Warm up exercises are a crucial part of any exercise regime or sports training. They get the muscles lubricated, stretched and supple for the harder activities that will follow the warm up. These exercises may not be too long, sometimes even being as short as ten minutes. When carried out properly, warm up exercises can have an amazing effect on a person’s body. By skipping the warm up session, a person may miss out on many important health advantages. An effective warm up has a number of important key elements that work together to minimize the likelihood of a sports injury from physical activity. To know more on the benefits of warm up exercises, read through the following lines.
Benefits Of Warming Up Before Exercise
Burns Extra Calories
Warm up exercises should be done at a leisurely place, which is about 50% of a person’s maximum heart rate. A warm up exercise should be approximately 10 minutes long. A person can burn up to 100 calories in this time span, which he cannot do if he skips the warm up exercises.
Prevents Injuries
A person should not start exercising at full force the minute he or she starts working out. Prior to a workout, the muscles are cold, stiff, and much more prone to injuries. Warming up before exercising makes them warm and pliable enough to enable them to perform the workout with lesser chance of strains or injuries. Warming up exercises help to raise the body temperature, which in turn helps lubricate the body’s joints. This makes your body move easily and allows your muscles to flex and then relax.
Protects Immune System
Sudden, all-out exercises can flood the body with stress hormones that may weaken the immune system. A weakened immune system is more prone to illness and diseases that can make a person catch cold and other virus easily. Warm up exercises ease the body and prevent it from flooding with stress hormones.
Gets You In Right Frame Of Mind
Just as you prepare yourself for a workout, your mind also needs to be prepared and warmed up. Warming up before exercising relaxes your body and helps you get into the mood of having a great workout. If a workout is started at full force, the mind and body can tire very easily.
Activates Sugars
The ten-minute warm up taps into the body’s sugars for energy. On completing the workout, the body will have used all the sugar and will be forced to tap into the stored fat for more energy. Hence, a person can burn a dramatic amount of fat by following a simple ten-minute warm up routine. The most significant characteristic of warming up is to burn fat and get healthy.
Increases Respiration
An effective warming up session increases a person’s heart rate as well as respiratory rate. This in turn, increases blood flow and delivers more nutrients to the working muscles. This prepares the muscles, tendons and joints for more strenuous activity.