A warm up has forever been regarded as common practice prior to running out for a sporting match or starting a gym workout. Although there are so many different exercises and stretches that you can do that it can get quite confusing of how to go about this. The benefits of a warm up below are the two main reasons as to why a proper warm up is important.
Increase in performance
Depending on the type of warm up that you complete, multiple studies have shown that sports and activities such as running, cycling, swimming and most ball sports are given a large boost in performance following an appropriate warm up. These studies show that a dynamic warm up is the best type to get this benefit, as in some cases static stretching has been found to decrease performance of athletes1.
Specific to resistance-based training, it has been found that a warm up has a significant effect on the velocity at which a compound movement can be completed. In one study, it was shown that when a specific warm up was completed, the maximum velocity the weight was moved at was higher in the first set, when compared to not doing a specific warm up. When a warm up was not completed, improvements were made in the second set, showing the first set acted as a warm up set and had a large influence on the second set2.
Decrease the risk of injury
Warming up allows all the nutrients to rush to your muscles, priming them for exercise. For those sports that require high loads and explosive demands out of your body, your muscles must be able to do very high-level actions prior to beginning these activities. If you have not done a dynamic warm up to the levels required throughout the sport/activity you are about to do, the injury risk is much higher.
Prime your entire body
When we warm up, we also prime out respiratory and cardiovascular systems for an increase workload. As we warm up, our heart rate increases which allows more blood to be pushed through the body with oxygen faster, therefore allowing more oxygen to get the areas of the body that really need it. This means that there will not be as large of a stress on the body’s vital organs, if you were to just run out and begin exercising.
This blog is written by Sean Downes, Physiotherapist at Back In Motion Eltham.
References:
- Silva, L. M., Neiva, H. P., Marques, M. C., Izquierdo, M., & Marinho, D. A. (2018). Effects of warm-up, post-warm-up, and re-warm-up strategies on explosive efforts in team sports: A systematic review. Sports Medicine, 48(10), 2285-2299. https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/benefits-of-warmup-exercises#1
- Ribeiro, B., Pereira, A., Alves, A. R., Neves, P. P., Marques, M. C., Marinho, D. A., & Neiva, H. P. (2021). Specific warm-up enhances movement velocity during bench press and squat resistance training. Journal of Men’s Health, 18, 1-8.