Warm up or pre-training workout?

[Tom Yum]

I warm up properly, but sometimes it takes me awhile to get my punches flowing even after 5-10 minutes of stretching and shadow boxing.

Once, I did a 45 minute weight training workout before training and my punches and kicks were not only more crisp, but a little harder too.

Has anyone else experienced this before? They say you should do weights after your normal fight training.

Any advice on this guys?

[Thai Bri]

I'm not sure that 5-10 mins of shadow boxing and stretching is a proper warm up mate. Try 15 minutes of aerobic exercise, then 5 minutes loosening off.

I reckon the weights showed you how warm you should be, thats all.

[osopardo]

My warm-ups sometimes go to as much as 30 minutes. Maybe I take so long 'cause I'm older. I feel that I'm loose and stretched and warmed-up when my respiration has increased slightly and there's a fine sheen of sweat (not dripping sweat) all over my body.

I dont even think of the warm-up as a preamble to the actual workout, but rather as the first phase of the workout, which flows smoothly and uninterrupted into the more strenuous phase (start off slow, build up to full all-out effort (including free sparring) then back down to cool down.

As for weight training, I usually do 45 minutes early in the morning and m.a. in the evening. Doing 45 minutes of weights and then going immediately to m.a. training is probably more than I'd want to handle, but I can see how 45 minutes of weights would get you all pumped up so that during the subsequent workout you put forth a better effort.