Name: Playbook - TrickStrong RX - Battle Ready Warmup
Uploaded: 2023-12-27T17:11:08.447Z
Duration: 15 min
Description: Battle Ready Warmup

Use this warmup to prepare you for a competition or performance!

It can be helpful to have done some movement or mobility work earlier in the day as this warmup is designed to get you going quickly - with more focus on getting your blood pumping and your body dialed in. You wouldn't want your first movements of the day to be right before game time, anyway!

The main goals for this workout are as follows:
1. "WAKE UP" the body and mind for peak performance. 
2. Ready to go within 10-15 min (usually have little time to prep)
3. Address common weak points (activation can help protect these areas)
4. Specific Mobility (kicks, setups etc.)
5. Performing skills or combos for the purpose of mental/physical calibration and confidence. 


Remember, a good warmup leaves you prepared to move, not exhausted! Modify reps and exercises as needed. 

Lets get it!

Recommendations for your battle or performance day (not included in 10-15 min timeframe): 

1. Foam roll in areas feeling sore or restricted 

2. Exercises that address weak links (as primers – don’t go to fatigue on competition day)

3. Mobility drills that address tight areas

4. Having a mini-session (low to moderate intensity) to calibrate your movement prior to competing

5. Hydrate and daily supplementation of choice (ex. electrolytes, creatine)

6. Your typical pre-session meal, at your typical timing before the battles. Plan out in advance if needed.

7. Beware of stimulants. Over-caffeinating can be dangerous and will hinder performance

8. Visualize CRUSHING IT for 3-5 minutes 🔥 You got this 👊

Game Day Recommendations (Read Me)

The first component of a complete warmup is  what we call Priming the System.

The goals of priming the system are to physiologically and mentally prepare the body for movement. During this section of our warm up, we aim to:
-	Increase Heart Rate
-	Increase Focus
-	Perform general movement patterns related to the areas of the body we will be working

Priming the System typically involves a calisthenics-based exercise that can be ramped up as we begin getting more warm. These should be exercises that you can begin cold without issue – therefore they typically don’t involve huge ranges of motion, high-level explosiveness or heavy resistance. 
Priming usually lasts 3-5 minutes, is moderate in intensity and should be continuous to keep the heart rate up.

This is a basic, but incredible exercise for developing cardiovascular health, power and agility in the lower extremity. 

Your goal should be to keep ground contact time to a minimum. Try quick flicks with your ankle while keeping the core tight. Training like the floor is "hot lava" will improve reactivity - or your speed and efficiency in plyometric movement.

We get an added benefit from our arms - they help us coordinate the motion and help warm up our shoulder for overhead activities. You should be feeling opening at your chest with this horizontal arm swing.

Jumping Jacks - Horizontal

This is a basic, but incredible exercise for developing cardiovascular health, power and agility in the lower extremity. 

Your goal should be to keep ground contact time to a minimum. Try quick flicks with your ankle while keeping the core tight. Training like the floor is "hot lava" will improve reactivity - or your speed and efficiency in plyometric movement.

We get an added benefit from our arms - they help us coordinate the motion and help warm up our shoulder for overhead activities.

Jumping Jacks

This is a basic, but incredible exercise for developing cardiovascular health, power and agility in the lower extremity. 

Your goal should be to keep ground contact time to a minimum. Try quick flicks with your ankle while keeping the core tight. Training like the floor is "hot lava" will improve reactivity - or your speed and efficiency in plyometric movement.

We get an added benefit from our arms - they help us coordinate the motion and help warm up our shoulder for overhead activities. You should be feeling opening at your chest and in the front of your shoulder with this backwards arm swing.

Jumping Jacks - Backwards

No worries If you don’t have a band! This exercise is still plenty effective without additional resistance.

Start with one knee up and "athletic arms". Quickly switch your arms and legs and return to the starting position. Perform 5 reps on both sides. Use a looped resistance band around the feet as shown to stress rate of force production. 

Our focus is improving power and coordination in our triple flexion, or knee drive. 

