_Warming Up, Stretching and Cooling Down
A full workout always starts with a warm-up. The goal is to raise your body temperature and increase your pulse to an aerobic level. When you warm-up your body, you’re reducing muscle viscosity. This means that your muscles can contract and relax faster, and as a result, you’re improving your power output and efficiency. Your blood vessels dilate, so you can give your muscles more of the oxygen they need to work. You’re working up a sweat that’s essential for cooling you down so that you don’t overheat during the workout. Most importantly, by warming up, you’re significantly reducing your chances of injury[i]. exercises, but the most versatile one is the one you haven’t done since high school: Jumping Jacks. This one will get your blood flowing quickly. Researchers also advise that you warm-up the specific muscles you’ll be working that day. That’s the reason why, if you go to a tennis match, you’ll see the players exchange some balls for 10 minutes. They’re not practicing; they know how to hit a ball. They’re warming up the specific muscles they’ll be using for the game. So the official Max Capacity Training warm-up consists of two stages: jumping jacks to raise your body temperature and the exercises of the day to warm-up your muscles. Take it slow, there’s no need to push yourself at this stage yet.
Fitness leaders all agree that a good warm-up is essential to a workout. Stretching, on the other hand is a lot more controversial. Some studies claim that stretching is beneficial, others conclude it doesn’t do anything, and even some determine that stretching can cause more harm than good. Personally, I don’t stretch and I’m doing just fine. I encourage you to do your own research about stretching and choose for yourself whether it’s right for you. If you decide to stretch, always do it after your warm-up. Holding stretches before the muscles are warm is begging for injury[ii],[iii]. Depending on your preference, you can plan your workout as one of the following:
As you’ve noticed, your workout is always followed by a cool down period. The purpose of the cool down is to slowly decrease your pulse rate and lower your body temperature. It’s essentially a reverse warm-up. All you need to do is keep moving. Don’t seat your ass in the couch yet, walk around, take out the trash, do some chores. Cooling down will get rid of your muscle lactic acid faster than resting. In other words, it promotes faster recovery. Cooling down also prevents blood pooling so it reduces the risk of dizziness and reduces your chance to be sore for the next three days.
[i] Shellock F. Physiological Benefits of Warm-up. Physician Sportsmen 11:134-139, 1983) p207
[ii] Shyne K, Dominquez. To Stretch or not to Stretch? The physician Sportsmed 10:137-140, 1982
[iii] Houmard JA Jones Jones, RA, Smith LL, Wells JM, Kobe RW, McGooan SA. The effects of Warm-up and responses to intense exercise. Int J Sports Med 10:12:480-483, 1991