The Importance of Warming Up and Cooling Down

By now you understand the importance of exercising when it comes to losing weight. Before you begin, you’ll need to appreciate the importance of warming up prior to exercising followed by a brief cool down period to insure a healthy and pain free workout. There has been some controversy regarding the benefits of these steps however appropriate warm ups and cool downs present minor risks, consequently should you have the time, attempt to add them to your exercise routine timetable.

Warming up prior to exercising can help ready your entire body for cardiovascular activity. Warming up slowly revs your heart, improves blood circulation to the muscles as well as elevates the body’s temperature. Diving into any aerobic exercise without preparing one’s body can lead to problems like muscle strain or injury.

Cooling down following your exercise routine can help steadily decrease the temperature of the muscles, particularly if you’ve had a rigorous exercise session. Cooling down can also reduce muscle stiffness, injury and soreness.

The Best Way to Warm Up:
Begin your warm up session right before you start your workout by focusing initially on the large muscle groups, like your hamstrings as well as movements more specific to the exercise you plan on doing. Keep in mind that warming up shouldn’t leave you fatigued.

Some examples of warm up routines are as follows:
Prior to brisk walking; walk slowly for 5 minutes.
Prior to running; walk briskly for 5 minutes
Prior to weight training; loosen up your neck and body muscles by slow moving patterns, similar to those learned in pilates, before lifting weights.
Prior to swimming; start out slowly then build up speed as you swim.

The Best Way to Cool Down:
Cooling down is comparable to a warm up. You typically carry on your exercise routine, however with a reduced pace and intensity. Cooling down is essential for athletes, like well conditioned marathon runners. For these people, cooling down is very important since it helps control blood circulation. For others, cooling down is simply an enjoyable and relaxing follow up to their exercise program.

Some examples of cool down routines are as follows:
After a brisk walk, walk slowly for 5 minutes.
After a run, walk briskly for 5 minutes.
After swimming, swim leisurely for 5 minutes, changing your strokes.

Regardless of what exercise your doing, be sure to add stretching to your cool down routine. Stretching will increase the blood flow to the muscles. Stretching will also improve performance and decrease risk of injury by enabling a full range of motion to your joints.

If you have a tight muscle or a previous muscle injury be sure to stretch it after you warm up. Hold the stretch gently for around 30 seconds and avoid bouncing on it and never stretch to the point of pain.

As always, be kind to your body and appreciate all that it does for you. Give you body the time it needs to adjust to the demands of your workout and it will be kind to you.