New York Times just did a story on warming up. Talking to exercise physiologists about research and what has been shown to be most effective for warming up. Their conclusion was that they didn’t have an answer it was more trial and error. Athletes, individuals seem to do better on all different types of warm ups. You might think well that’s unscientific though they missed the who reasons why athletes and people perform better doing different types of warm-ups from sprinting, dynamic stretching, to not stretching, to slightly moving and to warming up longer than even their race.
We of course no why it’s important to warm up. Increased blood flow to the working muscles, gives the muscles to contract better after they have been contracted before, allows you to get loose, make sure your ready for the event. These are the primary reasons why it’s important to warm up.
Though why do some warm ups work better than others? Why do People prefer to warm up light versus warming up at all? The biggest reason is psychological you got to do a routine to put yourself in a state of mind to win the race or run faster than you have ever run before so doing the routine or warm up you always do will typically work best than if you did a new routine even if it was more scientific. What works for someone mentally and physically might not work for another in prepairing for an event.
Remember most important is the benefits of warming up and that if you want to be amazing at a sport practice your warmup so you know what works best for you mentally and physically.
if you need help and you want to work on your warm-up so it’s more physiologically beneficial as well it benefits you mentally than I say go hire the coach. Experts in their field always no more than you. Which means you will get better results a whole lot faster working with an expert than you will all on your own.
Good article. Warming up to me is more about mental preparation then actually getting my body ready as I generally train later in the day.
I find that a good 5-6 minutes on the treadmill helps me switch off the work day and get into my training frame of mind before hitting the weights.