Your warmup is vital to your performance. Not only does it protect against injuries, but the quality of our training session depends on it. However, many people think that three minutes of jogging and swinging their arms is enough. What's wrong here? Is it too boring? Too tiring? Let’s take a closer look.
What is the amin function of a warmup? Simply put, its task is to familiarize the body with the effort that awaits it and prepare your central nervous system and muscles for the coming strain.
So, what happens when we don't warm up properly and effectively enough?
First, the risk of injury increases enormously - joint dislocations, muscle strains, tears and even ligament damage.
Secondly, we are not properly stimulated during our training, which often leads to us perform the first sets carelessly and sluggishly.
Thirdly, the range of movements when performing the right exercises is often smaller, so we do not perform them correctly technically.
The perfect warm-up - elements
Warming up - accelerating the heart rate, preparing the respiratory and circulatory systems for effort. At this stage, 5-8 minutes on the treadmill or skipping rope is enough, as an aside if you exercise outside, uphill is better for getting added cardio stimulus. To protect the joints, at this stage don’t perform dynamic jumps or lunges. Rather focus on a light jog or static bike.
Activation and mobilization - awakening the muscles to action, especially those that will be targeted during the upcoming training. The best way to do this is to perform one or two sets of the planned exercise, but without significant weight, e.g., a light bar instead of a weighted barbell. Perform these reps at a brisk pace, but with great accuracy. This warm-up phase should consist of at least six or seven exercises, because you probably have at least that many planned for the main part of the workout.
Intensity - one or two multi-joint exercises that are designed to stimulate the whole body to work intensively. These can be short sprints, dynamic jumps or burpees, or mountain climbers are ideal here.
Do you feel like doing all these steps will take as much time as half your workout? The question here should actually be what's wrong with that? After such a warm-up, all the core training is perfectly done, so you still benefit from it.
During the warm-up, pay attention to the joints:
The hips - especially if you have a sedentary job - and the knees - require a strong activation if you're going to do weighted squats later. Walking in a squatting position with your hands on your ankles is a good way to warm up.
Wrists - tossing and catching a few-kilogram load with one hand. This can be done simultaneously with dynamic one-legged stepping and toes. In this way, we warm up at least two parts of the body.
Important!
The warm-up - like any essential part of training - must have a plan. Until you learn to do it well, help yourself with the tips set out earlier.
In conclusion ... in connection with New Year's resolutions:
Perhaps you never promise yourself anything about the new year or the month or the week. However, if you like such ways of motivation, then instead of promising "I will exercise harder", "I will exercise more", promise yourself: I will take the warm-up seriously. It may turn out that this will be the perfect way to train harder without the added risk of pain and injury.