Optimizing The Warm-Up Using RAMP & Mobility Flows

Its the general consensus that a warm-up is a mandatory component of any training session, no matter what sport or athlete you’re working with. The warm-up is also a component I’ve never stopped trying to refine over the years of coaching. I continuously ask myself: how do I help my athletes reach physiological and psychological readiness in the fastest, most efficient way possible?

As a result of poor practices in the past, as well as noticing trends in the high-performance world, I remain unconvinced on the concept of needing to perform an overabundance of exercises to “activate” muscles or “mobilize” the joints prior to training. Banded distractions, foam rolling, all the bullshit that people waste their time on because “that’s how everyone else does it in the industry”.

I was unsatisfied and baffled over the fact that a warm-up could potentially take up 25% of the time out of a training session. The warm-up is the low hanging fruit in terms of programming improvements. Simple changes to the warm-up protocol afford coaches and athletes more time to put into more meaningful training that develops athletic performance.

Out of a necessity to make my personal coaching sessions run in a more smooth and efficient manner, I’ve created a mobility flow warm-up as a way to address the first 3 letters of RAMP within one series of exercises.

A few principles I utilise follows the “RAMP” acronym. 

(R)aise body temperature

(A)ctivate muscles

(M)obilize joints

(P)otentiate to reach intensities seen in the training program

In this mobility flow, I’ve sequenced multiple foundational movement patterns together such as squatting, hinging, lunges, pressing and rotating. Alongside the obvious rise in body temperature from performing this, the emphasis on large range of motion movements and anti-rotational positions addresses both the “activation” and “mobilization” aspects of a warm-up, saving time that can be put into actual, meaningful training.

While this mobility is ground-based and has a lot more potential for additional exercises, the principles I work with remain the same - achieve rise in body temperature, put muscles and joints through a large range of motion and improve proprioception as quick as possible. Modify this flow as you see it fits your training demands.

After the mobility flow, some sort of potentiating training follows in order to reach the intensities seen in the training session (whether the session is strength-based, plyometric-based or concurrent). More details about exercise order and potentiation can be found in my exercise order article.

Application

This mobility flow can be performed as a warm-up, as a cooldown, or as an active recovery protocol.

Warm Up: 1-2 sets of 3-5 minutes

Cooldown: 1-2 sets of 3-5 minutes

Active Recovery Protocol: Multiple sets of 3-5 minutes, or one long set of 15-30 minutes (Keeping HR in Training Zones 1 and 2)

Great response from my athletes so far. Will be refining this over the next few months. I hope you enjoy it.

FREE EBOOK CHAPTER DOWNLOAD

Chapter 7 of the eBook, “The Sport-Specific Trap - Revisiting Dynamic Correspondence for Combat Sports” talks about key concepts to consider when selecting exercises to enhance combat sports performance and some common mistakes coaches make.