Chris Hinshaw is a professional triathlete, renowned endurance coach and instructor for the CrossFit Preferred Course – Aerobic Capacity. At Tennessee Tech, Hinshaw leads a group of elite CrossFit Games competitors through a series of warm-up drills.
The drills—24 in all—begin with prep work for the hips and lower body. The first five are called high-knee karaoke, over the hurdle, knee to chest, figure four and lunge.
“So what we do … is we focus on the hips. We do a lot of emphasis there early on because that’s the area where CrossFit athletes are really the tightest,” Hinshaw explains to the group, which includes Games champs Rich Froning Jr. and Camille Leblanc-Bazinet.
Drills six through 12 are called lunge with a torso twist, toe touch, high knees, butt kicks, straight leg, sidestep and sidestep jumping jack. Hinshaw then moves on to warming up the upper body with sitting arm swings and standing arm swings.
The next drills work on the knees and ankles: toes-out walk, toes-in walk, walk on heels, walk on toes, walk on outside of foot, walk on inside of foot and 50-yard hashmarks. The final drills feature short runs of 20, 40 and 60 yards at about 80 percent of max effort.
“The key to a good running warm-up is really not to overstretch your muscles. You want that tension. You want that spring-like effect,” Hinshaw says.
Originally published – April, 2016.
Warm-Up With Chris Hinshaw