Warm Up: what’s the goal behind it?

The simple act of suddenly switching from zero activity to a high level effort may be much dangerous, therefore we need to be careful!

Actually, the transition has to be done gradually in order to prevent any kind of physical harm. And due to its role in preparing the body and waking up the most relevant parts for the workout, Warm-Up is the solution.

We can summarize the importance of warm ups in 3 essential points:

• Physical and Mental Preparation: Warm up contains different types of exercises that prepare the body to make the necessary efforts and to resist the difficulties related to workouts. It also helps to gain confidence, enhance concentration, and thus have better movement control.

• Body Performance Optimization: Warming up increases the body temperature, and this is a fundamental factor for improving muscle performance.

  The acceleration of the heart rate and the blood circulation allows muscle oxygen supply, which helps enhance efficiency and performance

• Injury prevention: Warm ups help increase muscle and tendons and cartilages resistance, which prevents all types of usual training injuries.

In order to optimize the warm-up benefits, we need to understand what a warm-up consists of. In fact, there are two kinds of warm up:

• The basic warm up , which is common to all kinds of workouts.
• Then we have the specific one, which depends on the type of the activity.

And now, let's talk in detail about these different types of warm up

This kind of warm up works on raising the body temperature and increasing the heart rate without exhausting the body. It is really important to begin every warm up with cardio exercises, such as Cycling, jogging, or high knees exercises...

By making circular movements with all the joints that will be used during the workout, you reduce the risk of unpredictable injuries. You have just to control your movement, go slow and avoid intensity. Articular warm up applies to wrists, ankles, shoulders, elbows, knees, head and pelvis.

Keep in mind that muscles must be prepared according to the kind of sport activity you’re practising. It means that warm up must target the parts of the body that you’re going to use or train, and be as close as possible to the nature of your workout. For example, If you have a lower body session, it would be almost useless to include push-ups in your warm up.

• The average duration of a warm up is 5 to 15 minutes, depending on multiple factors:
  • The workout duration
  • The intensity of the required effort
  • The current physical condition
  • The external environment
• Warm-up should not be intense, it has to be progressive in order to avoid body exhaustion.
• Static stretching should be avoided during a warm-up.
• Hydration is required before and after warm-up
• You should not let your body cool down. The periode separating warm-up and workout should not exceed 15 minutes !

Tell me now, Would you dare skip your warm up session from now on? I guess not ! ;)