The University of Notre Dame's football program has a long and storied history, but you don't hear much their amazing pre-game warm up.

As my younger brother is a diehard fan, my family traveled to South Bend to watch his Fighting Irish play the Purdue Boilermakers about a decade ago.

Everything about game day on that campus is a production.

The band gathers at Bond Hall to play pep songs hours before kickoff.

The team marches into the stadium led by the bagpipe band, a magical procession that spans about a half mile across campus, giving the genuine vibe of ancient warriors heading into battle.

An hour or so later, the players emerge onto the field for warm ups, a production that's just as choreographed as every other part of Notre Dame game day.

They spread out across 50 yards of turf and, staying in place, perform a long series of stretches that change every 20 or 30 seconds.

A whistle blows and they all hustle to the visitors sideline, arranged in lines five yards apart, proceeding to execute basic skills like shuffling and running as they move across the turf toward their own sideline.

The field is broken into thirds by coaches standing, like human cones, at which point players seamlessly transition from one skill to the next.

They keep that across the field alignment to perform movement stretches next, before finally breaking out into position-specific drills at various spots on the field.

It's a thirty minute spectacle, for sure, but it's also rooted in the basic principles of how every team should warm up for both practices and games.

There are four key elements to a high powered team warm up.

It doesn't need to last anywhere close to thirty minutes.

And no, you don't need to be led out by a bagpipe band to achieve it, although it would help with the first key!

Bring Players Focus Into The Present Moment

There's great value in players bonding over shared interests outside of the sport, but when the time comes to have a great practice coaches must work to get it to fade away.

Players focusing on something that happened at school, a viral video, or some other discussion point will detract from performing with better execution, faster reaction times, and increased retention of what's covered that day.

Warm ups can involve complex games of catch or other sport specific skills, a competition that requires a light amount of thinking (rock-paper-scissors racing is one of my favorite) or a game tied into the sport (soccer tennis is a good one).

The keys are that there's little to no stand around time, and it's complex enough that they can't do this transition drill on autopilot.

Elevate Heart Rates with Skills

Once we've started to get minds into the present, we want to build on that by elevating their heart rates without losing focus.

Jogging around a field is mindless and requires very little athleticism.

A mixture of skills that keep changing - shuffling, tempo runs, backpedals, crossovers, jumping jacks, and a variety of plyometric jumps - works far better.

No drill should last more than a few seconds, with minimal rest in between.

Vary the drill constantly so your athletes have to keep their minds in the present.

Notre Dame did this with their sideline to sideline agilities that changed three times per rep.

On fields with lines I like doing agility ladder style foot patterns using the lines already there. No prep needed, and you can get large groups moving, changing the drills with ease.

Mobilize & Stabilize Key Joints

Now we get into what's traditionally done as a warm up, the stretching phase.

Your emphasis should be on loosening up the hips, ankles, and shoulder complex.

There are dozens of good stretches to choose from.

Bodyweight hip strengthening drills are also wise, as are single leg balance exercises.

Some shoulder and core stabilization work, which could be as simple as pushups, fit well too.

At this point your players should be getting more and more dialed into the moment, so make sure to keep things moving at a brisk pace.

Activation & Ready to Play Prep

Notre Dame football broke out into various position drills for this final phase.

Quarterbacks threw passes to receivers, linemen ran contact drills, and so on.

Your team could do the same, regardless of what sport you're involved in.

There are other ways to activate the mind and body for more intense competition.

Sprints and relay races are great ways to energize teams while also getting their bodies up to full speed.

Reactive drills where one partner has to mirror the movements of the other are also excellent fits. These can be as simple as a partner version of Red Light, Green Light.

You could also add a couple minutes of full effort plyometric jumps. Vertical jumps to a hold in an athletic position, skater jumps, and bounds are just a few examples.

There are a million different combinations of drills you can use to develop an elite warm up for your team.

Remember that you must also prepare the mind for what's to come, not just the body, including elements from all four categories mentioned here.