Don’t Skip the Warm-up!

Courtesy Photo | Travis Combest, an exercise physiologist in Nutrition Services at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, recommends people warm-up before exercising or starting a sports activity.  

UNITED STATES

04.13.2022

Courtesy Story

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

By Travis Combest
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

It’s the time of the year again when flowers bloom, the temperature rises, and we want to get outside to get physically active. Whether it’s walking, running, playing basketball or conducting a group exercise activity, it is important to prepare prior to physical activity. It’s important to include a warm-up routine to prepare your body for physical activity.
The warm-up prepares your body for exercise by getting the blood to the muscles, increasing range of motion needed to perform the physical activity, and aids in the movement pattern for the intended sport, according to David Bishop, a world leader in muscle exercise physiology with more 250 publications and who serves as professor at the School of Human Movement and Exercise Science, University of Western Australia.
Research has shown that a small warm-up routine, even for a few minutes, can decrease injuries when performed before participating in sports. The 2019 study “Effectiveness of Warm-Up Routine on the Ankle Injuries Prevention in Young Female Basketball Players: A Randomized Controlled Trial,” published by the National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine, states, “An effective warm-up (WU) is a period of preparatory exercise to improve training performance and reduce sports injuries.” The study concludes that while further investigation is needed, “An 8-min combined warm-up routine for 10 weeks improves the ankle dorsiflexion ROM [range of motion] and CoP [center of pressure] displacement that plays a key role in ankle injuries prevention in basketball players.”
Here are some tips for warming-up recommended by Bishop.
• Keep it low to moderate in intensity. You may sweat and be able to carry on a conversation while exercising, but warming up at a high intensity (hard, and not able to carry on conversation while exercising), and performing a physical activity in short period of time could impact performance.
• Keep it short. The warm-up routine doesn’t have to take too long, approximately around five minutes.
• Keep it broad. Involve the major muscle groups such as the trunk, arms and legs.
It is important to be active to work towards meeting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans for health benefits, which recommend 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate intensity aerobic physical activity, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity aerobic physical activity with muscle-strengthening activities at least two days a week.
Find activities that are enjoyable to you, put physical activity into your schedule and stick to it. Get active and enjoy the nice weather, but don’t skip the warm-up. (Combest is an exercise physiologist in Nutrition Services at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center)

• Date Taken: 04.13.2022
• Date Posted: 04.13.2022 09:37
• Story ID: 418400
• Location: US