As discussed in a previous post, warming up before exercise is extremely important and should be tailored according to the type of exercise you plan to do afterwards.
Warming up for power and weight training exercises (Including push ups, squats, bicep curls etc)
1) Pulse raising activity: Start by activating your body through gentle locomotive exercises. Locomotive exercises include cycling, jogging or even walking. If you are at home, you can even walk or jog up and down the stairs.
Watch out! If you have stiff joints, make sure you do a specific “mobility warm up” before you start exercising. Joint mobility warm ups will be discussed on our next post.
2) Joint mobility warm up. (we will be looking into it on the next post)
3) Abs warm up: You need to start by doing very soft ab movements. One technique you could try is the “cat-camel” warm up.
RECOMMENDED: Cardio from Fushi
Cat-camel is a safe intervertebral joint mobility exercise. It must be done slowly and you must take a break after every set of 5-6 repetitions.
i) Put your hands directly under your shoulders and your knees under your hips.
ii) Lift head and chest up and take your bottom out, making a lumbar, dorsal and cervical extension – this is the “cat position”.
iii) Then move on to the “camel position”. Bring your head down, sink the stomach and arch your back towards the ceiling into a hump, making a lumbar, dorsal and cervical extension.
iv) It is important not to bend your elbows nor move your body during the exercise.
v) Please look carefully at the drawings before doing the Cat-camel exercise. You must imitate each movement and body position.
vi) Hands, knees and feet must be leaning against the floor at all times.
4) Muscle stretching. Remember that we are focusing on power exercises not flexibility, so make sure you spend 15-30 seconds on each stretch (look out for muscle stretching exercises on next posts).
SEE ALSO: Stretching
5) Now you are ready to start doing power exercises. If you are planning to do weights, remember that you must warm up first by doing a few sets of repetitions of the exercise with lower weights.
Warming up for cardio exercises:
1) Joint mobility warm up (we will be looking into it on the next post).
2) Pulse raising activity.
3) Stretching exercises (look out for muscle stretching exercises on next posts).
4) Locomotor exercises (bike, jog…) – remember, physic and psychological activation. You need to do cardio warm up to prepare for the cardio exercises. Start off with low pace and raise it gradually. As we mentioned on our previous post, warming up should never be tiring.
Remember that we will be telling you about “joint mobility” stretching and other warm up exercises in our next post.
