Are You Warming Up Before Working Out?
Before you do any kind of physical exercise, be it cardiovascular, or the anaerobic variety, it is very important to warm up. Warming up is essential if you want to maximize the benefits of your workouts, as you’ll be loosened up, and ready to go, both physically, as well as mentally. Many torn muscles have been avoided by stretching and doing light warm up sets. How much should you warm up though?
As a longtime personal trainer in Austin, I get asked a lot about the concept of warming up. How, and how much should you warm up is a good question, and also a relatively easy one to answer. It depends upon how tight you are, literally how cold you are, what exactly it is that you will be doing for an exercise routine that day, and of course, how mentally focused you are to do your workout.
As stated, warming up has a lot of benefits. The biggest 2 are getting your body ready for your workout, and the other, is getting your mind ready for the workout. With that said, how should you warm up? Let’s say. for example, today is leg day. It will be important to do some stretching of the leg muscles you will be focusing on. For example, it would be a good idea to start with some basic quadricep stretches, followed by hamstring and gluteal stretches. If you happen to be someone who has overly tight hip flexors, it would behoove you to stretch your psoas, iliopsoas, as well as your piriformis muscles before working out legs, especially if you plan on doing leg presses or squats.
Warming up for the above leg day scenario isn’t finished with simply doing stretches. It is also of great importance to do some gentle, lightweight sets of whatever exercise you plan on doing, especially the first one of the session. If you were planning on doing some squats, for example, and you normally rep with 225 lbs, it would be smart to do a couple of sets with 135 lbs beforehand. You want to make sure the knees, as well as the muscles and connective tissues are up to the task. The same would go for any workout routine. If you were planning on running sprints, it would be smart to do a few static stretches, followed by some slower paced running beforehand. Going from 0 to 100 mph is a great way to tear up your body, especially as you get older.
The other great reason for warming up is for a mental advantage in your workout. It’s very hard psychologically to walk into a gym and immediately be up for the most grueling of workouts. Doing some stretches and some light sets before you get busy with the grueling stuff, is a great way to wrap your head around the strenuous pending tasks that lay ahead of you. Whether you’re going for a brisk walk, or are going to attempt a power lifting record, warming up is only going to increase your workout benefits, as well as prevent needless injuries.
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Andy
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