Issue 053

August 2009


The traditional warm-ups we are accustomed to are structured in the following way. We do something to increase tissue temperature (jogging / skipping), stretch for a prolonged period and finish off with some abs, push-ups and general bodyweight exercises. This in itself isn’t that bad and can help prepare the body for the rigors of MMA training, but I think we can do more to enhance performance and limit injuries.  


Glute activation  

I hate to tell you this, but chances are your ass isn’t pulling its weight. Because we move around a lot less and sit down more, we tend to end up with stiff or shortened hip flexor muscles. This can lead to a lot of us have trouble activating our gluteal muscles. Not only will this limit our performance in certain positions and movements (bridging springs immediately to mind), it also drives up the risk of overuse injuries as the lower back and hamstrings have to pick up the slack for your lazy ass.  

The glutes are massively powerful and are involved in so many movements important in MMA. For this reason I begin every session with a hip flexor stretch and a glute activation movement (a glute bridge or yoga table).  


Hip mobility lunges

After we have got everyone’s ass in gear we introduce some hip mobility work in the form of various walking lunge movements. How often do you hear someone being told to move their hips, or hear someone telling someone to turn their hips over more when striking? If your hip mobility blows you’re going to have problems. Expect to get your guard passed and forget about pulling off any sort of BJ Penn-esque single leg defense.  

A few exercises to get your hips going include:  

  • Overhead lunges (reach arms overhead and lunge walk)
  • Walking Spidermen (walking lunge with same side elbow touching the inside of the heel each step) 
  • Lateral lunges 
  • Cook squat (from standing, grab your toes and with straight arms pull your hips into a squat position. Make sure your chest is lifted and you eliminate movement from the lumbar spine)


Crawling movements

Most sports are played standing up, but a lot of positions in jiu-jitsu and wrestling involve having your weight (and sometimes somebody else’s) supported on your hands. To prepare for this we do a lot of crawling movements with the hands in contact with the ground. This is the last stage of our warm-up and is a great way to increase tissue temperature and elevate heart rate prior to technical training as these movements can be a bit horrible. The ones I use the most are:  

  • Bear crawls (weight on hands and feet, arse high and crawling forward)
  • ‘Galvaos’ (from standing, walk out the hands and perform a push-up, bring the hips back and then jump the feet in line with hands, repeat) 
  • ‘Jacares’ (what Jacare does after winning fights – a crocodile-type move on hands and feet with hips low)  
  • Inchworm (from standing walk out the hands to a push-up position, continue walking the hands out as far as you can while keeping your legs straight. Walk your feet up and repeat)

The warm-up outlined above takes about seven minutes and by the end of it everyone is good to go, whether the session involves grappling, striking or lifting large pieces of metal. What I have noticed with this approach is that guys tend to pick up fewer injuries. I run a gym and my ability to live an affluent lifestyle depends on guys not getting broken so they can pay for all the useless crap I have to own.  


What your warm-up could do without

Warm-ups are notorious for having up to 30 minutes dedicated to static stretching. Static stretching has its place and I’m a big fan, but for me this is excessive. The dynamic mobility drills outlined above are superior and allow the coach more time to do the job he is best at. I feel that the majority of sessions could benefit from a reduction in the amount of static stretching and an increase in the amount of coaching.  

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