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Warm-up: how to heat our body for training

Without any pretense of completeness, in this article, we want to share a basic full body soft warm-up session ideal for a 6 Dragons Kung Fu training session.

Note – This article has been asked by one of our Core Course practitioners on Patreon (see how to attend our home study classes here Learn Kung Fu online: a beginner-to-expert course).

Important premises

Before starting it is fundamental to understand that:

This kind of practices are good for beginner / intermediate level practitioners before starting a normal workout (before a small stretching, read How to correctly perform stretching and Basic soft stretching)
For advanced / expert level practitioners and / or athletes we will see something more intense in future
Every kind of warm-up exercise involves more than a single muscle / muscular groups (the subdivisions in this guide are purely organizational)
To know how to properly perform the exercises we are going to describe refer to the article How to correctly perform warm-up (safety, times, common errors, effectiveness, etc.)
Depending on what we are going to do let’s give more importance to the muscle groups specifically involved in the activity we want to perform after
If we have already passed the body awakening phase of 6 Dragons Kung Fu (read /// Subscribe (it's free!) or Login to see this content ///) we can execute these exercises without problems

The warm-up exercises

Legs (hips, etc.) exercises

Running – With various variations but without exaggerating with intensity (2-4 minutes, read 5 running exercises ideal for beginners / warm-up)
Small jumps – With various variations but without exaggerating with intensity (2-4 minutes, read 5 jumping exercises ideal for beginners / warm-up)
Small lower kicks – We can perform various kind of kicks but never reaching our tension limit (10-25 for each, read How to kick (simple explanation))

Arms (shoulders, etc.) exercises

Abdominal pressure – From standing, let’s rapidly hit with our tight fingers our abdominals (100-200 times, covering their entire surface); let’s hit from a certain distance, involving in the movement as much as possible our entire arm; the more we are able to resist and to hit strong them more this exercise becomes a conditioning method (let’s be gradual, pain should be avoided, read Physical conditioning: how it works)
Vibrations – The 6 Dragons Kung Fu’s vibration practice is a training method created for speed development (read Speed: the vibration’s exercise); in its most complete version it should not be performed as a warm-up but lowering the intensity, it is possible (25-50 vibrations)
Sequences of punches (without target) – We can throw free or defined sequences of punches (even running) but never with full power or full elongation of the arms (10-25 for each, read How to punch (simple explanation))
Arms rotations – From a standing position we have to simply rotate our straight arms backward and frontally (20-50 rotations, with all the possible variations, more about this later)

Hands (fingers, etc.) exercises

Wrist shaking – We have simply to shake with a gradually increasing speed our wrists, closing each time the fingers to simulate a rapid grab motion (25-50 times)
Finger opening – We basically have to rapidly open and close our fists (25-50 times, read /// Subscribe (it's free!) or Login to see this content ///)

Final notes

It is fundamental to stress that:

As 6 Dragons Kung Fu teaches, most of the exercises can be performed in combination with others, this way we do not waste our precious training time (read Optimizing the available time)
These warm-up exercises do not include particular elongations, stretching is the subsequent step of a well-planned training session (read /// Subscribe (it's free!) or Login to see this content ///)
This is not a warm-up nor a stretching for 6 Dragons Kung Fu’s advanced practitioners but can be performed as a variant of more intense practices
There are a lot of other exercises complementary and alternatives to these ones (in future tutorials we will see them)
With these exercises, we do not directly gain specific skills but they are fundamental to obtain them
Not always is necessary to perform all of these exercises; warm-up intensity and duration should always be calibrated in relation to the duration and level of the subsequent training session
…

In-depth video courses

Basic 6 Dragons Kung Fu Exercises – A video course about the 5 fundamental exercises to build real martial skills
Advanced speed and reflexes training – A visual explanation of the training methods to build combat speed

In-depth articles

5 push-up exercises ideal for beginners / warm-up – Easy exercises good to start training
The fundamental concepts of the fallings – Breakfalls can be a useful part of a warm-up

Questions

Reply in the comments and share your experience:

How do you feel after warm-up?

Author: Master Kongling

Founder of 6 Dragons Kung Fu.

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