Before a 7s tournament, you’d spend 15 minutes triggering and rolling.

Another 10-15 minutes of dynamic stretching and movement.

A 15-minute “activation” to get you switched on.

And that was all before the on-field warm-up…

But the everyday athlete doesn’t have an hour to prep. Let alone an hour to train.

So we need a bang-for-your-buck protocol that gets us ready to go.

Here’s a 7-minute gym warm-up to:

• 🔥 Fire up the brain and nervous system‍
• 🤸 Open up the body and activate our tissues‍
• 💪  And get some injury-proofing in while we’re at it

(it may change depending on you, your goals and your session, but this generally covers most bases)...

1. 💨 Cadence breathing: 5x 4-second inhale, 4-second exhale (connect with the breath)
2. 💨 Fire breathing: 10x 1-second inhale, 1-second exhale (fire up nervous system, oxygenate body and brain)
3. 🤸  Half wall hang or bench pullovers: 10 reps (upper-body injury proofing, posture corrective)
4. 🤸 Dynamic squat pry: 20 seconds (open up the hips)
5. 🤸 Jefferson curl: 5 slow reps (posterior chain injury proofing, opener)
6. 🚶 Backwards sled: 2 mins (lower-body injury proofing, get the blood pumping)
7. 🤾 Jump squats: 3 reps (final primer)
8. 🤹 Skills e.g. juggling, hand-eye games: 2 mins (novelty, fun, fire up brain)

Add a light warm-up set before each lift and we’re on.