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Old 10-29-2002, 08:11 PM   #4
Kevin Wilbanks
Location: Seattle/Southern Wisconsin
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 788
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Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but if you're really worried about your future health as a senior at the age of 18, the worry itself is likely your most life-shortening - not to mention quality of life ruining - problem. Relax. Some large-scale catastrophe is likely to bring an end to mammalian life on earth, or, at the very least, human civilization in any recognizable form, long before you make it to that age. Barring that, odds are high that you'll contract some fatal or crippling disease, or be the victim of some untimely and horribly violent misfortune. So, don't waste any of the precious few moments you have worrying about it.

Just in case, though, the warmup you describe is a lot better than a bunch of ill-conceived static stretching exercises. However, it's not exactly what I had in mind by dynamic stretching in a general warmup. Activities like jogging or light rope jumping are great to literally warm you up, but dynamic stretching is more along the lines of arm circles, swinging the limbs through common natural ranges of motion, that hula thing with the hips... The best is when the activity you are preparing for involves some specific ROM and motion that you can perform in a light brisk way in which you gradually move into your fullest range of available motion in that activity - this is why lighter movement-specific warm up sets should always be performed when doing weight training. Since Aikido involves such a wide variety of movements, I like using circles and vertical and horizontal swinging patterns, along with stuff like the two-step, aikido rows, aikido backfall situps, tenkans with loose arms, light falls, etc...

Think of the warmup like an 'overture' to the activity you are going to do. If you're not familiar with the concept of an overture, look into it. (I don't like opera either, but you should at least know enough about it to understand my training analogies.) For instance, with my HIIT workout today I rotated between intervals of rope jumping, fast running, and 'cannonballs'. For my warmup, I started out with a few minutes of the aforementioned limb swings and torso movements. Then, I did three consecutive sets of each activity at about half intensity/speed. Then I started the clock and commenced with the workout - not a static stretch in sight. Maybe you don't do HIIT, but you get the idea. There's nothing mystical or complicated about a proper warm up, it's just a logical way of easing your body into the activity you are about to do.
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