Tidbit Tuesday - The RAMP Protocol

Hello,

Welcome to another Tidbit Tuesday where we aim to teach you something new about health, nutrition, lifestyle, training, and so much more, every week!

Today we are talking about performing a proper warm up with the RAMP protocol!

Performing a proper warmup is vital for injury prevention and longevity.

Although a warmup isn't the sexiest part of any workout. It is something that we can not leave out!

While a proper warmup will prepare your body for what is to come and give you the best possible chance to make lasting change during your session.

Skipping your warmup and just getting right to work can lead to injury and may end up stalling your progress, making you feel like you're wasting your time.

Most people will simply perform one set of the exercise they are intending to do, let's say squats, they perform one set at bodyweight, and then they will jump right into adding weight on the bar.

But if you aren't moving well through your warmup, you won't move well through your working sets.

This will accentuate any issues you already have.

Instead, let's discuss what a proper warmup looks like so that you can minimize your risk of injury and maximize your growth potential.

An easy acronym to remember how to perform a proper warmup is RAMP.

As in ramping yourself up for your workout!

R-aise

A-ctivate

M-obilize

P-otentiate

We start by raising our heart rate and muscle temperature.

This is more than just jumping on a treadmill or bike for 5 minutes. Choose an activity that is like the activity you plan to do for your workout.

Activate is all about getting the right muscles ready for the job. Our muscles use motor unit recruitment to get work done.

Basically, if you are lifting something small, like a cup of coffee, you'll only need a few motor units to get the job done.

However, if you’re lifting up a full gallon of milk than you'll need a lot more motor units to achieve the same result as the cup of coffee.

Because almost everyone is dominant on one side over the other, we must take that into consideration. The "Activate" stage is your chance to make sure all muscles are firing equally before adding additional load.

As we begin to activate all our required muscle groups, increasing blood flow and temperature to the area, it is important to utilize our full range of motion.

You will often notice at the beginning of your workout that you are a little stiff. As you move around your range of motion will increase and you will be able to get into deeper ranges of motion.

It is important to ensure our muscles are mobilized and ready to work in their full range of motion.

This may be the most crucial part of the warmup because we want to make sure that the full range of motion for our intended muscle groups are ready to perform.

To do this you will use dynamic, compound movements and stretches. This will help to warmup the actual joints themselves, and not just the muscles, ensuring that you are performing optimally throughout your session.

Static stretching is not the best way to warmup for activity and may increase your chances of injury during working sets.

Save the static stretches for after the workout!

And finally, we get to the final stage of our warmup, we must potentiate to reach the full potential in our training session.

This is where we begin to move into working sets. Either lifting with some weight or starting to move more quickly and explosively.

This will change based on your overall goal of the training session. Do you need to lift heavy? Fast and explosive? Slow and controlled?

Potentiation is really about priming the central nervous system. We want to move through our warmup the same way we intend to move through our training session.

This means that if you intend to lift explosively during your session, your warmup will mimic this with no weight at first, and gradually proceed into heavier and heavier weight until you are performing working sets.

Same if the goal was slow and controlled.

This is no different than a singer warming up their vocal cords before performing, they want to sound their best and avoid damaging their vocal cords in the process.

Either way, consistency through your training sessions is what will separate you from the competition.

Utilizing the RAMP protocol for your warmups will ensure that you are primed and ready to get the most out of your training session, while also keeping your risk of injury significantly lower.

Happy training!