Why You Should Warm Up and Cool Down

When we’re busy, it can be tempting to forego the preliminaries and jump directly into our workout. In this article, my aim is to remind you why taking the time to warm up and cool down is well worth the extra few minutes. 

Why Warm Up?

Warming up allows your body to transition from a sedentary to an active state. It will literally warm you up, so that your body temperature increases to a working level.

Warming up will also improve the mobility and flexibility of your muscles. By performing dynamic stretches before your exercise session you will be able to get your muscles prepared for the activity to come. They will be able to move more freely through their full range of motion without any problem.

You should not do any static stretching before your workout. This has been shown to decrease strength, power, and explosiveness. Dynamic stretching, where you move your muscles repeatedly through their full range of motion is more suitable as part of a pre-workout warm-up.

Warming up will help your muscles to relax. This will make you less likely to suffer an injury during your workout. Another benefit of taking a few minutes to warm up before a workout is that it will increase blood flow throughout the body. This speeds up the supply of oxygen and nutrients to your muscle cells. As a result, you will have more energy, priming your muscles for the increased workload to come. 

Research tells us that people who regularly warm-up have better workout performance. A 2010 meta-study evaluated 32 studies that looked at the effect that warming up had on workout performance.  The evaluators used the Physiotherapy Evidence Database scale. The study participants who warmed up prior to exercise showed marked improvement on 79 percent of the criteria evaluated. 

Muscles that are warmed up will also experience less muscle tension and pain.

Why Cool Down?

Just as warming up transitions your body from a static to an active state, the cool down does the opposite. 

Taking 3-5 minutes to cool down will allow your heart rate to normalize after a cardiovascular workout. By gradually transitioning back to a resting heart rate you will avoid any feelings of lightheadedness.

The cool down also allows your breathing to taper back down to its pre-exercise rate. 

There are also mental benefits to the cooldown. It provides you with a few minutes to reflect on the work you’ve been doing to make your body better. This can improve self-confidence and generally make you feel good about yourself. 

If you neglect your cooldown after a cardiovascular workout, you may experience dizziness or lightheadedness. Your cooldown will also allow for the gradual release of lactic acid that builds up during the workout.

There is also some research to show that people who regularly cool down after a workout are able to recover from their workout better and faster. 

Wrap Up

Warming up and cooling down should always form the bookends of your workout. Even when you are tight on time, taking the extra few minutes to ease in and out of your training session will always be a smart investment.