Warm Up Exercises

The importance of warming up before excesses.

As sports men and women we all know that warming up should always be performed before any physical exercise. If so, then why is warming up before sports so often overlooked and not always undertaken - and when it is, can you honestly say you warmed your body up properly? Let's take a further look into the importance of warming up.

How warming up can protect you from injuries.

Before performing any sort of warm up our bodies are stiff. Warming up will help get the blood moving around your body and to the specific regions you are working. Your tissues and ligaments will warm and become more flexible.

Your joints are lubricated with fluids and cartilage. Muscle is bound in Fascia which is stiff before being warmed up. Your joints are very sensitive structures and are lubricated with fluids, cartilage, and other materials.

We use the phrase 'warm up' as essentially this is exactly what we are doing - we are warming up our ligaments, muscles and joints. You are preparing your muscles for higher intense activity. The more flexible and less stiff you are the lesser chance of inflicting an injury.

How should I warm up before sports?

Over time, experience and experimentation you will be able to build up the perfect warm up routine for your sport. The begriming of your routine will be very similar to other sports. Simple walks, runs and squats are essential for just about every sport. The last part of the routine will be much more sport specific - you will need to identify the parts of the body that are mostly used in your sport to stretch and warm them up.

• Perform a full body non exhausting warm up.
• Perform a number of light stretches focusing on all body parts.