Short warmups are for children

advanced tricking warmup

Here are some things that will increase your time for warming up for tricking and training:

  • You gain muscle.

  • You grow an inch taller.

  • You tricked or trained yesterday.

  • Your skill level increases.

  • You age one year.


This list looks ridiculous because it's true.  Even if you do everything right , it will still take longer for you to warm up as years pass.  No matter what.  We could actually use beard growth as the measure of your warm up time.  The more facial hair you have as a male, the longer your warm up should be, because the beard is a measure of your age.

Jujimufu, beard, warming up

When I was 15 years old I didn't even warm up for tricking.  I just did it.  How?  Because I had never hurt myself tricking, and I was a 150 lb kid who "tried" novice, ugly looking tricks.

Jujimufu, first 540 kick

Now I'm a 230 lb tank "doing" intermediate level tricks.  It takes longer to get all this extra muscle tissue to get primed.

Jujimufu, ch.720 kick, tricking

I'm no longer just going in my backyard to try some reckless, shitty looking tricks.  Now I do them Clean and Powerful.  Clean and Powerful aren't "on demand" attributes, it takes time for the body to get ready for Clean and Powerful.  

I've been tricking for 13 years now, my body has all sorts of scar tissue.  Now it takes me 40 minutes on average before I can even throw my basic tricks.

These are the facts.  Short warm ups are for children and novice.  Don't be ashamed if you are noticing your warmup time increasing, and noticing that you are the last one to start throwing tricks in a group, it's a badge of honor.  Take your time, let the kids rush into it and get hurt.

We old dudes take our time, because we can, because we must, because we have beards.

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  • Jujimufu on

    No it’s not. The appropriate warmup for lifting is to warmup more with the weights. For example, when I deadlift, I warm up with about 8 sets with 3 minutes rest between sets. The trick is to rest more between your warmup sets and do more. But you want to keep your warmup as specific as possible, cardio is a very poor warmup for lifting. I’d recommend always putting it AFTER, not BEFORE weight training.

  • Ben on

    “Because we have beards”
    perhaps the most perfect closing line I’ve ever read. Kudos.

  • Josiah on

    So how exactly do you warm up and how do you do a tricking session? I feel like I waste my time if I’m not doing every trick I can do (only about 10 at the moment). But am I supposed to do that? Are you supposed to plan to train for a couple of tricks only and just do prerequisites in the warm up for that trick?

  • Jon Call on

    Yep. Welcome to the club!

  • Jon Call on

    Planning to train a couple tricks only and just do prerequisites for them: that approach will only work if you have fewer goal tricks and fewer tricks in your arsenal in general. I think it’s a great idea to do that sometimes, for people of all experience levels. Not good for “all the time” though.



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