You've most likely heard sports teachers/instructors telling you to warm up before exercise. Some people might just want to dive right in to the tough exercise, because that is where the fitness gains are actually achieved. We're going to tell you no, you need to warm up first and in this post we are going to explain why. A warm up is essentially a preparation, you might have been resting before doing exercise and to go from one extreme to the other can be a punishment for the body which needs to be prepared for what is about to be unleashed on it.

What’s happening to your body during warm up

During a warm up your heart rate will start to increase which begins to pump blood faster around the body. Your circulatory system begins to open up more with this increased blood flow and begins to allow your blood to go directly to where it is needed which is in the muscles.

This increased blood flow warms up those muscles which allows them work better, easier and do what they do best which is to contract and relax as you workout. As you begin by warming up your breathing rate will also begin to increase which combines with that better working circulatory system to deliver oxygen to the muscles.

Warming up can save you from a lot of pain

With the muscles warmed up and raring to go with increased blood flow and oxygen, your muscles are more enthusiastic for the upcoming challenge and they can now achieve a greater range of motion. This helps to reduce the risk of you getting an injury, as a muscle that is not warmed up properly is at far greater risk from any impacts it will receive.

So just 5 minutes of warm up can save your body from any unnecessary injury that could put back your exercise regime from a few days to as much as weeks.

Warming up can reduce aches after exercise.

If you are pushing hard during exercise it is more than likely you might experience some aching or other pain later on. This can be because the muscles were not at their full range of motion when you started. Unnecessary tiny tears in the muscles were created from this lack of motion which caused you to feel aches and pain in the muscle later on that day or the morning after enabling a shorter recovery time.

There’s also some psychology happening too.

A decent warming up helps to prepare you mentally by preparing you for what is about to happen and clearing the mind of anything you was doing beforehand, allowing you to focus on the actual exercising. This extra focus can be especially important if you are doing early morning exercise as it means you’ll be fully awake and more able to keep your balance and coordination. So you will be at less risk of falling off equipment or falling completely over. So warming up can actually keep your dignity in tact too, amazing.

So as you can see just a short 5 minute warm up can really save you time later as well as help to improve your actual exercise when you actually get to it. So after reading this we don’t want to see any of you skipping that warm up, because it's essential part of exercising and not doing it is no good for your body.