***We do not claim to be a doctor or anything of the like. This document is for educational purposes only. Any action taken by the reader is their sole responsibility and should be done with discretion. No claim can be made against Adagio FIT or its employees. If you ever have any questions, take them to your primary care doctor.***
Just as much as any other aspect of training, your warmup should be top priority. Yeah, yeah. I know, it is such a nuisance when you are just rearing to go with anticipation and pre-workout 🙂 But there are potential benefits you will be missing and run the risk of serious injury which may prevent you from working out anyway.
Let’s talk about the benefits of choosing a good warmup, the downfalls if you don’t warm up at all, and then look at different ideas you can implement into your workouts.
Here are some benefits of a warmup –
- Warming up prepares your heart, lungs, and muscles for the more strenuous focus of your workout.
- Activates your heating and cooling systems which is really important during aerobic activity.
- Blood temperature rises and as blood travels through your muscles, your body makes oxygen more available to the working muscles which will help endurance.
- Blood vessels dilate and this increases blood flow and oxygen flow. Again, helping with endurance and keeping stress away from the heart.
- Hormones also change when you warmup. Cortisol and epinephrine production increase. They are in charge of regulating energy production.
- Muscles get warm and allow for more deep and forceful contraction and a faster release and relax.
- Range of motion increases in your joints – warming up helps lubricate the joints to help the move smoothly
- Mental clearing of the mind, focusing and reviewing form and technique.
Downfalls of missing a warmup
- You may feel slow and have less power at the start of your warmup because you have to try to get your muscle warm and focused in
- You run the risk of injury to joints and muscles without proper warming up – tears, sprains, tweaks, whatever you may call them are more likely to happen because the joints and muscles aren’t flexible and engaged for work.
Ideas and Tips for Proper Warmups
- The general guidelines from the AMA state that a warmup should be between 5-10 mins.
- Tailor your warmup to your workout – if you are running, do a slow jog or speed walk. If you are doing a leg day, air squats and lunges. You want to have this be a gradual step to the main push of your workout.
- Loosen the joints with small movements in preparation for range of motion movements such as yoga and lifting
- Don’t static stretch! – This means that you don’t hold the pull in one position. This actually increases your risk for injury.
- DO dynamic stretching – hip swings, big arm circles, pelvic tilts, toe touches, etc.
For my lifting clients,we focus more on functional stretching – I suggest doing each move on their workout using no weights for about 10 reps each. Keeping the range of motion smaller than their “best”. And then after this a short series of dynamic stretches.
For cardio clients, we do more dynamic stretching first and then a little run/jog to finish up.
Mainly, we want you to connect your body and mind together to decrease injuries and increase power and progress. Warmups won’t look the same for different kinds of workouts and different personalities too so think about what you would like to do and what your workout will require of you and move from there.
Overall – Don’t skip it!
*** For those training with me, after our initial weight in and reconnect, we usually don’t have a lot of time to do an hour workout. Therefore, I ask that you each warmup before you come to the studio… or you may have a shortened workout since we will be focusing more on making sure we are warming up properly. Thanks for understanding this. In any other gym, you would come 10-15 mins early to do your warmup before you met with your trainer. If you want to do it like this, let’s set that up or just do it before you come ***
