A thorough warm-up is essential for both effective strength-training and efficient intraday recovery. Light exercise is the best tool for improved recovery in-between hard workouts. Light jogging, hiking, swimming, or easy Parkour followed by a thorough stretching session is perfect.

Along those lines, I have decided to put together the most useful and broad-spectrum exercises into standardized warm-ups for our WOD that can be swapped for variety. These warm-ups by themselves are excellent rest-day activities.

Each exercise should be performed in a rep-range that allows for a raise in body-temperature, heart-rate and range-of-motion, without accumulating unnecessary fatigue.

Substitutions for each exercise are fine—everybody has a different level of fitness—so if dips are too difficult for you, substitute with push-ups, or knee push-ups until you feel comfortable with dips. If 10 reps is too many, than perform as many as possible without causing unnecessary fatigue (enough to raise core-body temperature.) As your fitness improves, your warm-up will mirror this improvement.

APK Warm-up #1: the Original

Do 3 rounds of the following:

  • Run 2-400m
  • 10-15 Squats
  • 10-15 Pull-Ups
  • 10-15 Pushups
  • 2 x 30 second Samson Stretch (for each side)

Once completed with the 3 rounds, it’s time to perform agility work. Mark a 10-rung ladder on the floor, each rung 12-18 inches apart. Perform the following agility drills as a circuit, repeat 2-3 times:

  • High Knees, one step per-block
  • High Knees, two steps per-block
  • Side-step, two steps per-block
  • High Knees, backwards, one step per-block
  • Butt-kicks, one step per-block

APK Warm-up #2

Do 2 rounds of the following:

  • 15 Burpees
  • 20 Steps Quadrupedal Movement
  • 10 Tuck Jumps
  • 10 Bench Dips
  • 16 Steps Lunge Walk
  • 2 x 30 second Samson Stretch (for each side)

APK Warm-up #3

Do 2 rounds of the following:

Questions about warming up?

If you have questions about our warm-ups, or general questions about warming-up, reach out to us on Facebook with a message, or send us a tweet @americanparkour on Twitter.