Most trainers believe that warming up before working out is necessary for improving performance & preventing injuries. They recommend various types of exercises to warm up, such as slowly going through the motions of the exercise that you are going to do, stretching, or running in place.
In this article you will find whether warming up before working out is beneficial, how are you benefitted from pre-workout warm ups & it’s negative effects.
Broadly the warm-up exercises are of two types, namely, General and Specific.
While the purpose of general pre-workout exercises is to enhance the functional capabilities of your body as a whole, the specific warm-up aims at improving the performance of the movements that you are going to perform.
Read here: “How To Warm up Prior To Workout“.
Benefits Of Pre-Workout Warm Ups?
A proper pre-workout warm-up benefits you in the following ways:
(i) Increases muscles temperature.
(ii) Improves metabolic adjustment to support heavy work.
(iii) Opens greater number of capillaries in the muscles to ensure increased amount of blood and oxygen supplies to the muscles.
(iv) Reduces risk of potential injuries.
(v) Increased velocity of nerve conduction.
(vi) Improves the connective tissue ability to withstand force.
In addition to the above benefits, you also benefit psychologically in many ways. When you warm up by way of imitating the movements identical to the particular exercise you are going to do, your skill- performance improves significantly. The other worth mentioning psychological benefits you get by warming up before working out are improvement in the mental set (attitude), an increased arousal (enthusiasm), eagerness, and mental readiness.
All the above factors result into improvements in:
(a) The rate at which muscles contract.
(b) Electrical activities of muscles.
(c) The limit strength of the muscle
(d) The amount of time that a muscle is able to retain a contraction or series of contractions (up to a certain point).
Negative Effect Of Warm Ups
However, the pre-workout warm ups have one possible negative effect also. Fatigue from the warm-up activity can reduce performance. So, keep in mind your warm-ups do just that (warm you up) : That is make sure you warm up your body rather than tiring it out.
Here are “Just Fitness Hub” tips that you should keep in mind:
(i) Warm-ups should be light. Heavy warm-ups will interfere with your ability to perform the main workout activities. Remember the purpose of warm-up is to improve performance & prevent injuries.
(ii) Explosive types of workouts such as powerlifting do benefit from warming up.
(iii) If you are going to do endurance types of exercises then you won’t benefit much from warming up – may be you can skip it.
(iv) Warming up prior to an endurance-type of workout often will reduce your performance because a measurable part of your energies already get expended in warming up activities.
Check here for the warm up exercises that you can do prior to working out.
