by Kimberley Heit

Created on: June 30, 2008

TIME POOR is increasingly how many people feel so it's no surprise that people try and cut corners. When it comes to exercise one of these corners is often warming up. Sure it might seem like a good idea to jump straight into high calorie burning exercise, but if you end up out of commission from an injury you won't be able to exercise at all. Instead you should aim to always include at few quick and easy warm-up exercises.

Just 5-10 minutes of warming up will gradually ease you into a workout without injury. A Warm-up performs the following functions:

-Increases your body temperature a degree or two, which warms your muscles making them more flexible.

-Prepares your heart for more strenuous activity by enabling oxygen to travel at a higher speed in the blood.

-Enhances the level of fluid located between the joints therefore reducing friction during a workout.

-Increases enzyme activity.

Warming up is really a two part process with step one being to increase the warmth in your body and step two being stretching.

STEP ONE:

The easiest and quickest way to prepare your body for a workout is to perform moves similar to what you will perform during the workout, but at a lower intensity. Exercise at about 70-80% of full intensity. For example if you plan on going for a jog, warm up by walking fast then gently jogging only just picking your feet up off the ground. As you feel your body warm and your muscles relax then pick your feet up higher and lengthen your stride.

Some examples of simple movements that warm your body include; walking fast, marching on the spot, swinging your arms and clenching and unclenching your fists.

STEP TWO:

Stretching is performed after step one because when the body is warm there is a decreased risk of injuring a muscle. The type of stretches you need to do depend on the type of exercise you intend on performing. You need to stretch all of the muscles that will be worked during your workout. It would be impossible to cover stretches for every specific type of exercise in one article, but the instructions to some common stretches are listed below.

Please do some research yourself to see what is recommended for the exercise you intend on performing. If you are going to be kicking a ball or doing some form of kickboxing lower body stretches will be very important like hamstring and quad stretches. If you plan on working the upper body with weights upper body stretches are very important like triceps and shoulder stretches.

Whilst performing your stretches

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