After more than a decade of consistent morning workouts, I’ve learned that while any movement is better than nothing, effective workouts must be intentionally tailored to their desired outcomes.
My morning workout is an essential ritual that helps me regulate the chemical and hormonal fluctuations that come with both ADHD and perimenopause. When effective, it “charges” my brain, opens the faucets for my creative flow, triggers the dopamine boost that helps me focus, and sets me up for a productive day.
A key component of an effective workout is an effective warm-up: one that both brings the body online and prepares it for the specific tasks ahead.
General vs Specific Warm-up
If you just walked into a house that had been sitting dormant for a while, you wouldn’t immediately turn on the ovens and start cooking. First, you would make sure the house is in good working order and that all the systems work. Then you’d turn your attention to the specific rooms you plan to use.
Your body is like a house, and the same principle applies when you’re preparing your body for a workout or your work.
An effective primer includes both a general warm-up and specific activation.
General Warm-Up: System Readiness
The general warm-up is about system readiness.
In an actual house, you check the foundation for cracks, look for leaks in the basement, clean the windows and open them to air out the house, regulate the thermostat, set the clocks to the right time, flush the toilets and run the faucets, turn on the lights, check the wiring, and grease any sticky door hinges. You also clear out any garbage that’s accumulated.
In the body, a general warm-up takes the body through simple movements in all three planes of motion and elevates the heart rate without overstimulating the system. This is about getting systems online: grounding the body, circulating breath, generating blood flow, lubricating joints, regulating temperature, setting the clocks.
A general warm-up for the body includes movements that activate the breath, set the body’s inner rhythm, and engage the core and pelvic floor to ensure the system doesn’t leak. It also pumps the heart to trigger blood flow and lubricates the joints so they can move through their full ranges of motion.
Think of this as getting the systems online so they can respond.
Specific Warm-Up: System and Task Activation
The specific warm-up is about specific activation.
Once you’ve established that all the systems in your house are operational, then you can prepare the specific rooms you plan to use and activate the systems necessary for the functions you need to perform.
If you’re cooking, your systems activation would include preheating the oven.
If you’re taking a shower you turn on the shower.
If you’re going to sleep, you would adjust the lighting and temperature in your bedroom, and make sure you have your alarm set for the morning.
In the body, the specific warm-up activates the movement patterns and muscle actions that you’ll need for your main lifts or movements. This is about practicing the skill of the movement to groove the neural pathways and activate the muscle recruitment patterns before you load them.
If your workout includes squats, you want to include squats. If it’s deadlift day, you want to practice your hinge pattern.
The body adapts best to a layered approach that slowly loads the system and gives it time to adapt. Start with bodyweight movements and gradually build to resistance bands, then light weights or an empty barbell before you load the bar.
Through repetition, the body grooves the neural pathways of the movement, which also facilitates adaptation to increased load.
Moving With Intention
Without an intentional warm-up, you risk overloading your system at the start, which creates fatigue before your main tasks, or under-preparing, which can lead to shock, movement paralysis, and nervous system shut-down. Both extremes can sabotage your workout and the rest of your day.
On the other hand, an effective warm-up primes your system to move without overloading or fatiguing it. It supports both your workout and the tasks that follow.
Starting your workout with an effective warm-up also requires intention about your tasks that helps you focus your attention and energy, both in your workout and for the rest of your day.
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