Skipping warm-up exercises before your workout is akin to jumping in a pool without first holding your breath. Neither is healthy. You can easily perform at-home warm-up exercises that require no special equipment, training or excessive amounts of time. An effective session of home warm-up exercises can take as few as 10 minutes.
What They Do
Warm-up exercises get your muscles ready for the workout to come. Thrusting cold muscles into a workout increases your chance of damaging them during the workout and having sore muscles afterward. Warming up prior to exercise literally warms up your body by increasing its temperature. It also boosts your heart rate and breathing rate which, in turn, boost the levels of oxygen and nutrients in your muscles. Your joints get into the warm-up by producing more synovial fluid, which prepares your muscles for the work ahead.
How to Warm Up
Slow and steady are key for warm-up exercises. Your body needs to make a gradual progression from idle to a working state. Two types of warm-up exercises that can come before any workout include easy cardiovascular warm-up exercises and gentle stretching. Doing the cardio first readies your muscles for the stretching, which can include full-body stretches as well as stretches that target the muscles you intend to use during your workout.
Examples
Cardio warm-up exercises for an all-over body boost include brisk walking, marching and jogging in place, and jumping jacks. Warm-up stretches can include hanging forward from your waist and letting gravity stretch your upper body toward the floor and, while your upper body is still hanging downward, moving it first to one side, then the other. A groin stretch includes standing upright, then bending your knees and shifting your weight to each side. You can finish the stretching warm-up by again standing upright and rolling your shoulders forward, then back at least twice. Holding the stretches for at least 15 seconds in each position ensures your muscles get enough of a stretch.
Considerations
Cooling down after your workout is just as vital as warming up before it. Cool-down exercises can include the same exercises you used to warm up, such as stretching and cardio, as long as the pace gets gradually slower rather than faster. You can finish off a running workout, for example, with at least five minutes of brisk walking. Muscles that you previously injured need special care during a warm-up. They can best avoid re-injury if you stretch them gently after your all-over body stretches and before you get into your workout.
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