Understanding the importance of a proper warm-up cannot be overstated. It plays a crucial role in preparing the body for physical activity, preventing injuries, and optimizing training and performance. By incorporating a well-structured warm-up routine into your quality days, athletes can see improvements not just in how they feel but also how they perform.
However, a well structured and executed warm-up tends to be one of the first things dropped when an athlete is tight on time, as it feels “less exciting” than the harder work of the session or just doesn’t feel as important as the hard work itself.
Importance of a Warm-Up
A good warm-up is going to provide two main benefits to our bodies that are important for a strong and healthy quality session.
Muscle Engagement
Your muscle groups are made up of many individual muscle fibers. During different activities your body will engage only a proportion of those muscle fibers. However, the more fibers that are engaged in a muscle group, the easier the individual load on each is.
This is important because by putting less load on each individual muscle fiber, it decreases the risk of injury as well as the rate at which those fibers fatigue. Having more fibers engaged leads to a lower RPE, as well as improved efficacy of the workout, as you are training more muscle.
Gradual Increase in Heart Rate
The gradual increase in heart rate has the more well-known benefits of increasing blood flow to muscles, which aids in injury prevention. However, it also provides the necessary time for the body to switch between the energy systems that are being primarily used. This allows the body to adjust to an increased oxygen and energy demand.
The benefits of allowing the body to have a sufficient adjustment period allows for a longer time to fatigue during high-intensity activity. Spoken more simply, by allowing for a proper warm-up time, an athlete is able to run harder for longer. Decreasing the strain on the body for the same duration of work when compared to a workout with less of a warm-up. Allowing for a greater volume of work due to being able to extend the workout longer.
Want to know more about what a sufficient warm-up looks like? Read more in The Training Club!