The Beyond Pain Podcast
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The Beyond Pain Podcast
Episode 42: Waste of Time or Worth the Time? Warm Ups and Cool Downs
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Summary
In this episode of the Beyond Pain podcast, hosts Joe Gambino and Joe LaVacca discuss the significance of warm-ups and cool downs in exercise routines. They emphasize that warm-ups should be effective yet efficient, ideally lasting no more than 10-15 minutes, and should prepare the body neurologically for the workout ahead. The conversation also touches on the practicality of cool downs, suggesting that they may not be as beneficial as traditionally thought. The hosts advocate for a personalized approach to warm-ups and cool downs, highlighting the importance of individual needs and preferences in fitness routines.
Takeaways
Warm-ups can be generic and don't need to be lengthy.
A warm-up should ideally last no more than 10-15 minutes.
The purpose of a warm-up is to increase heart rate and prepare the body.
Cool downs may not provide significant long-term benefits.
Movement after a workout can be beneficial for overall activity levels.
Personalization in warm-up routines is key to effectiveness.
Power training is crucial as we age to prevent falls.
Warm-ups should reflect the workout to follow.
Feedback from workouts can help in programming future sessions.
It's important to find what works best for each individual.
Joe Gambino (00:00.795)
Welcome back into the Beyond Pain podcast. I am one of your hosts, Joe Gambino, and I am here with, doctor, I don't have a, you know, anything for you today, Joe, but I'm here with you. I'm here with Joe LaVacca We are ready to chat it up with you guys. You can find this on social media. I am at Joe Gambino DPT. LaVacca over there is at strength emotion underscore PT. You can find this on YouTube as well. Cups of Joe PT there and on
Instagram, this podcast has a place. The Beyond Pain podcast, I always mess it up, where it's just Beyond Pain podcast, yes. Yeah, we'll get it right at some point. Too many places to find this. I mean, we need to condense that. But anyway, welcome back, Enjoy Boy.
Joe LaVacca (00:34.242)
I think it's just, no, just beyond pain. We'll get it right. This is episode 40 something.
Joe LaVacca (00:46.382)
How you doing my friend?
Joe Gambino (00:48.007)
I'm doing good. Like I said, a little sleep deprived, but things are trending up. The sleep scores are improving. So hopefully, you know, the baby just stops, you know, waking. He's pretty easy to get back down. As long as I have a pacifier, he's able to get down, but we're trying to get him to not need the pacifier and just put himself back to sleep. That's the goal.
Joe LaVacca (01:08.002)
Yeah, we were talking about that right before the episode. Always getting adjusted out here in Colorado, different environment. Now me and Courtney don't have any little babies anymore, but the dryness out here in Colorado is always very hard to combat at night, especially in the winter. Cause if you turn the heat down too much, you're freezing. And then if you leave it on, you wake up like you've just like kind of walked through the Sahara desert.
for eight hours. So there's really no magical in the middle. So it's just a struggle as well. So my sleep score a little bit low, but I'm pumped and energized. And I think when we were talking about before our show today, know, meeting and enhancing this for viewers, especially, I think part of your role needs to be adjective hunting for the introduction. If we're going to keep that it.
Joe Gambino (01:59.399)
Yes, I'll spend some time, know, the store is open and doing some research and figuring out, you know, where we're going to go. But I'll get there, Joe. I'll get there for the podcast, for the podcast. For the listeners, that's it. All right, man, I'm going to let you kick it off because this topic had come from
Joe LaVacca (02:16.203)
Well, obviously, it's always for the pod. Hashtag for the pod.
That's right.
Joe Gambino (02:27.655)
You know, your discussions with your clients, we'll be talking about warming up, cooling down today, where our brains are around that, how much of it do you need, how should you structure it, all that fun stuff. And I'll let you take it away.
Joe LaVacca (02:41.026)
Yeah, so I think generally speaking, as clients get rolling into a program and maybe they're even progressing a little bit, we're adding more things, adding more time. The conversation naturally comes up whether they've heard it before or they've saw it on Instagram or it's just something they used to do. What do I do for a warm up? What do I do for a cool down? How much time should I be spending?
And I always tell them typically the same thing. If we're not dealing with a specific injury or maybe trying to work around pain as much anymore, I've always been in the camp that your warmups can be pretty generic. They don't have to be ultra specific. They don't have to be ultra long. They don't have to be anything with bands or some sort of like specialty device.
