Shaking Off Travel: (Or How You Can Stop Feeling Tight and Start Using Your Warm-up!)

ATSC Family,

With a core mantra of American sports these seemingly being “have cleats/will travel”, it’s common for athletes to travel multiple times a week just for their regular competitions. To help combat some of the demands travel puts on your body, we thought we would use today’s space to offer some tips for how you can use your pregame (or even pre-practice) warm-up to shake out the effects of traveling and prime your body to move faster when you go to accelerate and sprint on the field. We even tossed in a few videos, because moving pictures are always more fun than just reading words… even when it comes to the world’s most exciting topic: warm-ups.

One of the biggest challenges to overcome, movement-wise, when you travel is undoing all the mobility restrictions you build up due to prolonged sitting; whether you’re traveling via bus trip, car ride, or plane flight, you’re staring into the eyes of an extended period of sitting, just statically holding a posture (and, depending on the travel company, trying not to start a named conflict over the shared armrest). Even when you play at home, or are just going to practice, our modern society is built around comfort and sitting – sitting in class, sitting at work, sitting to playing video games, sitting while you use your phone, sitting to watch tv – and we know a byproduct of that is often short-term mobility limitations in specific areas of the body… limitations that, if we don’t address them, can often become restrictions that negatively impact your on-field speed and power capabilities.

Whenever my college soccer teams traveled (and now, whenever our professional players travel), as soon as we arrived at our destination, we would make sure to address the mobility challenges from the trip and go through specific drills and activities to help our players feel and move their best on game day. Two of our most important area to address? Making sure we mobilized our anterior hips and woke up our nervous systems in order to sprint our fastest.

Very briefly, when we spend a long time sitting, the fronts of our hips (aka, our anterior hips), end up shortened and stiff. You can notice this when, after prolonged sitting, you stand up, your hips feel tight, your low back may even feel a bit off, and you just don’t feel like you can sprint or move your best. After traveling, and/or before a game, we want to make sure we help open up these anterior hips, all while priming you to shake off the static, blah-feeling of being in the car for so long and get you ready to be as explosive as you can possibly be!

Here are three simple warm-up drills you can do after traveling, or before a practice or game, to help you improve your hip mobility, move better, and be your most athletic self. We even tossed in a bonus, fourth activity for you to do at home… you know, just in case you want to get better!

Drill 1: The Elbow to Instep

This is one of our favorite warm-up drills, as it will help mobilize not just the front of your hips, but the backs of your legs (aka, your hamstrings) as well. We suggest you try doing 10 repetitions each side, really taking your time with the movement and feeling each stretch.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/94b275_9d23ccbc5bbf48c1a9034182e63b45ea/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Drill 2: Ankle Bounce

While these look a little funny, the fastest people on Earth do these every day as part of their warm-ups; if they’re good enough to help the fastest of the fast get more explosive, we encourage you to think if they could help you as well! We suggest doing them over 10 yards, resting for 30 seconds, and then doing them for another 10 yards.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/94b275_9f68fa1d43d9472682971e4f1fe5a4ac/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Drill 3: Acceleration Skips

With your anterior hips now more mobile, and your body primed to be explosive and dynamic, we love to give our athletes some Acceleration Skips to help reinforce some fundamental linear (re: straight ahead) sprinting mechanics, all while taking this newfound hip mobility for a ride! Try doing these over 10 yards, resting for 30 seconds, and then doing them for another 10 yards.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/94b275_dc0e2b453bac420288d6fb28f7e6a51b/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Bonus Drill: Wall Quad Stretch

While skipping and bouncing around the house (or, when you travel, the hotel) may be a bit much, here’s one of our most favorite drills that you can do to improve your anterior hip mobility at home, whenever you want. All you need is a wall, a floor, and two minutes for each leg. Just set up in the following position and hang out for two minutes, switch legs, and then repeat for two more minutes on the other leg.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/94b275_5e1b60d0fde44391aacbc47a4f0be80a/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

And there you go! Three simple drills you can do when preparing for your games this weekend, after traveling, or before practice. (Plus one more drill you can do every day at home!) Getting better isn’t easy; if it was, everyone would always be working as hard as they could to be their best. So, we encourage you all to try these out in your warm-ups, or after you travel, and see how you feel: hopefully you’ll feel more mobile, more explosive, and ready to move your best on the field!

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us through our Contact page here and, for more general and sport-specific training information, visit our Instagram at: atsc_solutions. We also have a vault of proven, effective programs that we implemented at the Division I and professional sports levels for purchase on our Products page here. And if you’re looking to take your game to your highest levels, click here and let’s work together either in-person if you’re in the Cape Fear area or here if you’re interested in our individually-specific online training!