Inside the Warrior Warm Up

This week I’ve been talking about doing an effective warm up to help improve performance in your workout as well as avoid injury. I’ve been talking with Tyler Bramlet about his Warrior Warm Up. I wanted to get inside his head a little more as to why he felt so compelled to make this program. He was kind enough to answer some of my questions and I wanted to share them with you.

By the way, if Tyler’s name sounds familiar, I introduced him on the blog here and here.

It’s Tyler’s birthday this week and he’s got a cool program he’s got on sale for only seven bucks to celebrate, well worth the price. After reading this, you’ll want to check it out. Especially since Tyler added a MUSCLE UP INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO as a surprise bonus. You’ll get it delivered to your inbox 5 hours after purchase. Trust me, this is a very cool and helpful video.

Heck, go ahead and get the $7 program HERE and then come back and read about it….;)

 

challenge workout warm up

Here’s what Tyler has to say about how he developed the program….

 

Tyler why is the warm up so important? Why is it the focus for you?

The reason why I chose to go with the name The Warrior Warm Up is because this is how my program is best described. In reality The Warrior Warmup is a routine that is designed to efficiently teach it’s user how to build strength, flexibility, mobility, balance and coordination by using unique movement progressions. When someone practices these routines they build “flexible strength” or the ability to safely maneuver their body into ranges of motion that traditional warm ups, flexibility programs and even workouts neglect. This is so important because everyone these days is focused on achieving perfect form on every exercise and while I’m also a fan of teaching form, the majority of injuries happen because we don’t adequately prepare ourselves for “non traditional” ranges of motion. Plus if you ask me, traditional warm ups are boring. The Warrior Warm Up is fun, challenging and like nothing most people have ever seen.


What’s your background that led you to learn all these movement progressions?

Well, whether you believe it or not I was fat and unhealthy for most of my life. I grew up in a household where diet soda was considered a health food. By 16 years old I was suffering from heart palpitations, night sweats and bad acne. It also helped that I had an older brother who always made fun of me and called me names, had he not been there pushing my buttons I may have never changed my life as much as I have.

So, long story short I started out like most people do with The Encyclopedia Of Modern Bodybuilding by Arnold and found that 6 days a week of split training wasn’t for me. From there I happen to stumble upon kettlebells and this was way back in 2003 so, the dark ages of kettlebell training. I ended up flying out and training with Pavel Tsatsouline to get my RKC certification. Then later working closely with world renowned strongman Dennis Rogers on developing my “old time strength” you know things like ripping playing cards and bending horseshoes. And the list goes on and on, I worked with a Cirque Du Soliel coach on my hand balancing, did some cross-fit, worked with Grey Cook and learned his FMS system, learned from world class Olympic lifting coach Jim Schmitz and so on.

The real secret and I believe everyone should live by this principal is that if you want to get better at something, find someone who is an expert and do anything you have to to learn directly from them.

How I came to the conclusion of using movement progressions in all of my training and programs is after I started working with people one on one. The Movement Progression Method teaches people to progress just like a baby. First you have to learn to roll over before you can sit, and sit before you can stand, and stand before you can walk. This is a simple way to think about it but this is really the way our body works best. And since then I have created movement progressions for literally everything I teach.

What if my clients are injured? Can they work the movement progressions to help with rehab and gain their strength and flexibility back? How do they start?

Ahh, now your singing my tune 🙂 Post injury is the best time to relearn how to move. Let me share with you a story that was really powerful for me that highlights how important movement progressions are when rehabbing or coming off an injury.

A few years ago my mother suffered from a knee injury. Se went in for surgery and was referred to some Physical Therapists that didn’t know their ass from their hand (forgive my French). They ended up discharging her and said everything was back to 100%. A few weeks after that, my wife and I were out to dinner with my parents and we had to walk up a flight of stairs to get to our table. I followed behind my mom and it was obvious that every step she took she was not only in pain but compensating improperly for every step. After this I demanded she come and see me to train 2 times a week for a couple months. I applied my unilateral lower body movement progressions to her and within a few weeks she was able to move much better with her bad knee.

Now, let me ask you this.. Why the heck does a mostly self taught “personal trainer” with ZERO college education see this when a doctor of physical therapy doesn’t?

Now, I don’t mean to say all PT’s are bad I just think that many of them are taught to restore mobility and basic stability but not re-educate movement, and that is what I am after by creating the Movement Progression Method. I have movement progressions lined out in every program I create that literally everyone can do, from there all you have to do is work up the ladder so to speak.

What injuries have you sustained and how have movement progressions helped you recover?

Well, I have had a number of unnecessary injuries in my short life. One in particular happened about 9 years ago when I was riding my bike and was struck from the side by an SUV. I cracked the tip of my femur, tore my meniscus and dislocated my kneecap. Needless to say I was in a wheelchair for more then 3 months. This was also right around the time I had a paradigm shift about training. You see, when I went back to the gym and started trying to do the old exercises I was used to, things like leg presses and leg extensions, I would end up going home in pain. So instead of killing myself trying to do the same workouts I did pre-injury I started working on the quality and complexity of my movement. Here’s a simple way to think about this and it’s one of the ways I rehabilitated my first knee injury so well.

Imagine starting with just a basic bodyweight squat. But instead of adding weight, or going faster or exploding up and down I used a ROM progression until I was able to squat again pain free in a FULL range of motion. From there, instead of loading my newly found “perfect” bodyweight squat I decided that I should sophisticate the movement. So, I did a series of unilateral lunging positions until those movements were all pain free and then moved onto exclusive single leg squat work. Long story short, less the 24 months after my doc told me that I might have a hard time squatting below parallel I was capable of doing an ass to grass (i.e. rock bottom) one leg squat with an additional 70lbs added. This is the power of The Movement Progression Method.

What’s your favorite movement progression and why?

Great question! I’d have to say that my favorite movement progressions are always the ones I am currently working on. So to that end I have a long term goal of being able to hold an Iron Cross on the gymnastic rings. The movement progression for this is Ring Rows and Ring Pushups, then once you master those, Ring Dips and Ring Pullups, then once you master those, it’s Strict Muscle Up Work and Ring Supports, then, and here’s where I am at it’s Back Lever Holds, then finally onto the Iron Cross.

Now, it sounds easy on paper but one of the amazing things about using The Movement Progression Method in your training is that you can set long term goals like doing the Iron Cross, which we all know is EXTREMELY difficult and break it down into dozens of mini goals that will eventually get you there. This way you never get bored, you are always challenging yourself and you continuously improve. The opposite of a movement progression is just adding more and more reps. And while there is nothing wrong with adding reps if that’s your thing, there’s only so far that can take your strength before the movement just becomes an endurance activity. To build real awesome strength you need to do movement progressions.

Who do movement progressions work best for?

Well… If you’ve read this far I know you are already thinking about how this can benefit you in your training. So first off, thank you for reading my story.  As for who the Movement Progression Method is for…. It’s for everyone. I mean I have clients that I personally work with that came to me unable to stand up from a chair and through my time training with them they are doing things on one leg that they never thought they could do on two legs, that’s the power of using movement progressions. And on the complete flip side to that I have clients that want to compete in Olympic lifting and through the intelligent use of the Movement Progression Method they have tripled their strength and are gearing up for their first competition.So, I guess the simple answer is that The Movement Progression Method is best for anyone who really wants to be on the cutting edge of training, who likes challenges and always want’s to improve themselves.

Grab Tyler’s birthday special HERE.

You’ll get way more than $7 worth of information to help you improve your performance, mobility and avoid injury.