I am 100% guilty of not dedicating enough time for a warm-up. 9/10 I am in the gym early in the morning and have to hit timelines in order to start the day. I breeze over one of the more important aspects of training: The warmup. My "send it" philosophy comes back to bit me. Warming up prepares you physically and mentally for training and has been shown to improvement performance. Faster muscle contractions, rate of force development, reaction time, improvements in strength and power, increased oxygen (through the Bohr effect) and increased psychological preparedness are some of the positive effects of warming up. Negative aspects of warming up are_______. Yep, that's right. No negative effects exist from warming up. The physical side of warming up are fairly obvious-get the body moving, get the joints limber then attack the training. Mentally, Training generally at the same time elicits an adaptation from the autonomic nervous system to prepare for training. This is why many fitness enthusiasts speaking very highly of being consistent with training. It is not just the consistency of working out it is the consistency of mentally preparing yourself. Generally, speaking this oversimplification of get the body moving can be broken down into temperature and non-temperature related improvements. Temperature correlates to muscle temperature, core temperature, enhanced neural function. Non-Temperature is more associated with increased blood flow, elevation of oxygen consumption and post activation potentiation. These benefits are elicited from actively warming up. Yes, sitting in your car passively with the seat warmers on will warm up your muscles and core temperature but you're not getting the whole benefit. Its equivalent to eating a doughnut for breakfast-yea you had breakfast and its calories, but it does have severe limitations.
The actual warm up typically consists of two phases: General and Specific. General warm up of slow aerobic activity lasts for approximately five minutes. General warm-ups fit into any activity. Walking/jogging, biking, elliptical are all good examples of a general warm up. The goal is to progressively warm up the body for exercise. More often than not light stretching is incorporated into the general warm up (after the initial five minutes of warming up). One note about stretching (especially static stretching) is that it is a mixed bag of research pertaining towards force production activities such as sprinting/jumping and reaction/movement time activities. If you're going to static stretch conduct it after completing those activities. Imagine taking a rubber band and stretching it out then attempting to shoot it as far as you can. That is what you are doing to your muscles statically stretching before force production activates.
Specific warm is specific to that workout. For example, let's say I am benching. First, I would warm up with really light weight then gradually ease into more weight. The goal is to fulfil the R.A.M.P. protocol. R=Raise meaning to raise the level of temperature of the body and increase skill level. In our benching example start with a machine then progress into barbell benching. A=activate and M=Mobilize entails movement patterns and includes more dynamic movement that reflect upcoming training. Full and complete range of motion are key here. Dynamic movements involve multi-joints and can be time efficient. P=Potentiation. Potentiation refers more to skillful movements that typically involve activates that pertain towards sports specific activities. If I am about to play basketball, then potentiation would include layups using generic moves and speed then progressing into game like movements and sharp cutting.
Two key aspects about warming up is that after warming up you have approximately 15 min to conduct your activity. Anything over 15 min you start to lose the effects of warming up. Another is to differentiate between warming up for training which may entail short-, medium- and long-term planning to get overall develpment and competition warm up that acutely gets you ready for competition.
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