. The warm-up serves to prepare your body for the work ahead, guarding against injury and improving performancee. If you train correctly, your techniques will be available to you at any time of day without a warm-up.

 

You should totally use a clip of that segment when the next "I'll just eye poke/throat poke an attacker" person comes through while disregarding the need to do real training, and be dead serious about it being an effective technique. You can call it the "Simon's Superior Poke Power Training Method; Providing structured workouts to overwhelm the enemy by volume." And then do a second segment where you drop down into a split while simultaneously groin punching with speed/volume. It would be epic. :jawdrop:

 

To address one question that hasn't been answered yet, my impression is that doing strengthening exercises at the start of a class as "warm up" isn't a great idea. So doing dozens of push-ups, sit-ups, squat-thrusts etc before you even start the specific training is just going to give you tired, ineffective muscles that will make it harder to perform the specific activities you're supposed to be learning.

 

:Angel:​