What is warm-up exercise and why is it important?
Warm-up exercise helps to increase your body temperature to get ready for any high intensity activities.
When the body is cold, it resists movement. Hence, for the body to function optimally for any physical activity, it must be prepared for the level of stress being applied, which is the reason why warm-up exercises are important prior to any physical activities.
Benefits/Importance of Warming Up
- Increase flexibility so that it reduces the chance of muscle pulling
- Improve range of motion to prepare for the physical activities
- Improve performance
- Decreases joint pain
- Reduces or minimise the risk of injury
Warm-up can be categorised into two categories, general or specific. General warm-up usually utilise basic movement patterns repeated continuously for a period of time such as jogging, rope skipping, cycling, etc.
Specific warm-up tends to mimics the actual exercises that you are going to complete later. For example, before the actual bench press, you can use an empty bar or add some light weights for the warm-up.
A warm-up usually last approximately 5 to 10 minutes depending on the physical activity you are going to perform later.
Types of warm-up exercises
Examples of warm-up exercises include leg bends, leg swings, shoulder or arm rotation, jumping jacks, rope skipping, body lunges, body squats, walking, slow jogging, torso twists, standing side bends, lateral shuffle, knee bends, and ankle circles, etc.