Why it is important to warm-up, stretch and cool down when exercising.
3 min read
“No pain, no gain” isn’t a saying that is universal when doing exercise. You might feel the burn when you are doing your cardio or as you lift resistance weights past failure, however the pain that you get as a result of an injury is not something that you should experience. Depending on your body’s flexibility and the muscles ability to recover from the exercise routines that you participate in, the muscles will be exposed to the risk of injury.
We want you to understand why it is important to warm-up the muscles, stretch and cool down so you can prevent getting injured.
If you are injured, you cannot train.
Picking up an injury can put you on the sideline for days, weeks or months. All of the gains that you would have made from your exercise routine will fall to the wayside if your muscles become injured. When you are exercising, it is easy to pick up strains, sprains and aches simply by not warming up the muscles properly.
Why is it important to warm-up before you start exercising?
Prior to exercising, it is likely that your muscles have been inactive and then they will be forced to do intense activities. In order to get the muscles working properly, you need to increase your blood circulation and then stretch the muscles so that they are no longer tight. If the muscles are tight when you are exercising, then there is a good chance that they could strain or even tear.
Make sure you allocate at least 10 to 20 minutes to warm-up your muscles before participating in any vigorous exercise activity.
Why is it important to stretch?
The muscles that are in your body connect to other muscle groups and bones. If the muscle contracts or spasms, it will affect other muscle groups, your overall flexibility, posture and mobility. To prevent this, make sure to stretch regularly and keep your muscles feeling supple and loose. If you feel tightness anywhere, then focus on stretching your different body parts to loosen the tension.
Cooling down.
After you have put your body through a vigorous exercise, it is important to cool the muscles down and stretch after your session. It is important to make the muscles longer as they will automatically contract once you have finished your training session. This might lead to cramps after your training session.
Additionally, your body might also build up lactic acid in different muscle areas.
What equipment should you use to warm-up and cool down?
The treadmill is the best piece of equipment for improving the blood circulation throughout your body. However, you can also choose to warm-up on the rowing machine, bike or elliptical. Make sure that you improve the blood flow in the muscle area that you will be working on.
For example, if you are working out your upper body, then warming up on the elliptical or the rowing machine would be better than running on the treadmill. Alternatively, if you plan to exercise your legs, you will want to use machines such as the treadmill or elliptical.
If you are serious about achieving your fitness goals, then you need to incorporate warm-up, stretching and cool-down sessions into your regime so that you prevent the risk of injury. Over the long-term, you staying injury free will allow you to train and become fitter, faster, stronger, more powerful and achieve you
