What is a "warm-up"? And why should I do one?

One of the toughest things to explain to someone, and typically a client, is that everyone should do a warm-up.  In a quick recap I’d like to cover some of the reasons why you should do a warm-up, the benefits that a warm-up plays in your workout routine, and the long term positives that you gain by doing them before every workout.

So, where do we start?  A warm-up, by definition, is the preparation for physical exertion or a performance by exercising or practicing gently beforehand.  Some synonyms include limber up, loosen up, rehearse, prepare, stretch (which I plan to address specifically), and many others.

In our world of exercise, health, and fitness we will use a more general description.  A warm-up is done prior to performing a high intensity exercise program.  Your warm-up should be done for a minimum of 20 minutes, and should consist of both cardiovascular work as well as dynamic joint movements.

Let’s take a look at this one step at a time.  If your goal is fat loss (or weight loss) warming up will increase the amount of fat calories that you burn.  Yes, simply increasing your body temperature and heart rate before your workout will make you burn more calories during your workout.

Another key thing about your warm-up is to test your body and make sure there are no unexplained aches and/or pains that you were unaware of.  How many times have you started something and realized that you’re over sore, or that something hurts and you didn’t realize it before?  It’s better to know ahead of time so you know if the plan needs to change or not.

Lastly, warming up will help to prevent injury.  A cold muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament is more likely to get strained, pulled, torn, etc. during a workout than when it is warm.  People wonder why certain things hurt later in the day and chances are that you caused a slight pull during your workout that is now tightening up on you.  Also, when you are work your body tends to be more limber.  When you are cold and do certain movements you can actual cause little tears in your tendons and ligaments.  These tears will likely not do a thing to you now, but later in life when certain joints are loose, the arthritis kicks in, or simple things are just more “achy”, your lack of warming up could have been the cause.  I bet if you ask anyone in their 70s and 80s if they would have changed their workout habits (warm-up included), most would say yes.

One point I would like to touch on is stretching.  I see a lot of people do a static stretch prior to working out, or even warming up.  This is something that may have been done years ago, but it has been studied that this type of “warm-up” can actually lead to some of those tears that I mentioned previously.  Dynamic stretching is a much safer and better way to warm-up.

In a nut shell, warming up is not only imperative to your overall physical well being but it will also promote better results when you do put the time and effort in to working out.  The extra 20 minutes can help you burn double the calories, work out harder, feel better and less sore after, or any other positive benefit that you can think of.

Feel free to ask questions regarding your warm-up routine and as always, keep working towards those goals!