Warming Up Before Exercise: What are the benefits?
What is a warm up?
A warm up before exercise is like the entre before the main meal, or chopping the vegetables before you start cooking, the introduction before the main body of a book or journal article…well you get the point.
It is the part we do before exercise to help us get ready for exercise.
Why do we warm up before exercise?
While many of us a guilty of skipping a warm up to save time or to save energy, warming up can help improve performance and reduce the risk of injury.
Improved Performance
It improves our performance when we exercise by
Letting us contract your muscles faster and with greater force,
By increasing our body temperature and improve the efficiency of how we burn calories,
By improving the range of motion in our joints,
Increases the amount of oxygen to working muscles more quickly (by increasing blood temperature),
Prepares you mentally which increases our ability to focus on the workout, and
By making the neural pathway to our muscles faster.[i]
Injury Prevention
While there is still some controversy in the research, many believe warming up can also
Reduce muscle soreness, and
Reduce the risk of injury.[ii]
It is thought warming up does this by
Dilating blood vessels which increases blood flow and reduces heart stress,
Warming muscles allowing them to relax and contract quicker, reducing the risk of overstretching muscles[iii], and
Increasing range of motion which eases the stress on tendons and joints.[iv]
Conclusion
While it can be tempting to skip the warm up, warming up can both improve our performance and reduce the risk of injury. Next week we will look at how we can warm up.
[i] https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/lifestyle/blog/6665/warm-up-to-work-out/
[ii] https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/exercise/art-20045517
[iii] https://www.verywellfit.com/how-to-warm-up-before-exercise-3119266
[iv] https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/fitness/fitness-basics/warm-up-cool-down
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