The Importance of Doing Warm Up Exercises before Working Out

When you give your body 5 to 10 minutes of a good warm up, through walking or jogging in place for example, you gradually increase blood circulation throughout your muscles, tendons and ligaments. Your heart rate increases gradually. Your muscles warm up to prevent injury. Your ligaments and tendons become more flexible, reducing the chance of tears.

Warm up exercises are also important as a form of mental preparation. Your mind can ease into the workout. Your body experiences a great deal of stress during exercise, so an adequate warm up and mental preparation increase your chances of enduring and benefiting from the hardest part of your exercise regimen.

Although warm up exercises and stretching are often lumped together they are two distinct principles. Both are important for an optimal workout. During warm up exercises, you are increasing your body temperature and slowly preparing your body for what is to come. When stretching, you are focusing specifically on stretching your muscles.It can be problematic when people confuse warming up with stretching. One example is when a person jumps right into stretching without first raising his body temperature through an initial period of walking or running in place. This can cause injury because your muscles need warmth to achieve optimal stretch.

A good workout consists of a solid warm up, a more strenuous portion increasing the heart rate and a cool down period, which often includes stretching. When you take the time to experience each of these workout segments, you will experience fewer occurrences of injuries and increase your workout enjoyment.