But I also think it's worthwhile knowing what makes you feel good and how much time you actually have at the gym. Some people only have 45 minutes or 60 minutes max. So to spend 20 minutes or 30 minutes warming up, like I've seen a lot of people do, it just seems like you're not getting a lot of value for the time at the gym. If you're one of the people and
God bless you, you can spend 90 minutes, two hours at the gym. Hell, great, bring a book with you, warm up on the treadmill, read a couple chapters, go through all your activation exercises, do the bands, do the bells and whistles, and then get rolling into it. But I don't find that that's typically practical for the large majority of people that I work with, usually negotiating their kind of lives around the gym.
So I guess 10,000 foot view will dive in a little bit more. That's my opening statement on it. What do you think about that?
Joe Gambino (04:49.957)
Yeah, I'm with you. think, you know, any, just to start, if your warmup is more than 10, 15 minutes long, you're spending too much time. Like there's, there's no reason, no matter, no matter what you're doing, what you're geared for, what you're trying to prepare your body for, if you're going over 15 minutes, it's, it's kind of wasted energy. at that point, if you feel like you need that much time, cause I haven't been there in the past where I've needed like 30, 40 minutes just to feel like I was ready to get going.
Then something needs to be addressed to make sure you don't need that much time to do so as again to your point where like we all we all have limited resources as far as time goes right to be spending 45 minutes to get ready and then 45 minutes to an hour to work out, know, unless you have that kind of time That's it. That's a luxury, you know, maybe you know, I could do that when I was 24 because I worked in a gym and I was you know
You know, at that point I was dating Jen, but there's no, I had no kids or nothing. I I lived in a gym. had access to everything and it was super easy for me to be able to do that. So that's where I'll start. but as far as that, I agree with you. think you can be very, very general. I think there's two ways to look at it. think if any way that you're, want to structure a workout, it should be, you know, sure. You can start off with foam rolling. If you like it, you can start off with some activation work, but it should build up.
you should at least be finishing your warmups with something that's more neurologically demanding. So something jumping, maybe it's the first set. whatever the lift is going to be, but something that's starting to mimic what you want to do so that your body is actually ready for those first sets. You don't want to be like going into it and like, I just did like some clamshells and I foam rolled my IT band and I'm going to go squat 200 pounds. Like there's a big jump there, right? So you're going to need something to kind of bridge that gap, so to speak.
But in general, think when I'm programming for somebody, I don't really have warmups in when I was in person and I was in a gym, pretty much what I would do is I just have somebody hit either like the skier or get on the bike or whatever. And it's like, you know, you know, 300 calories on it, you know, spend five, 10 minutes, just get the heart rate up and let's get started. But when I'm programming for people in general, really my A block is almost like the warmup is the thing that's going to prepare you for.
Joe LaVacca (07:12.472)
Mm-hmm.
Joe Gambino (07:13.147)
meat and potatoes of the program. So A blocks usually will have a mobility drill in it. It has a core exercise in it and it has some sort of plyo-y type of thing. So some jumps, some elbow work, things like that. So by the time you're done with the A block, you've gotten some good stuff in. You've already prepped a joint that's going to be needed for the workout later. You've got a little bit of core work in. You've gotten some jumping, something that's going to excite the nervous system. And then by the time you get to the B blocks, maybe you need like one or two more sets, but then you're ready to rock and roll.
Joe LaVacca (07:20.75)
It's like.
Joe LaVacca (07:39.854)
So I was going to ask.
Joe Gambino (07:42.823)
And that's kind of how I've been, that's how I've been programming for quite a while now.
Joe LaVacca (07:47.894)
Right. I completely agree. And I think it's also important to go back to that actual term warm up. Whole idea of the warm up is to increase your heart rate, increase your breathing rate, increase tissue temperature. So when people are talking to me about their warm up and a lot of these things might be static foam rolling, static stretching and
They stand up, they look at their watch or, hey, just check your pulse and your breathing and it's completely normal. That's probably not a warmup. There's nothing, as you mentioned, driving a neurological or physiological stimulus to prepare your body for what's ahead. So I love the idea of skier, bike, treadmill, incline walking, anything like that.
