Let me first say that I'm probably not the guy you want to get your information from on this topic. From day one of my bodybuilding career I have ALWAYS dived right into every single one of my workouts head first, cold, and with the most weight I could do. In other words, I don't warm up...ever...at all. I take advantage of being at the peak of my glycogen, ATP, and therefore strength and energy, and do the most compound exercises with the most weight I can do first. I shock my body by going full throttle into my workouts and get that blood pumping fast.
Countless people have warmed me against this, but it's just something that's worked for me. Perhaps it works for me because, while I go straight into my most intense sets, I still make sure to keep in mind the correct form and listen to my body along the way.
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| Source: Thinkstock |
I do however warm up one part of my body, and that's my knee on leg days. I've always had a kind of tendonitis in one of my knees, and if that part of my body is not thoroughly warmed up there will be too much pain for me to effectively lift. Therefore, I have to make sure I get the proper amount of blood pumping to my knee to get it ready to lift. If you experience this kind of phenomenon on a particular part of your body, consider warming up with VERY low weight for a very HIGH amount of reps until blood is stimulated to flow into that part of your body.
While I don't really warm up, I do find merit in doing so, and think that it can be very beneficial and even necessary to many people when they workout. Gradually introducing your body to different levels of intensity throughout a particular exercise is a good way to safely prime your body and allow it time to get ready for the next level of intensity on the next set of a given exercise. As I stated above, warming up also allows proper blood flow to be circulated to various parts of your body that can serve as a kind of "liquid cushion" that allows your body to swell to the point that it supports movements in weightlifting exercises (anecdotal claim). This is an important concept for preventing injury and getting the most out of your workouts.
So how can one warmup for a particular workout? Well, it obviously depends on the kind of workouts you're performing and the fitness goals / fitness focus you are aiming for. If you're bodybuilding and lifting weight, I'd recommend using a weight that is light but not non-existent. A weight that you can lift easily but still feel a good amount of resistance to do 15-25 repetitions with. Each of these repetitions should be full and controlled repetitions performed until failure. Aim to feel the blood flowing into your target muscle and making you "full". You could accomplish this over one set, or may need to take multiple sets to warm up with before you feel like your body is adequately primed for full-intensity lifts. If you have tendonitis in a particular joint, do NOT stop warming up until you can lift a given weight with just that particular part of your body (without using the other side) without pain and a full range of motion. I highly recommend not stretching BEFORE a weightlifting workout, as most of my sources and experiences (both credible and anecdotal) indicate to me that having lax bodily structures is a detriment to carrying and handling the weights and movements during a weightlifting session. I've personally always stretched after a workout.
I'm not a cardio or flexibility expert, but with cardio I would imagine that bringing down the intensity of the cardio exercise you choose (running, swimming, biking, jump-roping, etc) for the first couple of minutes / trials would be of some benefit to get the blood going and wake up your cardiovascular system so that it's ready for the full-on motions of the cardiovascular activity you're performing. In other words, do a light / less intense version of a cardiovascular exercise before you start fully getting into it with full intensity.
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| This should be a jog when warming up. Source: Thinkstock |
With stretching and flexibility exercises (like in yoga), I would imagine that gradually performing the stretch, going only slightly further on each stretch would be beneficial and decrease the possibility of getting injured by trying to go too far too soon without working out the tendons and various other pertinent parts of your body before hand. Work out the parts of your body relevant to flexibility as if it were dough, stretching only a little further each time until properly primed for full-on stretches.
All warmups should feel like watered-down versions of the movement you are ABOUT to do. They are kind of like "trial runs" of an exercise before they actually count. The focus shouldn't be on making any kind of gains but rather priming your body for particular movements / fitness objectives.
So keep that all in mind! Warm up if you feel you need to to prevent injury and / or optimize your workouts!
-Jtrain
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