Triple flexion is the combined motion of hip, knee and ankle flexion. This is an important pattern to improve many athletic movements, including sprinting, kicking and of course many movements in tricking. 

We also improve takeoff and landing mechanics during this drill as the switch requires single leg dynamic stability.

Modifications: Single leg deadlift, triple flexion (banded, unbanded), tuck jumps

High Knee Switches

This is a great drill to include in a warmup, core or mobility circuit. 

This dynamic plank variation challenges the hip flexors and abdominals primarily while the rest of the body stabilizes. They are excellent for total body mobility, stability and coordination.

Mountain Climbers

Hops are amazing for building leg strength, stability and explosiveness. Perform both sides

The goal is to land centered over your foot with good landing mechanics. Absorb landing by compressing and springing through the hip, knee and ankle with core tension. 

With this single leg variation, it is even more important (and difficult) to maintain proper alignment. If you find yourself landing with poor form, reduce the side hop height or distance until you're in control.

This helps solidify good landing technique and deceleration ability. This is critical for improving performance and longevity.

Modifications: Double leg, less/more distance, less/more height

Side Hops, Single Leg

Priming the System

This sequence is a mobility + stability warmup for the entire body.

With mobility, we train our body to get into and control ranges of motion related to our activity. 
With stability, we prepare the body to stabilize our joints during activity in order to prevent injury and improve performance. 

We do this by “turning on” muscles in the region. There is usually less range of motion in these exercises, and the idea is to now increase control of that mobility we work on. 

Remember that certain movement patterns hit multiple areas and therefore may be more time-efficient.

This exercise is a precursor to the handstand pushup skill. It is great for improving overhead shoulder strength, power and stability - especially in a weight-bearing position. Pause for 3-5 seconds at the bottom of each rep to enhance the stability demands. 

This is useful in movements where our arms are planted on the floor (touchdown raiz, handstands, cartwheels, etc.)

Notice the tripod position between my hands and head at the bottom of the rep. This creates an efficient, stable base for the shoulder to push from.

Modifications: no pause, on knees, feet elevated, hands elevated

Pike Pushup, Pause

One of my favorite mobility drills! It is so effective in helping with the common movement restrictions we have in the hips and spine. 

Don't forget to rotate your head with the rest of your torso by looking at the ceiling (rotating towards the front leg).

Aim to get your elbow to the floor on the downward rotation, but not at the expense of form or pain.

Lunge with Thoracic Rotation

This is a simple, no equipment option for priming your stabilizers from head to toe! You may feel the most work in your shoulders, core and glutes.

Start in a plank position. Make sure your core is engaged, your wrists are stacked under your shoulders and your spine is in a relatively neutral position. 

From here, shift your weight to one side until you are able to transition to a side plank T position as shown. Hold for one second before returning to complete the other side. One rep is completing a T on both sides.

Modifications: Bear Crawl, Bird Dog, Renegade Row

Dynamic Plank T

The hip 9090 stretch is called this because of the 90 degree angles your hip will make. 

The hip is a ball and socket joint. This means that in order to train our mobility in an effective way, we will want to explore and be less linear with this stretch. 

The hip 90/90 is a great way to explore the surfaces of the hip joint and to really move into your restrictions.

This drill is a great way to warm up your hips and core as it is ACTIVE. Think of allowing one hip to trail while the other aims for the floor to encourage hip opening.  

You should not be feeling any pain in your lower back, hips or knees.

Modifications: Hand Assist

Dynamic Hip 90/90

The Cossack Squat is an amazing strength, mobility and coordination drill for the lower extremities. It is helpful in mobilizing our feet and ankles, knees, hips and lower back. 

To do it right:

1) Begin in a wide stance that is comfortable for you

2) Shift to one side, performing a single leg squatting motion while the free leg remains grounded 

3) Spin the free leg outwards while keeping heel contact to mobilize the adductor and hamstrings

4) Hold for 5-10 seconds before returning to a stand

5) Only perform this to a depth where good form and alignment are maintained

6) Perform on both sides for 1 repetition

Cossack Squat

The Copenhagen plank is an incredible but underutilized side plank variation with emphasis on the adductors. 

