The Warm Up: How It Fits Into Law Enforcement Training And Why
Why 10-15 minutes prior to training (or your shift) can improve movement quality, enhance your workout (or job performance), and make you less likely to get injured in the gym (or on the street).
Have you ever seen a cheetah warm up before chasing down a gazelle? No, I haven’t either. What I have seen is this example used by strength and conditioning coaches as to why one should forgo a warm up. The argument being if the worlds fastest land animal can achieve a top speed of 75 mph without breaking a sweat first, it would be a reasonable assumption to apply this logic to humans.
Or, like most things...let’s live somewhere in the middle. As flawless as the logic is in the example above, spending 10-15 minutes hitting quality movement patterns prior to training sessions (or shifts) will help protect against injury and enhance your performance.
From prior articles, some of you may know in years past I had a parachute landing (read: smash into the ground directly on my hip) that later required a total hip replacement. I will spare you the gory details, but it’s a violent surgery that involves lots of tools one would typically find in a machine shop. After you wake up from surgery and officially joined the bionic world, hopefully this contraption becomes part of you for God willing the rest of your life.
Due to being part machine, I take my warm up series seriously. I am about 2.5 years post op but still on the side of my prosthetic I notice I have trouble getting my glute to fire some days. Numbness still lingers around the hip on that side as well.
These are small complaints. The surgery was life changing. I had no idea how much pain I was in until it was gone. I am still incredibly active, not just in recreation but also professionally. Moving well is crucial if I want to make this implant last for as long as possible. A total hip replacement is one of the most successful surgeries on the planet, but a revision or replacement of the implant is never ideal.
Gray Cook, physical therapist and strength and conditioning coach, became incredibly popular with his Functional Movement Screen System. With the permission of Functional Movement, below is a video that discusses a variation of one of his movements, the active straight leg raise.
After foam rolling, I usually use a variation of the ASLR to start this series:
Light foam rolling/Lacrosse Ball (especially bottom of foot)- spend a bit more time on anywhere that is especially tight.
Ground Based Movement- Start on your back- Movement variations from the ASLR video is a great place to start.
Glute Bridge Variation- Almost all of us need this.
Lateral Glute Activation Variation- Clam shell variations are great here.
Move to 6 point position (All fours)- This is where rocking variations are outstanding. Great time to lightly stretch adductors.
Bird Dog Variation.
Push Up Position plank- Hold the position for 20-30 seconds, then knock out 5-10 scap push-ups.
Stand up and do a body weight squat. Hold the bottom position on a few of the reps.
Single Leg RDL Variation
Reverse Lunge with Overhead reach-
Complete each movements for 1-2 sets of 8-10 reps.
From here you can start your training session. If you train some kind of self defense (I hope) Officers can work in some drills prior to moving to their lifting session if they want to break a sweat even more. For main lifts, ramping up in load is usually a best practice for most, using something like the APRE protocol is a good example. If you are conditioning/running/etc, some running mechanics/skipping are a great additions at the end. The idea is moving from a general warm-up to something a bit more specific.
Why do some of these weird movements? What’s interesting about the ASLR and similar movements is they highlight something that is often overlooked in training and longevity. Gray Cook has described how poor movement quality can be related two to things: hardware or software.
When my hip started manifesting itself as the injury it was, it later came with severe arthritis and pain. It didn’t matter what movements I did. Or what new manual therapy techniques were used. I had a serious hardware issue. The joint just had to be replaced.
For others, poor movement can be a software issue patterned overtime. The problem is that can potentially lead to injury. For whatever reason, movements like the ASLR can help the brain finally unlock or “reset” as Gray Cook says in the video.
Gray Cook and others smarter than me figured out certain movements, combined with stability (like holding a kettlebell), essentially tells your nervous system to relax in the places it needs to. Do I know how it does this? No. Everyone seems to have a different theory, but in the end the outcome is the same: improved movement. Like a cheap magic trick, someone who originally couldn’t touch their toes completes one of these movements and 10 seconds later they can. They didn’t change anything structurally they just got a quick software update.
Another way to look at this is many people can’t squat unloaded all the way down to their heels. Some can’t even make it to parallel. However, if they get down on they hands and knees and rock backwards, they can almost always replicate a near perfect squat pattern in this position. Again, not a hardware issue, it’s their software.
That is the point of this warm-up. It is to unlock quality movement patterns then get to the workout. For police, I know many officers with several years on will roll their eyes at this...but why not do this before your shift? A first responder has the unique mission set of being in the middle of their lunch sitting in their car, then running hot to a disturbance with a weapon.
One thing leads to another and with a partially digested sandwich ingested you’re now running in an alley chasing a suspect. You’re constantly running into the unknown in this profession. Why not check in with your body prior to your shift and prime it for movement? You might avoid a knee surgery.
If fitness isn’t a priority at your department use ideas like this to help change the culture. Anyone, at any level, could do something like this daily. Even if it’s just one officer completing this movement series right before shift meeting. Yes, your supervisor who is three years away from retirement and wants to be left alone may scoff at you. Don’t let those people bring you down. Some places need refinement from the bottom up. Short routines like this can open doors and get your peers moving, helping your department have healthier, more agile, and resilient officers.
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