Warming up is a very important and crucial for preventing injury. Warming up for 10-15 min. will make your workout more effective and easy. The warm up exercise routine doesn’t need to be long and time wasting or hard and boring. You can warm up after waking up in the morning, or before any physical activity takes place. It is very important to do your warm up exercises before cardiovascular exercises or lifting weights.
There are a few things you need to know.
You need to warm up every muscle in your body no matter what. I always start my warm up routine from the head down until I finish with the legs. I never skip warm up before workout. My warm up exercises are no longer than five minutes and are a mixture between stretch exercises and regular exercises.
I have two parts of warming up.
First part is the full body warm up. The second part concentrates on the muscle group I will workout that day. For example, if I would workout the chest, I start with my 5 minute warm up exercise routine, and then I do a set with lightweight on the bench press before starting with the heavy weight. First part of my warm up routine prepares every muscle in the body, because very often working out one muscle means working out 4-5 muscles. For example on the bench press we concentrate on the chest and triceps, but actually a lot of a pressure is put on muscles from our legs and muscles on the back. Those muscles are at big risk of picking up a injury.
Second part; concentrating on certain muscle groups using lightweight will help prepare those muscles for the heavy workout ahead. That includes but is not limited to squats, bench press, pull us, biceps curl.
You can always jump on the treadmill or elliptical and warm up for 15 min. but if you are home or don’t want to use those machines, use my 15 step warm up exercise routine, which always stays the same and I use all the time with perfect success.
1. Start from the head. Rotate it 6 times from left to the right, and then 6 times from right to left.
2. With both arms close to your body start rotating your shoulders. Repeat it 12 times.
3. With the right arm away from the body start rotating the shoulder for 12 times before you do the same with your left arm.
4. Time to warm up all the muscles in the arm. Start with your arm away from the body with rotating the elbow 12 times on the left and 12 times on the right arm
and then rotate the wrist again 12 times on each arm.
5. With both arms away from your body in almost 90 degree angle start pulling the arms through your back, and then pull back through your chest in starting position, repeat 20 times.
6. Hold one of your arms close to your chest like you are hugging yourself and with the help of the other arm, stretch your back muscles.Do the same with the other hand.
7. Hold both arms above your head and stretch with pulling your hands up and to the back. Breathing is very important. Don’t hold your breath while you are stretching. Build a breathing cycle through the whole entire process. It is important that you take a deep breath, hold for a second, and then release.
8. Put both hands on the waist and start rotating. Repeat 12 times (your legs need to be a few steps away one from another). Don’t use your legs to rotate.
9. With one arm above your head and the other on your waist tilt your body (if your right hand is above your head tilt left). Repeat 6 times with each arm.
10. With both arms in front of your body and legs a few steps from each other, tilt forward try touching your left leg, then in between the legs and the right leg (Important – keep your back and legs straight trough the exercise). Repeat 12 times.
11. Knee kick. Kick with your knees as high as you can for 12 times.
12.Calf raises. From standing position using only the heel lift your body. Repeat 12 times. Do it slowly and pause for a second at the top of the movement before lowering the heel back to the ground.
13.Jump up 10 times. Remember where your feet are landing after every jump! This will help the next exercise.
14. Do 15 squats! Using your foot placement from the jumps you just did, bend your hips and knees to lower your body.
15.Stretch your legs. In lunge position, rest back knee on the floor, with front knee at a 90 degree angle. Gently press forward until you feel a stretch in the front of the leg. Switch legs.
Now you are ready for a workout, or healthy and more energetic day. Try my warm up exercise routine, and you’ll find your workout easier and more effective!
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