The Best Pre-Game Warm Up

Warming up is a really important part of your game preparation. In short it should help you to prepare for the game by priming your muscles, focusing your mind and getting you used to the playing conditions (especially if you are playing outside). But have you ever thought about what you should be doing to best prepare yourself?

When devising your warm up for a game, you should look to include:

1. Running Warm up
2. Dynamic Preparation
3. Netball specific preparation

1. Running Warm Up

The running part of the warm up should be more than just running up and down the court a few times. Instead it should include changes of pace, stopping and starting to make it more match specific and to better prepare you for the game. 

Place 2 adjacent cones out every 3m between base line and centre court (should be around 6 cones in total) and then complete the following variations x 2

1. Run to the middle of the court and back (you can change running path as you would in a game)
2. Running with hip openers (open and shut the gate) – Run to first cone and complete left hip opener then run to second cone and repeat on other leg. 
3. Heel flicks to first cone, skip to next cone, heel flick to next cone.
4. With partner, run to first cone, side shuffle to middle to meet partner, jump with shoulder to shoulder contact, land stable, run to end.
5. Sprint to second cone, tracks back to first cone, run to third cone and back to second cone. 

2. Dynamic Preparation

This is the part where you prepare your body for what it’s going to go through in the next 60-minutes. There’s a lot of squatting, lunging, jumping and landing so take it at your own pace. 

1. Squat Varitations:

• – 10 x Squats
• – 10 x Squat to Calf raise and body extension
• – 10 x Single Leg Squats

2. Lunge Variations

• – 10 x Walking Lunges (5 each side)
• – 10 x Walking Lunge to Calf Raise (5 each side)

3. Jumping and Landing

• – 5 x Vertical Jumps
• – 5 x Lateral Jump (jumping sideways off one leg onto the other – 5 each side)
• – 5 x Single Leg board Jump (jump off two feet and land on one – 5 each side)

4. Jumping and turning to land

• – 10 x Vertical Jump with 90 turn (5 each side)
• – 10 x Vertical Jump with 180 turn (5 each side) 

3. Netball Specific Preparation

This is the last stage before the ball drills. It will prime you for running, changing direction, stopping and landing so that you are ready to go into a drill with your team before the match begins. 

1. Sprint runs – Run to first cone (from stage 1) at 70-80% speed and stop. Continue to next cone and stop again. Repeat x 2
2. Cutting – Run to first cone at 70-80%, plant and cut to off the angle to opposite cone. Repeat to end. Repeat x 2
3. Landing – Hop, Hop, Stick – Single Leg jumps x 2 and stick the third on two feet for 2-3s. Continue to end of 15m line. Repeat x 2

After you have completed these three stages you can then get into a team ball drill making to include jumping, landing, running and cutting to continue to prepare yourself for the game. Each section should take just 5 minutes to complete (or less) and so you will have plenty of time to get into a ball drill after 

We would love to see you trying this out at your next game. Tag us in your videos and stories @netballexcellencetraining on all socials.