These muscles are located in the inner thigh and are often undertrained even though they are necessary for efficient athletic movement. They aid in single leg stability and transfer of power from the upper to lower extremities via several anatomical slings (Lateral, Anterior Oblique, etc.)

Adding movement is one way to add challenge to this useful exercise.

To do it right: 

1) Get into a sidelying position with your elbow stacked directly under your shoulder.

2) Tensing your core, rise to a side plank with the bottom leg bent. Push into the surface using only your top leg to rise. Move your top arm and bottom leg quickly in opposite directions. If dynamic repetitions are too much, perform with a static hold for 20-45 sec either elevated or on the floor. 

3) Maintain neutral spinal, shoulder and lower extremity alignment

4) Lower after performing the specified reps.


Modifications: Knee bent to 90 degrees (easier), plank holds without movement (easier), Copenhagen lifts (harder)

Copenhagen Plank + Knee Drive

Full Body Warmup

Movement preparation is where we do athletic movement that mimics our activity. We progress just as we did in Priming the System – meaning we ramp up in intensity over time while listening to our bodies. We also ramp up in complexity, starting with simple athletic drills and ending with basic movement patterns for our session. 

The idea of preparing for your session is to be thorough and mindful of all movements you might perform, while not fatiguing yourself mentally or physically for your session. You should feel like you took a bit of pre-workout or caffeine because your body has produced the feel good endorphins from your warm up. You should have a light to moderate sweat going and you should feel amped to perform, not tired.

Thoracic whips are a great way to quickly improve thoracic and cervical spine mobility along with shoulder mobility. It is definitely a more aggressive technique which is better performed later on in the rehab process, as a movement prep before activity or as part of a mobility session. 

They look violent, but are perfectly safe and effective in improving thoracic spine mobility. This drill is great to address asymmetries from Tricking as we are frequently twisting to one side and not the other. This can also be used as a useful twisting drill to improve initiation and spotting.

It is important that we isolate this motion to the spine, rather than moving excessively through our shoulders.

Thoracic Whips

This is a useful drill to train your kicks with momentum. This helps us work on kicking combinations and mimics the momentum and hip turnover we often see in Tricking.  

The more your turn your hips over in the round kick, the easier it will be to do so in the hook kick. Think of kicking something off of a table without ever hitting the table.

1 rep = round kick followed by the hook kick. 

If you need drills to progress these kicks, use light wall support and check out our KickStrong program!

Spinning Round - Hook

This exercise challenges our single leg power and change of direction ability, which is huge in being able to handle the demands of sports such as tricking. By translating horizontal speed to vertical height, we mimic sport-specific activities like running and jumping or blocking from setups (tdr, round off).

1) Perform a single leg hop for distance. You can and should use your arms and swing leg to generate more force. As soon as you land on that same leg, immediately perform a single leg vertical jump with focus on going straight up (versus out or to the side). Remember, the floor is "hot lava".

3) Stick the landing for 2-3 seconds before rising on one leg.

Our goal here is a horizontal translation to a vertical jump, so try to keep your height low and long on the first jump, and then explode to a high single leg jump. Keep eyes, trunk, hip, knees and ankles ahead and stress good triple extension mechanics (hips, knees and ankles) to get the most out of this exercise.

Practice to even out imbalances between sides.

Single Leg Low - Highs

Pick 5 combos and perform them at a rate of 1-2 combos/min. Be sure not to tire yourself out, especially if it's possible you're up first.  

Combo recommendations: Choose combos that -
1) help dial you in (ex. swings with focus on technique and timing)
2) open you up or feel good (your go-to combos)
3) that may be core pieces of your combo structure
4) skills you want to highlight (maybe don't show ALL the goods before the battle)

Now you're ready to go! Stay focused - you got this 👊

Feel free to tag us in your battles or performances in the Community section or on IG @trickstrong

Battle Ready Warmup

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