At Saratoga Health and Wellness we always recommend starting your exercise routine with a warm up. Doing a warm up before your workout is important in many ways. A good warm up will gradually increase your heart rate, increase circulation to your muscles, tendons and ligaments, and mentally prepare you for your workout. Although warm ups and stretching generally occur in the beginning of a workout session, they are two different concepts.
The importance of warm up exercises can be compared to driving your car in freezing cold weather. It is generally best to allow your car to warm up a bit before revving it up to high speeds. The same principle applies when you work out. You want to physically prepare your body for the demands of a strenuous workout by gradually increasing your body temperature.
When you give your body 5 to 10 minutes of a good warm up, through walking on the treadmill, cycling or jogging on the elliptical, you gradually increase blood circulation throughout your muscles, tendons and ligaments. This is much like oiling a squeaky wheel. You give the different aspects of your physiology a chance to prepare to work together. Your heart rate increases gradually. Your muscles warm up to prevent injury. Your ligaments and tendons become more flexible, reducing the chance of tears.
A warm up is also important as a form of mental preparation. Your mind can ease into the workout. This is especially helpful if you engage in strenuous forms of exercise such as hiking or cycling a steep hill or lifting heavy weights or taking. Your body experiences a great deal of stress during these types of activities, 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 in discussions and sometimes occur simultaneously in dance and aerobics classes, 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.
So what is the best way to warm up? At Saratoga Health and Wellness we traditionally recommend starting on a piece of cardiovascular equipment (i.e. bike, treadmill, elliptical or Nustep), and use it for 5-10 min at an intensity which is 50-70% of your normal pace. Slowly begin increasing the intensity level until it equals your normal exercise pace. Within 5-10 minutes you should achieve the exercise intensity appropriate for your workout (within your target heart rate range) Remember, stretching, although great for improving range of motion and mobility, is not typically the best way to warm up, but even your stretching can improve with a consistent warm up routine!