Warming Up

An active warm-up refers to easy physical movement that prepares the body for activity, and should be an integral part of every training session and competition. A proper warm-up can decrease the risk of injury and is an important “therapeutic” aspect of physical exercise; it can also reduce the muscle soreness associated with the early stages of a new part of your training program. The lack of a warm-up can cause bodily stress and result in abnormal heart function (as indicated by an electrocardiogram), reduced oxygen to the heart muscle (myocardial ischemia), and poor blood pressure response following exercise, even in healthy, fit individuals.

Warming up prepares the body for training or competition. The “warming” occurs partly from an increase in blood circulation. Normally, as you begin a workout, the muscles quickly require much more oxygen and other nutrients, and quickly develop by-products that must be removed. This need by the muscles is accomplished by an increase in blood flow. The aerobic muscles are well endowed with blood vessels, and most of the circulation is directed there.

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If the muscles are receiving more blood, where does it come from? The answer to this question is a very important aspect of warming up. At rest, your body devotes much of its circulation to the brain and nervous system, organs and glands, intestines, and other systems. From a standpoint of blood circulation, this resting state is just the opposite of working out.

When you begin your workout, the muscles require greater blood circulation. More than half of the blood flow going to the rest of the body gets detoured into the working muscles. During an anaerobic workout, for example, up to 80 percent of the blood is shifted to the muscles. While this satisfies the muscles’ demands, the organs and glands suddenly have much less circulation for their optimal function. In many ways, it is a major stress to the organs and glands when the shift occurs too quickly.

The way to satisfy the whole body has to do with timing. If the systems slowly relinquish their circulation at the same time the blood flow to the muscles is gradually increased, there is no stress. It allows brain, organs, glands, intestines, and other areas to adapt to reduced circulation while providing the muscles with proper nutrients. This can take at least twelve to fifteen minutes and is accomplished by much slower activity than the workout ahead. This period is called a warm-up.

After the first stage of the warm-up, which is a slight elevation of body temperature, a number of significant benefits occur, including:

 

 

 
  • Increased blood flow to working muscles
  • Increased oxygen availability
  • Greater mechanical efficiency of joints, muscles, tendons, and ligaments
  • Increased range of motion in joints
  • Release of stored fat to be used for energy in aerobic muscles
  • Increased breathing (lung) capacity
  • Improved neuromuscular activity

In order to accomplish this, the muscle activity—the level of workout intensity—should begin very easy and gradually build up. Often, athletes start off a workout with too much intensity, which shifts the blood flow away from the nervous and metabolic systems too quickly, potentially causing stress.

A heart-rate monitor is a very helpful tool for warming up because it allows you to properly gauge the warm-up process. Let’s use the example of an athlete starting an hour aerobic workout with a maximum aerobic heart rate of 140 (with a range of 130-140). Initially, the starting heart rate is 60. For this athlete, a proper warm-up means going from a heart rate of 60 to 140 over a period of fifteen minutes, the heart rate is slowly raised from the 60s to the 70s, 80s, and so forth until the 130-140 range is reached after fifteen minutes. For training lasting more than about ninety minutes, the warm-up should be extended—perhaps to about twenty minutes or more. And for a three-hour or longer workout, more warm-up time is usually needed.

Ideally, your warm-up should be tailored to your body’s needs. Once you get used to warming up properly, you may notice your body requiring more warm-up time, even for a short workout. If this is the case, heed your body’s signal and extend your warm-up time. Never assume, however, that you need less than a twelve- to fifteen-minute warm-up. This seems to be the physiological minimum.