Tag Archives: cool down

Warming Up

Ensuring your body is properly warmed up is very essential to your activities.

Very often this involves stretching, but can also include shaking of limbs or a nice walk to get the blood flowing.

So, the idea is that by warming up, the muscles get used a little bit, get stretched a little bit, and the blood gets properly circulating into the muscles to ensure they can handle the activities.

Let’s try something.

When you wake up in the morning, try to reach down and touch your toes. Now, after half a day of doing your regular activities, try to touch your toes again.

Notice how after having some warm up time during the day, your muscles are now much more flexible and ready to bend in various directions?

This is because your muscles have had some sort of a warm up time to let them loosen up from the activities.

warmup

Now, think of going from rather mild exercise of your day to day activities, into a fun activity like soccer. Your muscles still aren’t as limber as they should be, so you will want to warm them up even further.

This is why many coaches will make their team run circles around the field before a soccer match, or around the ice rink to properly get the limbs warmed up, get the blood flowing, and the heart pumping!

If you do this, you will be helping your body reduce muscle pulls, and ensuring the muscles repair as quickly as possible after strenuous activities.

NOTE: I would even suggest a proper warm up for any task that you do all day, especially manual labor jobs, but even including office desk jobs where you’re sitting still all day.

stretching

Stretching

WellBeing_Stretching

Stretching is one of the most important things a person can do for their well being. It ensures that your muscles get the proper oxygen to handle the strenuous activities of daily activities or a exercise routine, as well as loosens them up so when you are making your fast turn arounds during a game of basketball, you wont pull a muscle.

Below you will find a few charts of some great stretches that will help you limber up. For me, especially when I’m doing the short spurts, I focus particularly on the areas that I’ll be exercising. After that, I also like to focus on the surrounding areas, because those muscles can also get effected by the exercise.

stretchingChart

Remember, more stretches the better. It even is good just during the day, even if you’re not exercising and just sitting still, to do some stretches because it will get the blood flowing and energize you.

A few tips about proper stretching tactics.

  • Whatever you do, don’t bounce. Pull the limb, and hold it for 10 seconds (or longer) and then let go.
  • After your exercizing, be careful to not pull the muscle to hard, for it’s now loose and you can easily over extend it and really hurt yourself. Lighter stretches at this time.
  • More stretching the better. Before, after, during. Anytime.
  • Keep in mind that most activities, even if you’re only lifting weights for your bicepts, you’re also working your back muscles, tricepts, butt, and stomach. Stretch them all!

Good luck and have fun!

StretchesChart