The warm up: What it does and why.

Every training session or sporting activity should begin with a warm up. Why? Actually, there are several reasons.

3 reasons to warm up
1. It prepares the muscles and joints for the upcoming activity.
A day spent sitting at a desk, and/or behind the wheel of a car,  leaves your body in an awful state. Hip flexor muscles are tight, as are those of the chest and shoulder. At the same time, tension has built up between the shoulder blades, and the body frequently feels 'stiff all over'. By gradually increasing the level of demand, this stiffness and tension eases out, posture and mood improve, and the likelihood of injury decreases.

2. It helps to focus the mind on the task at hand, clearing the head of 'clutter'.
Research has shown that the effects of exercise are enhanced when you concentrate on the activity at hand.  While walking, cycling, running etc. are so familiar to most of us, we don't have to concentrate while doing them. However, paying attention to how your body feels while you're exercising allows you to notice things that you might have otherwise missed. If you are still thinking about a stressful event from earlier in the day, you are creating useless tension in your body. If you focus on your breathing, for example, you will soon forget about your troubles, at least for a little while.

3. It activates the aerobic energy system.
Have you ever really thrown yourself into your warm up 110%? Did you feel like you were going to die after about 3-4 minutes? This is because it takes the aerobic energy system about 5-6 minutes to warm up. Until that's ticking over nicely, your body simply cannot provide enough energy to the working tissues, and so you feel like you're about to keel over.

What makes a good warm up?
Different activities will have different needs in terms of exactly how you warm up, but there are a couple of golden rules.

1. Gradually increasing
The intensity of the activity and the range of motion of the joints should gradually increase. For example, for the first couple of minutes, the elbows should stay shoulder level or lower. This allows the synovial fluid in the joint capsule to warm up and provide better lubrication, much like the oil in your car engine.

2. Relevant
If you are warming up to play football, you will jog forwards & backwards, shuffle side to side, crouch, jump etc. These movements are all part of the game. If your warmup is before you go surfing, the emphasis will be more on increasing mobility at the shoulder and hips, as well as practicing your 'popup' (going from a face down position on the surfboard, to standing in a crouched position, in 1 fast smooth movement). Whatever your sport or activity, identify the movements you do most frequently and you have a good idea of what type of activities to do in your warm up.

So how do you know when you're warmed up enough?
There are a few signs, but the most reliable are breathing, heart rate and sweating.
If you are able to talk constantly, you're probably not warmed up. You should be able to hold a conversation, but only every other sentence!
Once your heart rate is over 120bpm, you're on the right track. If you are taking medication for a heart or blood pressure related condition, however, this method may not be accurate.
Once you have a light sweat on your forehead, this is a good sign. Bear in mind that guys start to sweat more rapidly than women, so if in doubt, consider the talk test above.
Also, anything less than 5 mins is too short to be an effective warm up, some sports require a lot longer than this, so don't cut corners!