In today’s way of life skipping your warm up exercises before workout sounds very tempting and is something that many people do.
Why Is It Important To Warm Up Your Muscles Before A Workout?
It is true that warming up will not get you any closer to the body you have always wanted. However, it’s still very important for your bodybuilding success.
Skipping your warm up is not only bad but it may prove disastrous for you, your workout and your bodybuilding campaign.
Reduce Chance Of An Injury
First of all, warming up will prepare your joints and your muscles for your workout.
You never want to start working out with your joints and muscles being stiff and unprepared or the chance if injuring yourself is greatly increased.
And we all know, injuring yourself while you are in the process of creating big muscles can take you back weeks.
Increase Blood Flow
Warming up will not only reduce the chance of injury but it will also prepare your whole organism for the workout to come. For this reason your efforts will be more efficient and more effective.
By spending a few extra minutes preparing for the routines to come, you will be able to increase your blood flow and oxygen delivery. This will allow you to exercise longer and keep you from running out of breath too fast.
Warming up will also increase your reaction time and reflexes and prepare your heart so that you won’t experience a huge spike in blood pressure.
It takes you only 5-10 minutes to warm up before your session so be sure to prepare yourself according to your workout intensity.
If today’s working is heavy then you might want to spend about 10 minutes warming up.
Do some fast exercises to prepare your organism for the trials to come and also to be sure that you are about to consume the full effect of your workout for maximum results without wasting your efforts.
See Also: 7 Minute Workout
Best Warm Up Exercises Before Workout
Basically, you want to keep it dynamic and active.
Stretching
This is something you never wish to miss. Start with a nice stretch of your whole body and then proceed to rope jumping and running in one place or anything else dynamic.
Butt Kicker
The Butt Kicker is also very good for warming up and preparing your legs for the workouts to come. It’s very simple but very effective for getting your lower body warmed up.
What you have to do is simply try and touch your rear with your heels. Try to do so nice and fast while switching your legs constantly – right, left, right, left etc.
Jumping Jacks
Probably favored by most. Very good for warming up the whole body in general and is very easy to do.
Stand with your feet together and your hands down to your body.
In one motion jump and spread your feet out to the side and your hands above your head and then immediately reverse the motion by jumping back to the starting position.
Lunge and Twist
This exercise is also very good for warming up and cardio as it affects legs, chest and arms.
The way to do it is – stand in one place with your hands one on top of the other in front of your chest.
With your right leg lunge forward while keeping your left leg in place and then twist your upper body left without separating your hands.
Then reverse back to starting position and lunge forward with your left leg while keeping the right one in place and twist your upper body right without separating your hands.
Knee to Chest
Knee to Chest is very self-explanatory. You can perform it in a couple of ways.
One way is to stand still and lift your knee up and grab it with your hands and try to stretch in even further.
The more dynamic way is to mimic running strides while trying to get your knee as high as possible without touching it with your hands.
The first way of Knee to Chest is good for leg and knee warmup while the second one is very good for cardio and getting the blood flow and oxygen transportation levels a bit higher.
See Also: Low Impact Vs High Impact Exercises
Final Words
There are many more warm up exercises you can do but the idea of them all is the same, have your muscle groups, joints, heart, blood flow and breathing levels ready for the hard workout to come.
Remember to never attempt any amazingly difficult exercises while warming up try and workout your muscles.
Muscle workout will come later. The point of the warm up is not to build muscle, its to get ready for the actual workout.