I typically encourage people to think, pick any device, stick with it for about three to five minutes, and that's a really easy way to increase the three things I mentioned. So when you get off the bike, the incline treadmill, your skier, your rower, whatever, heart rate should be elevated, your breathing rate should be elevated, and your tissue temperature, your superficial tissue temperature should be a little bit elevated. Now, it's probably only gonna be within
half degree, one degree, two degrees. But in terms of movement, tissue sliding seems to happen a little bit more efficiently when we have a higher surface area of temperature in our bodies. Which is also why when it's colder outside, a lot more athletes seem to be susceptible to tendon and muscle strains, right? Because we have maybe this friction coefficient within the tissues. Force doesn't move as well. Okay, fine.
Nerves, muscles, everything protects themselves. So if we have those things that we can accomplish, then I don't think it needs to be super, super specific. I like what you said about med ball work and what I've sort of done with a lot of people with this idea of priming, right? Your nervous system. If you're going to be doing a heavy squat, I kind of almost like the idea of doing upper body plyometrics. So you're not going to necessarily fatigue out.
Joe LaVacca (10:11.755)
before you get to your squat or maybe like your lower body deadlift that you're doing to lead off your workout. Same thing with like your bench press or some higher upper body intensity thing. Maybe we're going to do more lower body jumping or plyometrics and then mix and matching that with if your squat is 200 pounds, let's cut that in half depending on your training age. If people are pretty, we're talking people are kind of progressing right now a little bit.
I'm going to say, hey, why don't we do some med ball work, some med ball slams, some med ball twists, tosses, whatever, right? Or maybe just some kind of quick TRX pull. And then let's pair that with 50 % of what we're going after maybe for five to 10 reps, just to kind of get your body moving. And then after that, it's pushed up to 75%. Maybe do that for three or five reps. Then I'll give people an option. If you're feeling good.
You got 75 % of your working weight, you're feeling good, no restrictions, everything's great, your sleep score was awesome. Go right to your working set, right? So if they wanna do one or two more things before that, like as a prime, I'll let them. But ultimately, I think with a lot of these warmups, it's building up to knowing what really works for you. So have you ever paired plyometrics differently? Do you kind of have a standard go-to?
that you give to people, how hard do you maybe prescribe those plyos in the beginning?
Joe Gambino (11:35.975)
Yeah, will. It depends on the goal of the block. If the goal of the block is strength work, there's, you I'm going to just, we've been talking about squats, so I'm going to keep it in there. You know, there will be jumps, there'll be men ball work, there'll be lower body power in there. It's not enough that's going to overly fatigue you. The goal is to just move fast. You know, I'm not going to prescribe heavy cleans, you know, like Olympic lifting, stuff like that. will, know, kettlebell swings falls in there, stuff within that nature.
Now, if the goal is a power block and the whole goal is to actually be able to move things faster, then the beginning of the block is actually going to have power work that's going to fatigue the nervous system. And then the strength work after that is okay if you've lost a little bit of a set because I'm trying the goal, right, is power. It's not strength at that point. We should see some strength changes, but if it doesn't happen, it's not as important to me. So then you'll see...
you know, like speed work with whatever like, okay, squats, speed squats, right? Let's take a percentage of it. Let's do that. Let's jump maybe with a percentage of your load. something that's going to be a little bit more neurologically demanding to actually try to create that process. Maybe there's going to be more depth jumps or more reactive jumps because we're working on that shred, shortening cycle. So that's kind of how I would, you know, you know, kind of work it. It's just really goal dependent. How much do I really want to stimulate that? Is it just
Hey, let's get a little bit of this in this. this week and I mean, I mean, you and me, right? We're, 38 years old. We're parents. I mean, for me, I'm just trying to stay as feel as athletic as I can, right? Jumping constantly being able to jump and move fast are things sprinting, are all things that allow me to feel good, move well, feel like I can go chase my kids. I can go play, you know, pick up ball at the park if I wanted to. And that's kind of really where I'm at. And that's always just come from my background as a strength and conditioning coach and how, how
programming has been for me. But I think it's just good for everybody. It doesn't matter where you are, what you're trying to do. I have a client, know, she's older, she's in her 60s. I'm like, okay, we're gonna jump. She's like, what? We're gonna jump? I'm like, yeah, we're gonna start off easy. We're just doing some little hops, know, and some non-continuous jump squats and on the fence and she loves them now, you know, like, but, you know, when we talk about when you're older, fall risk is, you know, up and up and power and strength as they come down is one of the reasons why people
Joe LaVacca (13:47.126)
Right.
