Hey, I’m in a hurry because I’m already a few minutes late, trying to weed through traffic to make it to the gym on time for class… This is a typical scenario that we have all been in.
Or, you think to yourself one of the following:
Ehh, I can be a few minutes late, it’s okay; I hate jumping rope anyways.
Shadow boxing is stupid and it’s a waste of time. Who wants to punch and kick in the air anyways, why can’t I just walk in and start training?
It takes time for me to get ready, wrap my hands, stretch, do jumping jacks and whatever other voodoo ritual I have before training. Warming up is stupid and who wants to do it anyways?
All of that is nice and I fully understand it. However, let me push back on that thought for a minute.
Let’s say you are paying $300 a class to train every class that you come to. That’s $300 an hour for training, PER CLASS!
Yeah, lawyer prices, right?
Well if we break that down, that’s $5 a minute. $5 a minute might not seem like a lot to you when I say that, but look at it like this.
Let’s say you’re attending the 12:00 PM class slot. The $300 fee does not start when you step on the mat, the $300 fee starts at the same time everyday, 12:00 PM. So, if you “start” your training at 12:10 or 12:15, because you’re late to class or didn’t care to be on time, you just wasted $75 of your time.
Kinda stings when you think about it like that huh? I don’t know about you, but I don’t have $75 to throw out the window just because.
Let’s go away from math for a moment and look at it differently. Warming up is important not just to get your body ready to train, but to also loosen up all of your muscles so you don’t get injured.
But I’m sure you already know this, as it’s been taught to us from a young age.
However, if you don’t warm up and go straight to training, you’re still wasting money and time. Just because you might not want to warm up doesn’t mean your body doesn’t.
Let’s say you actually step into class by 12:10, and start holding the bag, pads or whatever.
By the time you get a couple of rounds in it’s 12:25-12:30. Now your body is finally warm and ready to go. Well guess what, class is halfway over.
The high intensity part of class is only going to be running for another 15 minutes max.
12:45 – time to take the gear off, do abs and stretch. Between the commotion and instructions, now it’s 12:50. Abs take roughly 5 minutes, then we have 5 minutes of stretching. Now it’s 1:00 PM you have just hit your $300 price for training. Class is over until tomorrow and altogether you got about a 15 minute workout.
When you look at it like that, it puts things in a different perspective on how important warming up before training is. Not to mention, if you’re guilty of this, you will never reach your full potential in training because you are only ever getting to a halfway point.
So you see why It’s important to warm up, just like it’s important to brush your teeth everyday.
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As always, train hard, be a beast!
Robert Mosier