Importance of Stretching
If you’re a strength athlete, you should be warming up before you lift. But, as with pretty much everything fitness-related, the internet has a lot of conflicting information about warming up. While there is seldom a “best” way to do something, most coaches and athletes would agree that the best warm ups share some key factors.
In this article, you can read up on the most common warm up methods and, more importantly, learn how to determine which kind of warm up is best for maximizing your performance during your workout.
A proper pre-lifting warm up is about priming your muscles, your nervous system, and your mind to train. For most athletes, doing a few reps — or even a lot of reps — with an empty bar doesn’t get your body adequately prepared for a heavy bench session. However, empty bar reps can be a key part of your warmup. To perform a complete warm up, though, you need to take different components of your training into account.
The goals of any warm up are:
Activate your muscles to reduce the risk of injury from lifting “cold.”
Get your head in the game so that you’re focused on the lifting itself.
Raise your body temperature to prepare yourself — and your cardiovascular system — for lifting.
The idea is simple enough. Putting in a little bit of work before your workout proper will make your training more comfortable and less threatening both mentally and physically, allowing you to focus on making the strength, size, or performance gains you’re really after.
