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Workouts - The Warm-Up

Warming up unfortunately is one of the first protocol of exercising that gets left behind, it’s not too uncommon that people who are pressed for time or don’t see the value skip it and get straight into the activity whether its a team sport or a session in the gym. If you consistently added an extra five to 10 minutes to each of your workouts in order to prevent injury and lessen fatigue a pre-exercise warm-up can have a multitude of beneficial effects on a person's workout and, consequently, their overall health.

Warm-up activities are a crucial part of any exercise regime or sports training. The importance of a structured warm-up routine should not be underestimated when it comes to the prevention of sports injury.

An effective warm-up has a number of very important key elements. These elements, or parts, should all be working together to minimise the likelihood of sports injury from physical activity.

Warming up prior to any physical activity does a number of beneficial things, but primarily its main purpose is to prepare the body and mind for more strenuous activity. One of the ways this is achieved is by helping to increase the body's core temperature, while also increasing the body's muscle temperature. This helps to make the muscles loose, supple and pliable.

An effective warm-up also has the effect of increasing your heart rate and your respiratory rate. This increases blood flow, which in turn increases the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the working muscles. All this helps to prepare the muscles for more strenuous activity.

Benefits of a Warm-Up

• leads to efficient calorie burning by increasing your core body temperature
• produces faster, more forceful muscle contractions
• increases your metabolic rate so oxygen is delivered to the working muscles more quickly
• prevents injuries by improving the elasticity of your muscles
• gives you better muscle control by speeding up your neural message pathways to the muscles
• improves joint range of motion
• psychologically prepares you for higher intensities by increasing your arousal and focus on exercise

Warm-Up Tips

It’s important to start with the easiest and most gentle activity first, building upon each part with more energetic activities, until the body is at a physical and mental peak. This is the state in which the body is most prepared for the physical activity to come and where the likelihood of sports injury has been minimised as much as possible.

An effective warm-up can be structured in this or a similar fashion, there is no perfect warm-up like there is no perfect exercise programmes, only better warm-ups and programmes which meet your specific needs.

General Warm-Up

The general warm-up should consist of a light physical activity i.e walking, bike riding. Both the intensity and duration of the general warm-up (or how hard and how long), should be governed by your fitness level. Although a correct general warm-up for the average person should take about five to ten minutes and result in a light sweat.

The aim of the general warm-up is simply to elevate the heart rate and respiratory rate. This in turn increases the blood flow and helps with the transportation of oxygen and nutrients to the working muscles. This also helps to increase the muscle temperature, allowing for a more effective static stretch. Which bring us to part two.

Static Stretching

Static stretching is a very safe and effective form of basic stretching. There is a limited threat of injury and it is extremely beneficial for overall flexibility. During this part of the warm-up, static stretching should include all the major muscle groups, and this entire part should last for about five to ten minutes.

Static stretching is performed by placing the body into a position whereby the muscle or group of muscles to be stretched is under tension. Both the opposing muscle group (the muscles behind or in front of the stretched muscle), and the muscles to be stretched are relaxed. Then slowly and cautiously the body is moved to increase the tension of the muscle, or group of muscles to be stretched. At this point the position is held or maintained for a minimum of 30 seconds to allow the muscles and tendons to lengthen.

Static stretching is extremely important, as it helps to lengthen both the muscles and tendons, which in turn allows your limbs a greater range of movement. This is very important in the prevention of muscle and tendon injuries.

The above two elements form the basis, or foundation for a complete and effective warm-up on a basic to intermediate level. It is important that these two elements be addressed in a warm-up and that more advanced techniques be progressiveand only attempted when physically ready.

Activity Specific Warm-Up

For a more advanced warm-up after the first two parts of the warm-up carried out thoroughly and correctly, it is now safe to move onto the third part of an effective warm-up. In this part, the body is specifically prepared for the demands of a particular sport or activity.

During this part of a warm-up, more vigorous activity should be employed. The activities should reflect the type of movements and actions which will be required during the sporting event, exercise, like rolling your arm over before bowling a cricket ball which could be classified as dynamic stretching it is important to keep the dynamic stretches specific to the particular sport/activity as mentioned.

However this form of stretching carries with it a high risk of injury if used incorrectly. Dynamic stretching should only be used after a high level of general flexibility has been established.

Dynamic stretching involves a controlled, soft bounce or swinging motion to force a particular body part past its usual range of movement. The force of the bounce or swing is gradually increased but should never become radical or uncontrolled.

Individual Specific

The above information forms the basis of a complete and effective warm-up but there is always room to move for a warm-up to be tailored for a specific person. Someone with postural distortion patterns (bad posture) may want to invest in a postural assessment and a corrective stretching programme from a exercise specialist/physiotherapist which will help correct any muscular imbalances. Also getting some professional assistance with help from a personal trainer may be a wise investment to help with a specific warm-up for you!

Real Life

However, I am well aware that this entire process is somewhat of an 'ideal' or 'perfect' warm-up. I am also well aware that this is not always possible or convenient in the real world. Therefore, the individual needs to become responsible for assessing their own goals and adjusting their warm-up accordingly.

For instance, the time you commit to your warm-up should be relative to your level of involvement in your particular sport or activity. So, for people just looking to increase their general level of health and fitness, a minimum of five to ten minutes would be enough. However, if you are involved in high level competitive sport you need to dedicate adequate time and effort to a complete warm-up.

It’s important to remember that fitness is an individual quality that varies from person to person. It is influenced by age, sex, heredity, personal habits.