WHAT IS A WARM-UP and w
hat is its purpose?
Like the weather, wait a minute and it will change.
Is coffee good or not? Wine? The application of heat and/or cold? To sit up, crunch, or plank? How to stretch, when to stretch, if to stretch? Wait a minute and whatever you decide is bound to be out of style or back in style.
Remember R-I-C-E? Poor old R-I-C-E: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevate for sprains was with us for so many years is no longer de rigueur, which is fine because it never worked anyway. According to an article in Medscape some 28,000 ankle sprains occur daily in the United States and only 35% – 85% of sprained ankles are healed in 3 years. In place of RICE we now have POLICE and METH which won’t work either. See my blog for MICE which does work: Ankle Sprains: Rice, Police, Meth, or Mice – Bonnie Prudden Myotherapy
Which finally brings us back to WARM-UP. Google WARM-UP and you will get 101 options. And so it is left up to you to figure out what is right, wrong, works best for you and doesn’t hurt. YOU are the expert of your own body. NO ONE knows your body like you do.
As a physical education major oh so many years ago (1956-1960) I never once remember having the word WARM-UP a part of my so-called education. It wasn’t until 1971 when I attended a physical fitness weekend workshop by Bonnie Prudden that I was introduced, not only to the word WARM-UP but to the purpose and the process.
Bonnie was a physical fitness pioneer and co-founder of the President’s Council on Youth Fitness, established under Eisenhower. That weekend was an eye opener in many ways and it changed my life. I went on to study and work with Bonnie for the next 40+ years. This involved, in part, teaching small local classes as well as large workshops with hundreds of participants of every variety and age from all over the country for what was called FIVE DAYS TO FITNESS. We worked on the gym floor from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm for five days. Every single one of these classes started with a warm up. And never once was anyone ever injured during these many classes.
The following are excerpts from Bonnie’s books.
THE WARM-UP
“All physical activity should be preceded with warm-up exercise. People have begun to hear about warm-ups, but most confuse it with stretch because they don’t know what warm-ups are for or what they do.”
THE PURPOSE OF WARM-UP
“The purpose of a warm-up is to ready the muscles for action.”
“They protect against injury, since warm muscles are twenty percent more efficient than cold muscles, the warm-up determines your performance.”
“Warm-up exercises are designed to get the heart beating faster so that larger amounts of warm, oxygenated blood flows faster to the extremities you expect to use in the activity.”
“The system by which these qualities are obtained involves the body’s pump, the heart. The heart needs to be primed a little and the motor brought to a higher level of function before exercising. This is accomplished via exercises that increase heartbeat but neither stretch nor strain cold muscles.”
WHAT IS A WARM-UP?
“Warm-up exercises are done from a standing, spread-leg position, and involve arm swings, waist twists, hip and shoulder rotations, half and full knee-bends, toe rises, ceiling reaches, overhead lateral reaches, crawl strokes, back-strokes, breast strokes – anything that will not strain muscles but will get the heart beating and raise a sweat.”
“A good warm-up is rhythmic, swinging exercise done to music and with feet flat on the floor. Such exercise is usually done for anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes. When you can feel your heart beating a tattoo and there is a film of sweat on your upper lip, you know that your extremities are getting the warming blood they need for whatever you are going to do next.”
Click below for an example of a WARM-UP with and without music.
- Daily Dozen Part I: Teaching Version
- Daily Dozen Part II: Follow Along
If you do this warm-up with me 5 times a day you will relieve muscle tension before it has time to accumulate in the muscles as stiffness and pain and you will have done 20 minutes of productive exercise.
- Click here for an additional warm-up for the upper body if you were, for instance, a tennis player.
- Click here for additional leg and foot work for anything that involves running.
WHAT A WARM-UP IS NOT
“No extreme stretching or spike exercise such as running or jumping should ever be done without warm-up. Running or jumping are not “warm-ups.” Cold muscles are tense and inelastic. They do not respond to orders the way warm, elastic muscles respond. You do not warm up by running around the track, doing jumping jacks in place, or hopping up and down as in “aerobic dance.” If there is a tight muscle anywhere in your body, those activities will cause that muscle to tighten and even to cramp.”
“That means there is no jumping as in jumping jacks (the warm-up standby of coaches for years). It also means that you don’t warm-up by jogging or doing a lay-up drill or a light contact drill as in basketball and football.”
ALWAYS WARM-UP. IF THERE IS NO TIME FOR ANYTHING ELSE, ALWAYS WARM-UP.
WARM-UP, PLAY SAFE.
——————————————————–
If you have questions or need help, email me at enid@bonnieprudden.com.
For more information about Bonnie Prudden®, Bonnie Prudden Myotherapy®, workshops, books, self-help tools, DVDs, educational videos, and blogs, visit www.bonnieprudden.com. Or call 520-299-8064 if you have questions or need help. Enid Whittaker, Managing Director, Bonnie Prudden Myotherapy®