It’s cooling down outside, so, naturally, I’m going to talk about warming up. On one level, I’m not a big believer in warm-up exercises. The body will, in fact, warm up as we go along with our workout. That said, we don’t want to jump right into the most difficult and heaviest and most demanding bits of our workouts. We need a little preparation for that.
Now that I have everyone good and confused, let me unpack what warm-ups are and are not. Warm-ups are essentially slower and less challenging versions of the exercises we do during our workout and/or some cardio to get our hearts moving. They are kind of like practice versions of the real stuff. Because of the way I design workouts, the first exercise is always a cardio one, so the warm-up is essentially built in.
A lot of people think of stretching as a warm-up exercise. This is only sometimes true. Doing static stretches before doing some movement is not super effective for flexibility, can cause muscle pulls, and, if we are looking for personal bests in our lifts, can, according to some studies, have a negative impact on our one rep max. Dynamic stretching (think lunges or old-fashioned windmills) are better for warm-ups or static stretches can follow cardio.
In general, the older we are, the more warm-up we need. Yes, this is unfair. Please file the appropriate complaint form in the round file. I would fix it if I could. I will, however, point out that a little extra warm-up time is way better than sideline time due to injury.
Bottom line: do a few minutes of cardio and maybe some dynamic stretching before doing the heavy lifting.
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