WARM IT UP!!

How many of you really take your time warming up before you workout? How many of you walk into the gym, go straight for a piece of cardio equipment, spend about 5 minutes at a leisurely pace and not even break a sweat? How many of you avoid the equipment, instead do a few arm circles, maybe bend over at the waist, twist your upper body a few times and maybe if your lucky a few squats or lunges or the worst of the worst go straight into lifting weights with no warm up at all?? If you raised your hand to any of these charges, then we have a serious problem...

The importance of warming up before exercise then is down to multiple effects. Firstly, by stretching the muscles and joints you can help them to become more limber and subtle. This means that sudden movements, such as a high kick or awkward turn will be less likely to pull or tear your muscle. Tearing a muscle can be a serious injury that takes a long time to heal (not to mention being incredibly painful potentially requiring stitches) and keeps you out of the gym even in more minor cases. In one famous incident Sylvester Stallone managed to tear his entire pectoral muscle in half in a bench press competition with one of the then-strongest men in the world: Franco Columbu. Today you can still see that one of his pecs is far more vascular than the other as a result. The same goes for tendons and ligaments which can also tear causing severe pain and writing off your gym sessions for some time.

At the same time stretching your muscles has other benefits that are more to do with your performance and training than health and avoiding injury. For one, by stretching your muscles you will be able to use a larger percentage of them during each repetition. As you perform bicep curls for example your biceps will be able to stretch more during each curl, which will mean you train the entire length of the muscles. Furthermore, warming up with rush blood to the muscles, supplying them with oxygen, ATP and minerals thereby improving strength and endurance during training. The importance of warming up before exercise cannot be overstated for bodybuilders or anyone looking to improve their strength and the appearance of their physique.

This post was short, sweet and to the point! I don't need to go into great detail for warming up before we workout. We all know how important it is and we ALL need to take the time to do it. I warm up for about 15 to 20 mins before I workout and trust me it has paid off. I've never been seriously injured doing any of my crazy workouts or lifting heavy weights, but I definitely credit my warm up for that. Just take your time with a good warm up and really focus on the muscles you are going to train, but it's also equally important to warm up the entire body, get a good sweat going, get that blood pumping, that core temp up and the joints lubricated. Oh by the way... Don' forget to stretch after your workout but we will save that for another day!

BE THE PREDATOR, NOT THE PREY...