TECHNICAL & DYNAMIC WARM UPS PDF
What is a Warm Up and How to Warm Up Properly?
Warm up properly and reduce the risk of sports injury with these warm up exercises and stretches.
The warm up exercises are crucial to any sports or fitness training program. The importance of a structured warm up routine should not be under estimated when it comes to preventing sports injury.
A proper warm up has a number of very important key components. These components, or parts, should all work together to prepare the individual for sports performance and minimize the likelihood of sports injury from physical activity.
Warm Up Exercises and Stretches
What is a Warm Up?
A warm up (as it relates to physical activity and exercise) is any activity, either physical or mental, that helps to prepare an individual for the demands of their chosen sport or exercise.
Why Warm Up?
Warming up prior to any physical activity does a number of beneficial things, but the main purpose of the warm up is to prepare the body and mind for strenuous activity.
- One of the ways it achieves this is by increasing the body’s core temperature, while also increasing the body’s muscle temperature. By increasing muscle temperature you’re helping to make the muscles loose, supple and pliable.
- An effective warm up also has the effect of increasing both your heart rate and your respiratory rate. This increases blood flow, which in turn increases the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the working muscles.
All this helps to prepare the muscles, tendons and joints for more strenuous activity.
Warm Up Stretching Guidelines
As with most activities there are rules and guidelines to ensure that they are safe; stretching and the warm up is no exception. Stretching can be extremely dangerous and harmful if done incorrectly. This short video shows you how to warm up properly to get the most out of your stretching.
The Greatest Misconception
Confusion about what stretching accomplishes, as part of the warm up, is causing many to abandon stretching altogether. The key to understanding the role stretching plays can be found in the previous sentence. But, you have to read it carefully.
Stretching, as part of the warm up! Stretching is a critical part of the warm up, but stretching is not THE warm up. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that doing a few stretches constitutes a warm up.
An effective warm up has a number of very important key components, which work together to minimize the likelihood of sports injury and prepare the individual for physical activity.
How to Structure Your Warm Up?
It’s important to start with the easiest and most gentle activity first, building upon each part with more energetic activities, until the body is at a physical and mental peak. This is the state in which the body is most prepared for the physical activity to come, and where the likelihood of sports injury has been minimized as much as possible. So, how should you structure your warm up to achieve these goals?
There are four key components, or parts, which should be included to ensure an effective and complete warm up. They are:
- The general warm up;
- Static stretching;
- The sports specific warm up; and
- Dynamic stretching.
Important: All four parts are equally important and any one part should not be neglected or thought of as not necessary. All four components work together to bring the body and mind to a physical peak, ensuring the athlete is prepared for the activity to come. This process will help ensure the athlete has a minimal risk of sports injury.
The 4 Key Components of a Warm Up
Identifying the components of an effective and safe warm up, and executing them in the correct order is critical. Remember, stretching is only one part of an effective warm up and its’ place in the warm up routine is specific and dependent on the other components.
The four key components that should be included to ensure an effective and complete warm up are:
1. General warm up
The general warm up should consist of a light physical activity, like walking, jogging, easy swimming, stationary bike riding, skipping or easy aerobics. Both the intensity and duration of the general warm up (or how hard and how long), should be governed by the fitness level of the participating athlete. Although a correct general warm up for the average person should take about five to ten minutes and result in a light sweat.
The aim of the general warm up is simply to elevate the heart rate and respiratory rate. This in turn increases the blood flow and helps with the transportation of oxygen and nutrients to the working muscles. This also helps to increase the muscle temperature, allowing for a more effective static stretch. Which bring us to part two.
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