Let’s talk about “Warm Up”

Keketso Mothibi

How many of us stretch before exercise? I guess a lot of us and we have two different types of stretches when it comes to exercise. Static stretching vs Dynamic warm up.

With warm up the trick is to do appropriate warm up in order to prepare your body for what it’s about to do . I find a lot of people do static stretching as a warm up when planning to do an intense full body workout and I strongly discourage that.

Lets look at the difference between static stretching and dynamic warm up. Static stretching exercises helps relax muscles and mind to reduces stress level. Regular static stretching improves flexibility and it can be a workout on its own which we call Yoga. If you put 5-10 minutes aside before your work out to do static stretching, it can lead to your muscles’ core temperature dropping. Although your muscles may be stretched and feel loose, they will actually be less elastic and not as powerful.

While dynamic warm up means your body is continuously moving even while stretching. The purposes of warm up is to prepare your muscles for the hard work its about to do and increase muscle temperature and with dynamic stretching it will be accomplished. Dynamic stretching helps to improve the range of motion around your joints. This will help reduce the chances of injury and over time it will improve your performance and maximize your movements due to the increase in flexibility of your joints.

Don’t get me wrong stretching is good whether static or dynamic. My dynamic warm up is usually based on my exercise programe. For example squats, lunges, step up without using weights. Refer to the previous article – No excuse: body weight. I also love twisting my mid section and moving my arms fulr ciruculation. I also jogot on the spot moving my arms as well.

I do static stretching on a regular basis as this helps to relax my muscles, body and mind. Below are few moves you can try at home which helps to improve back muscles.