25.11.08
Warming again
Seems there’s a new page up on’t nets.
Here it is: here.
I’ve had a look at the warming up bit, as you’d all expect I’m sure. I can’t comment on the rest of it though. Not my line.
Anyway just for your entertainment here’s my ranty review (with some fairer comments at the end):
[edit: just had a chat with the guy who put the site up. More later.]
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Page 1 – “Warming up promotes the body’s natural oil to libircate the joints, ligaments and tendons as well as prepare muscles to fire at appropriate times.”
What the hell is “natural oil”? Ligaments and tendons don’t need “libircating”. Muscles fire when they’re supposed to whether or not you’ve spend 10 minutes moving random parts of your body randomly.
P2: Never heard the ring idea before, interesting idea if a little vague as to why it’s useful.
P3: Wrist circles? Why?
P4: Ankles circles? Really why? If you’re after stopping ankle inversion injury then you want your lower leg muscles to be stiff not relaxed.
P5: page 3 and 4 repeated. Waste of time.
P6: Circling neck is a really bloody stupid idea. Very rare but would you be happy to learn that someone who’d read your advice has had a stroke? If you must do neck exercises then standard advice is to do side flexion separately from rotation and extension. I never suggest forward flexion/extension exercises anyway, not even as a treatment modality.
P7: Doesn’t really do anything.
P8: Overworks the muscle most likely to be overworking in the body anyway. Certainly as far as the jugglers are concerned.
P9: No diff to P8
P10: Can’t see any benefit there.
P11: Same as P10.
P12: Harmless.
P13: Good general exercise. Not specifically a warm-up thing.
P14: No idea what this is doing. The elbow is a hinge so any “circles” are down to shoulder movements.
P15: Poi.
P16: POI!
P17: Ooh Betty.
P18: ???
P19: Yes it’s a rec fem stretch (only 1 of the quads, the other 3 aren’t affected). Why only a count of 10? How may reps? Why specifically as a warm-up? Why not hamstrings and gastroc stretches as well? I have plenty flexible rec fems but my hams are shockingly tight, why should I do this stretch whilst ignoring stretches I should be doing?
P20: Now my energy has leached away.
P21: Is this suggesting flexing and then moving? Way to injure your back!
General:
What’s with the “Do 10 of these” comments? How’s that the magic number?
Just, no.
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So there you have it. Not impressed.
Now to be somewhat fairer.
Apart from the 2 exercises that I reckon are potentially dangerous there isn’t too much to get too wound up about.
So what to do instead (if anything):
If you must waste time failing to protect yourself from injury (or in one or two cases actually increasing the risk) then run about a bit and play some games then start slowly with what you’re doing. That’s it, there’s not much you can do to prevent injury except by getting a personal assessment of how you move and what might be problematic about your movement now or in the future, and then doing the exercises to change that, then making sure that you follow the safety rules for the kit you’re using, and not arsing around when you should be paying attention, and making sure the kit is up to scratch, and not doing the same training day after day, and doing conditioning training daily to allow your body to cope with physical stress, and so on. 10 mins of random exercise is all very well but doesn’t protect you.
Repeat lecture now over.
And another thing!
What’s with this general “you must be warm to avoid injury” nonsense? Just seen this article showing injury rates were higher in summer than in winter. Pfft.
EXTRA!: As mentioned earlier I’ve just been chatting to the author of the page. So what to add?
OK the tone of this review is grumpy. That’ll be me writing then. I did state that the review was ranty and regular readers will know my thoughts on this subject.
Let’s talk about the goal of the site. It’s for training people who don’t have great access to teachers and schools and may not speak english. A sound objective. I’d imagine they’d also not have great access to much in the way of medical care. In this case the idea was to create something memorable and visual for them to remember. I’d say 21 pages is too long particularly for younger participants. So definitely drop the neck rolls and back flex exercises and shorten the rest.
Into what?
Tricky. It always is when trying to plan for teaching people you can’t see beforehand. And it would change depending on what you wanted from it.
So I’ll answer it in 2 ways.
What are you after? Conditioning exercises or a warm-up? I’m not a believer that warm ups do much physically so pretty much anything you want if you feel you must. Running around a bit, jumping around too. That’ll get your heart-rate up and muscles warm. It’ll be a giggle for children too if you incorporate some playing into this bit. Make it fun and kids’ll run forever.
Conditioning. Depends again on what’s needed. Are you talking about people on a long course or occasional participants? For those on long courses you want to be looking at strength and flexibility exercises as a daily thing even if the course isn’t daily. Teach them stretches and strength exercises to do and ask them to actually do them. Improves their ability and reduces injury.
For occasional participants then you’re looking at just giving them a good time. Warm-ups won’t significantly reduce their risk of problems. They’ll ache anyway just because what they are doing is new for their bodies.
I’m tired now and may write more tomorrow. Have fun.