Z-Health – Neural Warm Up

Hi, everybody, I’m Dr. Eric Cobb of Z-Health Performance. Today, we’re going to do a quick warm-up, particularly for those people that play soccer, this is going to be fantastic, but it’s going to go fast, so buckle up and just follow along.

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We’re going to start off with some bouncing. About 10 seconds, 15 seconds. Let your body move around.

Immediately get into working our eyes and our feet. We’re going to do a little letter ball catching. We’re going to start off with upper-body left hand. P, V. P, E. P. W. K. P. Other hand. Gamma. X. Gamma. A. E. Gamma. Gamma again. W. All right. Bounce again. As you’re bouncing, you’re trying to relax, you’re trying to catch your breath. Warming up our eyes, warming up our body.

We’re going to go letter ball with a soccer ball. We’ll do a little bit of volleying. Set, X. E. F. F. W. V. K. P. Bounce again.

Switch feet. E. Q. X. S. X. E. S. J. 2 more. X. X again. All right. We’re going to go into extension. Open up the back. Extend the neck. A little light bouncing. Nice and tall. You’re going to hold good tall spine position, step out into a lunge. Anterior. This is all about your spine right now, not your legs. Some rotations. Stay tall as you do this. Lunge with rotation. A little anterior lunge. All right. Shake out any tension.

We’re going to go to our feet. We’re going to start off mobilizing the side of the foot. Put your foot out in front of you, roll to the outside 3 times, other side. Step out into a lunge. Go to the inside, 1, 2, 3, other side, 1, 2, 3. Come back up.

Most soccer players need the other one, so 3 more. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. Stand tall, control your spine, point the toes, pull the toes. About 5 times. Big ankle circles. Other side. Point and pull. Full circles. Catch your balance if you need to. All right, take that foot back behind you, rest the toes on the floor, ankle to the outside, 3 dips, knee in the middle, foot in the middle. 3 dips. Ankle to the inside, 3 dips, stretching the top of the foot. Other side. Drop to the outside, 3, middle, 3. Ankle to the inside, 3. Ah. Feeling good.

Put your foot forward. Roll a circle across the ball of the foot. Let’s do 5 in each direction. Other side. Do one more ankle circle set. Stand, control the spine, put the leg behind you. Let’s do 3 ankle circles here, 3 ankle circles in the other direction, other side, control, foot here, trying to mimic our sprint cycle a little bit. All right. Shake that out.

Go to our knees.

Anterior 45 lunge, feet facing directly forward. Big knee circle with the front leg. Control the spine. Other side. Switch again. Turn the toes out. The front foot, another knee circle. Take it nice and easy. Other side. Anterior lunge. Turn out the front foot, knee circle. It should be getting hot by now. All right, so you’ve done some feet, some ankles, some knees. Let’s reset our posture, get tall, lengthen, turn the arms out. Extend. Extend. One more. Extend.

Grab a chair or something else you can put your foot on.

We’re going to do a couple little nerve glides or nerve flosses. Foot goes up. Pull the toe up, toes up, toes to the outside. From here, it’s just basically like a hamstring stretch. You come in, it’s going to be fairly intense, bend and extend the knee 5 times. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Switch legs. Again, pull the toes up to the outside, lean in, and we’re going to bend and extend the knee. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

All right. Whoo. Shake out any tension from that.

From here, we’re going to go to our eyes.

Nice tall spine. Thumb in front. We’re going to make a big H keeping our head still. We’re going to follow our thumbs with our eyes. Trying to really stretch for the corners. Go back to the center. From here, circles. We’re going to follow the thumb again. Good spinal position. Big circles. Switching the fingers in the middle. Bring them a little closer. Trying to really explore those eye ranges of motion.

Back to nerve glides. Go back to your chair.

Foot goes out. Point the toes, turn the toes in this time. Point, toes in, hamstring in stretched position. Once again, as soon as you feel it, bend the knee, and pump the knee. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Opposite side. Point the toes, toes in, body is aligned, come forward, bend the knee, pump. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Excellent.

Back to our eyes. We’re tall. Focus on your thumb. Bring it in towards your nose and push out. These are called pencil push-ups or thumb push-ups, if you will. Do 5 reps, tracking the entire time. Okay, shake out any tension from that. Once again, roll out, extend. Just keep resetting that posture. We’re going to do some of that nerve work for the upper-body. Take your right hand, spread the fingers, pull the wrists back, lock the elbow, turn out. Lift, shoulder blade down, head away, 5 circles. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Opposite direction. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Keep your fingers straight. Opposite side. Spread the fingers, wrists back, lock the elbow. Out from the shoulder. Lift, shoulder blade down, head away. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

We’re going to go to near-far exercises. Hold one thumb close, pick something in the distance, you’re going to switch 20 times. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Only switch as fast as you can if you can still see each target clearly.

Go to the radial nerve glide now. You’re back in your good neutral stance. Thumb across the palm. Flex the wrist forward, lock the elbow, turn the shoulder in. Lift out to the side. Pull the shoulder blade down, head away. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Opposite side. Thumb across the palm. Bend the wrist, turn in at the shoulder, lift out. Shoulder blade down, head away. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Reset your posture. Externally rotate. Tilt back. You should be feeling pretty good.

