If you go to the gym, you probably noticed just like me that most people just start their weight training routine with no prior warm up at all or, at best, a few minutes on the treadmill as their only warm up. Often, it is because they feel that warming up is a waste of precious training time. But the truth is skipping the warm up is not only dangerous for both muscles and joints, but also leads to lower quality workouts which actually means more wasted time. So why and how should you warm up?
Why warm up?
Warming up serves two key purposes:
1. It should increase the blood flow to the muscles to prepare them for more vigorous activity.
2. It should lubricate the joints and increase the range of motion of all limbs to reduce injury risks.
That is why running on a treadmill is far from enough to prepare the whole body for a weight training workout. It will get the heart rate up and warm up most of the leg muscles, but weight training workouts involve a lot more muscles than running and the joints in a wider range of motion.
There is always time to warm up
It only takes three minutes for the body to start pumping more blood to the muscles. Adding some dynamic stretching can also take as little as two to three minutes. Also, doing a proper warm up can help make your workouts more efficient, getting you the results you were looking for faster with less risk of having to take a break because of injury.
Warming up before weight lifting
Jogging or spending 3 minutes on an elliptical machine is a great start to a warm up. Once your heart rate and body temperature is up, it is time to move onto doing drills. By drills, I mean movements that mimic the exercises you will do in the gym, but without the weights. Follow these by dynamic stretches such as leg swings (forward and back and side to side), butt kicks, arm circles, twists, and other moves that will get all your joints progressively through their full range of motion. If you plan on lifting a very heavy weight (5RM-1RM) it is often a good idea to first prepare mentally and physically for the lift by first doing the lift a couple of time with a much lighter weight or no weights at all before doing the actual heavy lift.
Here are two videos I have selected for inspiration: