How to do a good warm-up?
All too often neglected, the warm-up phase is of vital importance in sports practice and has many benefits, especially when you're putting your muscles, joints and tendons through intense work. But why warm-up? What's the point? Is it really necessary to take the time to warm up?
Spoiler alert: Yes, absolutely
How to do a good warm-up?
Mechanical benefits for athletes' joints
The warm-up phase serves several purposes. The first is mechanical: it mobilizes your joints and warms up your muscles to stimulate them during the session. It will also raise your body temperature and prepare your heart to deliver an effort, by increasing its heart rate. And, of course, it will help you avoid injury, by conditioning your body before your workout, especially when it's an intensive one.
It will prepare your body to execute certain movements in a gentle manner, so that it can record the exercises which will then be reproduced during your training. Your body will then have time to memorize the gesture, so that it can then execute it in the best possible way, with optimal body placement to obtain results quickly and safely, as well as greater joint amplitude. But that's not the only benefit of a warm-up...
The mental benefits of warming up
The second is mental, allowing your mind to focus and prepare for your session. Because, just like before a fight, a match or a competition, you need to clear your head, project yourself into the middle of a workout, visualize your objectives and, above all, listen to your body to be fully aware of it during your training.
The best way to maximize your results is to focus your awareness on the muscles you'll be working on, concentrating on the areas you'll be using during your training so you can feel them better during the exercise and work them more deeply. The aim will be to create a real link between this muscle group and your mind, to further improve your performance.
What are the stages of a warm-up before a sports/musculation session?
A good warm-up phase generally consists of two parts. The duration and method of a warm-up is not clearly defined, but you don't need to spend 30 minutes on it - just 10 minutes can be enough to prepare your body and joints for your training session. But it does need to be adapted to your location, your sporting activity, your age, your physical condition at the time and the conditions outside, in order to determine the type of warm-up you need to perform. Indeed, an outdoor endurance warm-up for a 20-year-old in cold winter weather is bound to be different from that of a 55-year-old doing crossfit in a gym in the middle of summer. You need to adapt your warm-up to suit your training needs as closely as possible. It should be progressive, to prepare the body gradually for the effort involved.
Phase 1: Cardiovascular warm-up
The first step in a good warm-up is to raise your overall body temperature. You can do simple cardio exercises, such as cycling, rowing, elliptical training or a few minutes jogging.
As mentioned above, this will help you to accelerate your heart rate and prepare your body for the effort. This is when you need to start conditioning your mind, motivating yourself and visualizing your goals.
Phase 2: Concentrate exercises on the muscle and joint area in question
You can then start doing exercises similar to those in your bodyweight training, so that your body can train for the different movements it will have to perform, whether flexion, extension or rotation.
This will enable you to heat up these muscle groups more, so you'll be able to work on them more intensely for an optimal session, since warm muscles are much more resistant and enduring. Concentrate on a specific part to work in greater depth and focus on it during your training.
What about stretching?
You've probably already seen athletes doing stretching as a warm-up - big mistake! Cold stretching is very dangerous, with a high risk of injuries and tears. If you want to stretch before your session, it should be the last stage of your warm-up, when your body is already warm. Not only will this prevent injury, but heat increases the muscle's ability to stretch, so your flexibility will be amplified.
We advise you to stretch at the end of your session, which will have a number of benefits for your body. Firstly, it will help you improve, if not stabilize, your range of movement, and thus promote full muscle development by increasing elasticity. It will also prevent joint pain, by softening connective tissue (tendons, ligaments and joint capsules) and limiting tension. What's more, by improving joint flexibility, you'll reduce your risk of tendon and ligament injuries. Last but not least, stretching promotes performance and recovery, because when you engage in any kind of sporting activity, your muscles become gorged with blood and toxins (muscle waste products), which are the cause of muscle soreness. Stretching the muscle releases these toxins for better recovery.
A word of warning about heating creams, which many athletes use in the belief that they warm up their muscles sufficiently to skip this step. Despite the feeling of warmth, these creams don't actually heat the muscle in depth. As a result, the brain receives the information via receptors, the cutaneous mechanoreceptors, that the body is heated, and this further amplifies the risk of injury, as the athlete will tend to perform intensive training without his or her body being prepared for it.
To sum up, what you need to remember is that a real warm-up routine is essential and should be an integral part of your training, whatever your sporting activity. It should be gradual and progressive, to allow blood circulation to accelerate progressively, activating a more sustained heart rate. Take the opportunity to prepare yourself mentally for your session, visualize your body and muscles, to work more deeply and promote proprioception. Start with moderate loads, which you will gradually increase during your warm-up, and get ready to explode your performance during your training session. If you'd like more tips on how to boost your performance, click here for our top tips!
And last but not least, don't neglect stretching at the end of your session, the benefits of which are essential, even indispensable, especially for experienced sportsmen and women and athletes who train several times a week and therefore need to recover quickly between sessions.