Joe LaVacca (13:51.168)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Joe Gambino (13:59.813)
I mean, we should be working on those qualities. It doesn't matter who you are. These are all good things to always have in a program in my opinion.
Joe LaVacca (14:07.618)
Yeah, no, totally. And yes, it's worth reiterating that as we get older, power, the ability for you to quickly produce force or maybe a change of direction or something like that is the biggest thing that declines as we age. So when you do have that trip for our elderly population, when they don't have power, you can't regain your previous position. So then now you kind of continue falling down to the ground. And I love the idea of
you know, these warmups or, you know, plyometric considerations, you know, prior to getting people going, because I think it's all relative. If you're going to hand a med ball to someone and you're going to say, Hey, I want you to throw this as hard as you can into the ground or as hard as you can across the room. Well, then everyone's going to do just that. It doesn't matter if the med ball goes three yards or 30 yards. That's what I think a lot of people when they get older are like, well, I can't do this because, know, when you demo it,
You know, the ball flies 15, 20 feet and I can't get that far. And I'm like, well, it doesn't matter. That's what my power output is right now. What we want to do is try to find what yours is and then see if we can just progressively get it better over time. And even if it's a little bit better, a couple of percentage points, hey, that might make the difference between you tripping, stumbling, catching yourself versus tripping, stumbling, and then finding yourself on the floor. I do find that
There's way more practicality to a warm up if we were going to sort of try to pick one than a cool down. I don't think that there is much benefit from really a lot of the things that I've seen over the course of time. Granted, I have not seen everything, but just accumulating my experience, talking to other coaches. I don't think it's all that valuable.
to have five, 10, 15 minutes for a cool down where you're doing like walking on the treadmill, breathing on the floor, foam rolling again, stretching again. even if, even if, and I think I've read a few cool down studies where it's like, well, if you do these things, know, the lactic acid or the buildup of chemicals in your bloodstream, you know, kind of normalizes quicker. And it's like, okay, so what?
Joe LaVacca (16:30.126)
If it happened in three minutes after my workout or eight minutes after my workout, who cares? Because I don't think there's anything long term saying if I do a cool down, my immune response is going to be better. My performance is going to be better the rest of that day or my performance is going to be better tomorrow. So I believe if you are going to pick one, pick a warm up, do the things that Joe was just saying, have it prep you neurologically.
have it make you feel better with movement, have it elevate your heart rate so it's sort of a cue to your body to maybe release certain hormones and chemicals that will also be excitatory and facilitary for you to move. But then your cool down, hey, your cool down happens when you're getting dressed, your cool down happens when you hit the showers, your cool down happens when you're walking to your car, your cool down happens when you're riding the elevator down the building depending on where you are.
That's my stance on a cool down. You're shaking your head. I hope you're agreeing with me. What are your thoughts on cool downs?
Joe Gambino (17:35.963)
Joe, I just agree with you so much that I think we're gonna have to end this podcast. We're never gonna be able to chat again. No, I agree with you. I don't think I've ever programmed to cool down. The only pushback I'd give is, if you had some time where I actually would say it's probably good, especially as a sedentary society, if you're not getting a lot of steps in, it's like, take 10, 15 minutes, go for a walk around the neighborhood, hop on the treadmill, it doesn't matter, go for a walk, but it's just mainly to just move a little bit more throughout your day.
Joe LaVacca (17:38.798)
That's perfect. be waiting for that episode.
Joe Gambino (18:06.263)
And if getting a 15-minute walk the only time you're gonna do it is after your workout then I'd rather you take a 15-minute walk then then then not so Just maybe an opportunity where you can get a little bit more low-level movement, you know I know since I've moved here my steps have been down dramatically So if I you know, maybe that's what I should do now that the weather is getting nice We've been having 70 degree weather here in February should work out and take Kevin and the baby or whatever and just get for a walk and
cool down, really it's just an opportunity for me to get more steps in. Cause I went from 10 to 15,000 steps in a day to like, if I crack 7,000 steps, it's like a, wow, I did a lot of walking that day just cause there's nothing to do here to walk, you know?
