![]() Your muscles demand higher amounts of oxygen while exercising, so it’s important to make this oxygen more available through a warm-up activity. Improved Oxygen Efficiency - When you do a warm-up exercise, oxygen is released from your blood more readily, and at higher temperatures.Your blood carries the oxygen needed for your muscles to function, so increasing your blood flow is one of the best things you can do to set your muscles up for a workout. Improved Blood Flow - Warming up for 10 minutes with an easygoing activity improves blood flowing to your skeletal muscles, and opens up blood capillaries.Warming up improves your athletic performance in the following ways: To safely cool down, gradually reduce the pace of your exercise during the last 10 minutes of your session - for example, if you’re jogging, reduce your pace to a brisk walk for the last 10 minutes. Cooling down also helps to regulate your blood flow, which is especially important for people who undertake endurance sports such as long distance running. During your workout, your heart rate has been pumping much higher than it does normally, and it’s important to ease it back down instead of abruptly stopping all motion. This also minimizes muscle soreness.Ĭooling down after your workout aims to gradually bring your heart rate and blood pressure to its normal level - the level it was at prior to exercising. It also helps to lower the risk of getting injured - when your muscles are adequately warmed up, the movements, stretches, and strain you put on them during your workout is less severe. Warming up before exercise prepares your cardiovascular system for physical activity, by increasing the blood flow to your muscles, and raising the temperature of your body. Warm up activities include light jogging, or cycling slowly on a bike. ![]() Why Warming Up and Cooling Down Is So ImportantĪ warm-up and a cool-down both involve doing exercises at a lower intensity and slower pace, which improves your athletic performance, prevents injuries, and helps with recovery from exercise. Unfortunately, it’s not just the main part of your workout that matters - and the people who skip the processes before and after a workout may be doing more harm to their bodies than they realize. After all, it is just the main part of the workout that counts, right? In most cases, it’s not because people hate doing the warm up or cool-down, but because they want to save time. You’d be surprised how many people decide they don’t need to warm up before working their core, or that it’s fine to skip their cool-down after jogging on the treadmill. Are you looking to start an exercise program to get back into shape and live a healthier lifestyle? An exercise routine may feel time consuming - but no matter what type of workout you choose, or how busy your schedule is, it’s critical that you don’t skip warming up before your workout, or cooling down afterwards.
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