PRe Warm up PREPARATION 

by Eamon O Reilly (Read time 3mins). Target audience: Athletes

This is the work an athlete does before going into a warm up. Generally these exercises are very individual to the athlete and are targeted at areas where strength and control deficits have been identified by either strength coaches or physiotherapists. Almost every athlete that comes through SPARC South Dublin will end up with some form of individual prep work to carry on with once they have recovered from the injury they attended clinic for. This practice allows us to help try and reduce injury recurrence rates and keep athletes in their sports.

For both field sports athletes and runners, the hip joint and lumbopelvic area remain some of the most common areas for pre warm up prep. The use of band work and specific targeting of hip musculature based on an individuals deficits is a common site in most changing rooms pre game. With this type of work, primarily the focus is on the muscles around the hip that stabilise the joint such as gluteus medium/minimus, iliopsoas and some of the deeper hip rotator musculature. This allows an athlete to activate these muscle groups prior to the bigger muscle groups that are often focussed on in the main warm up.

Working a lot with hurlers, the use of both band and resisted work around the shoulder joint pre game is common as athletes look to increase range and activate muscles around the joint. This is type of work is also very common in overhead sports such as volleyball, tennis and other racket based sports. Again the rotator cuff musculature is a target of this pre warm up work and may be common in athletes that have had previous should surgery.

There are of course similar focusses at all other joints around the body and the advice would always be to liaise with your physio and S&C team to make sure the work you are doing in this time period is specific to you, is doing what you think it is and that the exercise is affecting what you think it is! You might need help getting this right, but once you do, its up to you to continue working on it!