Warming up before a workout brings forth many benefits. Here Anthony Samarasinghe, a decorated Masters Athlete and a Qualified International Athletics Coach shares his thoughts.
“I have been involved in sports activities especially athletics since my school days and continued up to date as a Masters athlete of competition level. I am a sprinter in the 70 – 74 age group who has participated in local & international level events without any injury for a long time.
The reason for my success and longevity in sports is doing warm-up exercises and stretching before my training workouts and competitions”.
What are the benefits of warming up before a workout?
- Increased flexibility. Being more flexible can make it easier to move and exercise correctly
- Lower risk of injury
- Increased blood flow and oxygen
- Improve the performance
- Better range of motion
- Minimize muscle tension and pain
- Widens your blood vessels, ensuring that your muscles are well supplied with oxygen. It also raises your muscles’ temperature for the best flexibility and efficiency
- Slowly raising your heart rate by gradual warm-up will also help minimize stress on your heart
What Happens at the Warm-Up Stage
During a warm-up, your heart rate and breathing will increase. A warm-up also promotes blood flow to your muscles to provide them with more oxygen and nutrients, so they don’t get fatigued. Your muscles also warm up, which increases muscle flexibility and makes exercises easier to complete.
The best time to do static stretches for flexibility is after warming your body up often, after a workout, or doing some yoga/pilates. Muscles lengthen more when they’re warm, so you may see greater improvements when you stretch after a workout. You’ll also be less likely to pull or strain a muscle when it’s warm and pliable.
No Warm Up Results
Unfortunately, if you do not provide enough time for your muscles to increase temperature, the blood flow of your muscles will be insufficient, making it difficult for the muscles to handle the force of the stretching, pulling and contracting required during your exercise.
Stretching
It is very important that you perform the general warm-up before you stretch. It is not a good idea to attempt to stretch before your muscles are warm (something that the general warm-up accomplishes. Warming up can do more than just loosen stiff muscles; when done properly, it can improve performance.
After a warmup it can be a great time to stretch since your muscles are already warm – this is when static stretching comes back into play, as you’re more likely to reap the benefits.
How long should you warm-up before stretching or exercise or bigger activity. ?
Warming up pumps nutrient-rich, oxygenated blood to your muscles as it speeds up your heart rate and breathing. A good warm-up should last for 10 to 15 minutes for a normal activity and for sprint or major activity around 30 minutes will be better. It will work all major muscle groups. For best results, start slowly, then pick up the pace.
Unfortunately, if you do not provide enough time for your muscles to increase temperature, the blood flow to your muscles will not be sufficient making it difficult for the muscles to handle the force of the stretching, pulling, and contracting required during your exercise.
Benefits of stretching
- Improve your performance in physical activities
- Decrease your risk of injuries.
- Help your joints move through their full range of motion.
- Increase muscle blood flow
- Enable your muscles to work most effectively
- Improve your ability to do daily activities
Workout or Activity
After a proper warm-up and stretching you can start your activity or workout very easily and comfortably.
Warm down or Cool down
You need to do a warming down or cooling down, especially after an intense physical activity such as weight lifting or sprint training to recover or relax the body parts physically & mentally.
- Slow walking and light jogging
- Stretching mainly the upper body softly
- A few minutes of meditation will also help recover you mentally after a hard work-out
We hope you have learned why it’s important to warm and the benefits of doing so. And as Anthony put it very eloquently, warming is crucial and will help you stay injury-free, maximise your performance and increase longevity. But also, the warm-down / cool-down is just as important. For more articles, head back to our blog section. See you on the next one.