Lesson on the CrossFit Warm-Up

Reminder for everyone...

The CFWU isn't strictly a warm-up tool. It is designed to hit all the major movements: hip extension, hip flexion, knee flexion, upper body pressing and upper body pulling. This allows you to fully activate the body, even on days when the WOD might only hit one or two of these movements. All the movements in the warm-up are fundamental, so as you see improvement in the warm-up you will see improvement in the WOD. This is especially important to those new to CrossFit since it builds a fair bit of strength in all the major muscle groups, and helps acclimate the body to what for most anyone but a CrossFitter would be a relatively high work volume.

With all this in mind, I don’t want you to end up getting overexerted during you warm-up. Feel free to cut back on certain exercises you may see in the WOD. Just like the WOD, the warm-up can be scaled. You can always do fewer repetitions or an easier version of an exercise (i.e. jumping or assisted pull-ups instead of regular pull-ups).

The “Official CFWU” is as follows:
3 rounds of 10-15 reps of
Samson Stretch (do the Samson Stretch once each round for 15-30 seconds)
Overhead Squat with broomstick
Sit-up
Back-extension
Pull-up
Dip

I have added pushups because I think it is an essential part of our workouts and is something I see weakness in very often. I also split the overhead squats into two separate movements. 1) body weight squat & 2) Shoulder "Crunchers" - with a wide grip on a stick and elbows locked, pass the hands overhead and down to the lower back and return to the front. This will help those with upper-body flexibility issues to loosen up.