Joe LaVacca (18:47.97)
Yeah. Now I will say this because I know a few clients of ours listen to the podcast. There are cool down boxes for people that I just leave in true coach. And I only leave it there for people who I think are maybe like dealing with some pain or maybe active injury. And I only want them to kind of use that as just a reflection box. Right. Hey, before you just close the app, hit complete workout. How did everything go?
Like how was the knee feeling after you were done squatting today? How was the back feeling as you progressed through the workout? So if there is like a way to get more steps, hey, I love that idea. I think I've also suggested that probably not with the same intent that you just prescribed, but I do really like that notion of, you're already there at the gym. If you have a few more minutes, we've been trying to build your step count. Why not just walk five or 10 minutes on the treadmill if it's conducive for your time?
But where I've just left those boxes in, because I know people are rushing and I think that it sort of makes it a little bit harder to program for me when I'm not getting feedback from people throughout the week. And then I kind of have to hunt them down on the weekend. They're busy. I'm trying to like, well, should I progress them next week? Should I pull them back next week? I got mix and match green checks and red X's. I don't know why they skipped one thing or maybe they just forgot to hit the green button. So I think maybe a cool down.
Joe Gambino (20:12.103)
Hmm.
Joe LaVacca (20:16.258)
The way that I would love more people to think about it is just a simple reflection. It could be 60 seconds. How did this workout make me feel? What was I worried about? What was I surprised about? What did I prove wrong? And for some people who are really good at giving me feedback, and True Coach especially, I sort of love hearing their just reflection. I thought I was gonna be in a lot more pain. I thought this was really gonna bother me.
And then I did it and I realized I was okay and that was awesome. And now I'm more likely to do it again. So if you're gonna pick one, do the warmup. But if a cool down is in your wheelhouse, again, you got all that time in the world, use it as a reflection point.
Joe Gambino (21:07.205)
Yep, like that. like that. I think, you know, things I think would, if you had an injury, I would probably change a little bit of what we've done. So maybe we can talk about that in another episode of, you know, how we would maybe change this with injuries and stuff like that. I like this, Joe, I think there's one more thing I was going to say. And that was, know, with you mentioned, you know, like a lot of warmups have static stretching and foam rolling in it. And that's why and I think that's why one reason people's warmups take forever to spend
I need 15 minutes to foam roll every part of my body. Then I need to stretch every part of my body and also in your 45 minutes in. So, A, I would only pick whatever is worthwhile for your workout. If it's upper body day, just do upper body. It's lower body day, just do lower body. And you don't need more than 60 to 120 seconds worth of input before. There's not like if you foam roll for five minutes versus a minute and a half, there's not gonna be significantly, I'm gonna feel so much looser, right? Like you're gonna get it pretty quick.
And you might as well just move to the next part to save some time and energy if you're, if especially if your warmups are very, very long. but that's all I got Joe, anything else from you?
Joe LaVacca (22:13.592)
No, that's it. think it would be nice to maybe have a more specific context for warmups and cool downs around injury. So I'd love to dive into that with you maybe our next episode. But I think generally speaking, we've shared some thoughts. We'd love to hear from people on your warmups, your warmup ideas. How long are you prescribing them? What does your coach, trainer say? And maybe why do they feel that way?
A lot of the stuff in, think, strength and conditioning and rehab is always because, it works for me. And then that justification is, then it should work for everyone. But I think if it works for you, great, but we don't need it for everyone to be successful. And I think that's always what I try to remember when I'm programming for people.
Joe Gambino (23:00.615)
Yeah, 100%. I mean, everyone's, it's person dependent, but then we could have some, I mean, it's definitely not a bad idea to warm up, but as long as it's, it's your time, you're doing it and you're actually building up and, know, you know, by the end of your warmup, it should be somewhat reflective of whatever workout or run or whatever it is that you're trying to do. Then, then I think you'll be at a pretty decent ballpark.
Joe LaVacca (23:23.958)
Amen, brother. Well, this was a great episode. Thank you, Joe.
Joe Gambino (23:28.007)
Think so, baby. Thank you. And thank you for any listeners still listening.
Joe LaVacca (23:30.35)
All right, well, listeners, that's right, that's right. Listeners, we love you. Joe, I love you. Thank you again for giving us your time today. And don't forget to tune into another exciting episode of the Beyond Paint podcast next.