The best warm-up exercises

One of the most essential things for a good workout is performing a good warm-up. With a warm-up exercise, you prepare your muscles for a period of intensive movement. It helps your body perform better and it can prevent many injuries. Although every sport is different, there are many warm-up exercises that are the same to warm up your muscles properly. What is a warm-up, what is the use of a warm-up and what types of warm-up exercises are there? You can read it all in this blog!

What is a warm-up?

With a warm-up you prepare your body and muscles for a physical activity. Warm-up literally means 'warming up', the intention is that you gradually warm up your muscles, whereby the heart rate also increases. The intention is therefore not to exhaust yourself completely during a warm-up. This is not good for your muscles and you are already tired before you start your actual activity. As mentioned above, every sporting activity has its own warm-up. For example, in football you naturally use your legs the most. The warm-up exercise is focused on warming up your leg muscles. In fitness you often train your entire body. The warm-up is also adapted to this. The opposite of a warm-up is a cool-down. These are exercises that you perform after physical exertion to let the body come to rest again. Here you let your body get used to the normal rhythm again by, for example, doing stretching exercises or walking at a leisurely pace.

What are the benefits of a warm-up?

There are many reasons to warm up before exercising. Not only are your muscles and heart rate prepared for movement, your brain is also taken out of rest mode. This improves your focus during exertion and allows you to perform better. By preparing your brain for the upcoming intensive movements, you allow your brain to get used to the exercise. This improves your coordination.

By moving at a gradual pace, blood circulation is also accelerated. This means that muscles are supplied with blood more quickly, which in turn helps prevent injuries. It helps to use good breathing techniques during the warm-up. This way, your body gets more oxygen, which has a positive effect on your blood circulation.

The best warm-up exercises?

As mentioned above, every sport has its own warm-up. Therefore, we will describe the best general warm-up exercises that you can use for every physical sport activity. With this, you will warm up your muscles and prepare your brain and body for an intense effort.

Warm-up for

• Warm-up for endurance sports:
  In endurance sports, such as many ball sports, it is important to prepare your body for long and intensive movements. The warm-up for endurance sports is not only intended to prepare your body for the upcoming efforts, it also helps against cramps after physical exertion. Start with a gentle jog at a consistent pace. This way you do not get out of breath and do not waste energy. Then continue your warm-up with exercises for your legs and/or arms, depending on the sport you are going to perform.

• Warm-up for strength training:
  Whether you are a regular at the gym or are new to the world of fitness: before you start your strength training, an active warm-up is very important. You want to increase your heart rate to warm up your muscles through blood circulation. With strength training, you usually use your entire body, so during a warm-up for strength training, the intention is to warm up your entire body. The ideal device to do this is the cross trainer. With this, you warm up both your entire leg and arm muscles and after a period of 10 to 15 minutes your muscles are ready for strength training.

Stretching and bending.

Should you stretch after a warm-up? The answer to this question varies per sports activity. When you are warming up your muscles for strength training, it is not advisable to stretch after the warm-up. This can reduce strength performance. For endurance sports, stretching is advisable to loosen all the muscles properly. This helps prevent injuries.

Warm up muscles with ointment.

To help your muscles warm up during the warm-up, you can use a special ointment or gel. Muscle gel is designed to warm up your muscles and promote blood circulation. Muscle gel is also recommended when you have pain or injuries, as it soothes the symptoms of muscle and joint disorders. RÉVVI offers muscle gels that can be applied before, during and after the sports moment. More information about our muscle gels can be found on this page. Want to learn more about warming up your muscles? Then be sure to read our blog about heat therapy.