What we’re going to do now is called saccades. We’re going to be doing eye switches. We’re going to hold our thumbs up, look at one thumb without moving your head just switch back and forth. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 … 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Switch to vertical. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. There you go. 20 switches left and right. 20 switches up and down.

Now what we’re going to do here is we’re going to go to one more nerve glide for our upper-body, good tall spine position. Spread the fingers, pull the wrists back, flex the elbow or bend the elbow, raise it up, take it out to the side, turn the thumb forward, shoulder blade down, head away. You’re going to do this. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You should feel that in the little finger or ring finger. Other side.

Spread the fingers, pull back, bend the elbow, lift, out to the side, thumb forward, shoulder blade down, head away. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. All right. We’ve done our nerve glides. We’ve done some of our vision work. What we want to do now is get into our hips. Bend your knees. You’re going to do a little bit of a hula. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Go in the opposite direction. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Step out into a little bit of a lunge position. Bend both knees slightly, same thing. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Opposite lunge. Again, stand tall. Both knees are slightly bent. Again, hula-hooping. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Opposite direction. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Come back to this fairly comfortable neutral stance.

Hips go one way, head goes the other. Called an hourglass. 3, 4, 5. Opposite direction. Go slowly with this if you need to, especially if you’ve had low back or hip issues before. Let’s wake up our hips just a little bit. Stand up tall, good spine, raise one leg. You’re going to do what we call pendulums.

Just follow along. I don’t know how many I’m doing. Till it feels good. Other side. Stay tall. Lift up. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. All right, good. Shake that out. We’re going to go to working your inner ear. Hold your thumb out. You’re going to do yes, yes, no, no, so keep your eyes focused on your thumb. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Switch. You’re now going to do up and down. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Target has to stay clear the entire time. If it gets blurry, you’re going too fast.

Let’s go to the low back. Get a little bit wider stance. Bend the knees. Lengthen the spine again. Tilt to the side. Roll around. Not very deep. You’re just imagining there’s kind of a barrel in your abdomen. You’re trying to roll over it or get that shape, just to mobilize your low back. That’s 2 each direction. Let’s do 2 more. 1. Go a little deeper if you can, and 2. Awesome. Feeling good.

Let’s go to our mid back. What you’re going to do, bend your knees slightly. Make sure you’ve got that good, tall spine. Imagine you’re getting punched in the chest. You’re going to round the chest, push your chest back out. Round. As you come up, do not let your hilt tilt back. That’s 4, 5, let’s do 2 more. 6, 7. All right. It feels pretty good to me.

Up here, we’re going to go to our necks. Nice and tall. You’re going to be rotating. Imagine there’s a board here. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Tilting side to side. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Only go as far as you can comfortably. We’re going to do a chicken exercise. Head forward and back. 1, 2, 3, and 5. Repeat that, only now tuck the chin. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Very good.

Take a second. Shake out any tension. We’re going to go back to our inner ear. You’re going to have your thumbs out. Start with your right thumb. Lock your eyes, thumb, shoulder, and head together. Rotate, 2, 3. Other side, 1, keep your trunk still, 2, 3. The target should remain clear the entire time. Let’s go up in diagonals. 1, 2, 3; 1, 2, 3. Opposite direction. 1, 2, 3. Last one, 2, 3. Awesome.

Shake that out. We’re going to go to shoulder figure 8s, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Other side, 1, 2, try and relax, 3, 4, 5. Top and bottom figure 8s, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Other side, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Shake that out. Arms out like this. Big elbow circles. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Go in the opposite direction. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Wrists like this, just wave the wrists back and forth, watchband area, 4, 5. Do some Karate Kid stuff side to side, 2, 3, 4, 5. Make a really tight fist, release. Tight fist, release. Tight fist, release. All right. Shake out any tension in your arms.

We’re going to go into a little sprint work. We call these gorilla swings for obvious reasons. Swing the arms like a gorilla. Loose fist, thumb on top. After about the tenth rep, we’re going to slowly start to bring our elbows in, moving toward a better arm swing for sprinting. As you start to get to the sprint position, lengthen the spine, control the abdomen, a little bit more tension, and we’re now into a basic sprint mechanic, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, control the spine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, go, 17, 18, 19, 20. Good.

Shake that out. Now, do a little balance drill. We’re going to get into a sprint position. It’s going to look like this. Up, down, up, down, hold, hold, hold, hold. All right, other side. Hold, hold. When you’re doing that, you think head up, hips up, heel up, toe up. All right, that’s going to be your basic sprint mechanic.

From here, one last thing to do. Working on the core and the arms to prep you to push people off. It’s going to be kind of a specialized plank for pushing people. Take the arms, set them at 90, push beyond 90. Get out here. Lengthen, 20 seconds. 20, 19 … If you want to make it harder, work your way back. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Release. Come up.

2 big breaths. If you think you’re ready to go, bounce. 9, 8, 7, 6, 5. All right, 2, 3, big breaths, then what I want you to do take a light maybe 40, 50% sprint, see if anywhere is still tight or uncomfortable. If so, come back, hit that area a few times with the drills. Otherwise, you’re good to go.