So how long do you need to warm-up? Again, personal comfort is the dominating factor here. You should be able to tell when you are properly warmed-up. You'll normally be sweating to a more or lesser extent, feel an increased body temperature, and most importantly feel loose and energized.
I normally run for about 10 minutes on an indoor track before proceeding with my warm-up and workout. Be Flexible. Be Immortal. We've all heard about the 'stereotypical' bodybuilder. Or even worse, perhaps even recited those dreadful words ourselves:. And what hurts most is that you know you've heard those very words before.
And hey, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a fanny pack and spandex! If that's your thing then go for it. There's one thing in there we must all be able to prove wrong: a Real bodybuilder has the flexibility to wipe his or her own backside without difficulty. In fact, it is nearly always true that bodybuilders do as they should have more flexibility than the average person.
This excludes gymnast and dedicated yoga enthusiasts, of course. However, building muscles will not make you more flexible. But lucky for us, being more flexible may help us build muscle Increasing your flexibility will benefit your workouts in several ways. With flexibility comes more tolerance to a broader range of motion that may be effectively utilized in your workouts to more precisely target your desired muscle, as well as allowing you to more easily keep perfect form with most exercises.
Stretching greatly helps to reduce the chance of excess strain or injury, and is a quintessential part of a proper warm up. It helps to relax and lengthen the muscles being stretched, allowing more essential blood flow and preparing the muscle for use. Something most people do not consider is the concept of over-stretching. When you stretch lightly, tendons and muscles are pulled and may relax to 'give' a little, improving the range of motion slightly. However, if you try to stretch too much, too far, or too hard you will actually cause small rips and tears in the muscles and tendons that you are stretching.
These tears are rarely permanent, however they will leave the muscle or tendon to be a little weaker than it would have been without the stretching. Our goal here is not to hurt ourselves, but to put our body into a system where it must gradually adapt to the stresses of stretching by increasing our range of motion. It is not uncommon for people to immediately try to stretch farther than they should be trying, and hurt themselves. Please keep in mind that the pyramids were not built in a day, patience and work over time will provide your greatest success.
In other words: Don't push your stretches to the point of pain, ever. There's a huge difference between stretching to the point of pain over-stretching and stretching to gentle limits of your current range of motion.
Tension is good, pain is bad. Don't overdo it. This could be debated to death if someone truly cared that much about it. Many swear by static stretches, others by dynamic stretches, and every once and a while someone even encourages ballistic stretches. What's best? I believe a combination of static and dynamic stretches to be the most beneficial and safest.
Ballistic stretches, on the other hand, should be avoided like the plague. This can be very dangerous and should, in my humble opinion at least, never be done under any circumstances. Some might argue otherwise, but I am not one of them.
So you're ready to start? You're still warm from your run, right? I personally recommend that to get the best of your stretching you should always have blood flowing and be feeling warm before starting your stretches.
The reason is for nearly the same as why you should always warm up before your workout. More blood is healthy, allows for a greater range of motion, and a smaller chance of injury. Even with stretching. Find a combination of static and dynamic stretches that suits you, and try and stretch your entire body. I personally like to perform most dynamic stretches than static, but I still always perform static toe-touches and my furthest attempts at the splits.
The Author's Stretching. I personally do not have a direct "system" for stretching. I go by how I feel, and advise that everyone should do the same. If I'm already feeling real loose before I begin my warm-up stretches, I may only do a few stretches and skip ahead. Likewise, if I'm particularly stiff on a day, I will dedicate more time to becoming more limber before continuing with my workout.
I don't count seconds, I don't count "reps", I go purely by feel. You can tell when you feel loose and when you feel as though you should stick with a particular stretch for another 30 seconds, just trust your body. I prefer and recommend stretching every day, even non-workout days.
On non-workout days, I still feel it's important and beneficial to still warm up before stretching, however I may do it in a different way such as by dancing, jumping on a trampoline, or shooting hoops in the driveway for a while. I usually spend about minutes stretching for warm up on workout days, and minutes stretching on non-workout days to further increase my flexibility.
We've established that it's not particularly easy or healthy, for that matter to go from a relative state of rest to a stressful, hardcore workout.
It is more prone to injury and won't perform at its maximum potential without gradually working into the work. With that in mind, consider the possibility that your body may also need to ease it's way out of work, or rather, into an efficient state of rest. During a taxing workout, your muscles will accumulate minute amounts of lactic acid, carbon dioxide, calcium, and other counter-productive agents.
By properly cooling down, you allow the heightened blood flow to continue flushing these elements out of your system, while gradually reaching a state of homeostasis equilibrium or balance where it can quickly begin healing and repairing the tissue damage. A proper cool down is like a much less strenuous warm-up.
A good cool down usually consists of nothing more complicated than several minutes of walking or riding a stationary bike at a relatively slow pace. Whilst doing the activity your breathing should be able to return to a relaxed pattern and your heart rate should slow.
Normally during the cool down you should be going so gently that before you're done you should no longer be sweating. A good time to reach is minutes of light cool down, followed by another round of stretching similar to what you did during your warm up. This should help reduce instances of DOMS and also to help expedite the recovery process. Let's face it, recovery is as big a part of the bodybuilding game as the actual workout is. The problem is that many novices fail to acknowledge this and put forth the effort outside the gym that they do inside.
If you want to make the most of the recovery portion of your lifting ventures, you need the right supplementation to help you on your way. Muscle is protein, if you want to build muscle you'll need the building blocks of those proteins. Whey will help, especially when taken with a high GI, simple carb drink that will spike insulin levels, driving the protein into your muscles where it can more quickly be utilized to rebuild. Glutamine is naturally found throughout the body and is used by the immune system for fuel.
After workout out, glutamine levels are severely lower than normal, and as a result the body may break down muscle tissue to replenish glutamine levels.
Since your muscles are hopefully already torn, you run the risk of having these muscles used to replenish your natural glutamine levels. By supplementing post-workout with l-glutamine, you can help reduce the risk of muscle catabolism.
The only drawback is that the Calcium in milk and most proteins can dampen the effect of ZMA, so it should not be taken with anything containing calcium. If you want to get the most out of your workout, you have to realize that it is not only the time under a bar or inside a power rack that matters. So often neglected, a proper stretching regimen, and both warm-up and cool-down routines can be the key to unlocking your full potential.
Don't short-change yourself, start making the most of your workouts today! Often you hear the phrase "warming up" and you automatically associate it with weight lifting, but it also expands to other sports and has many benefits.
You hear it often, but do you even know what warming up actually is? The dictionary defines it as:. This is exactly what warming up is! This is a solid belief that lay in the minds of many lifters, and as usual But I am here to tell you the facts about warming up. Warm ups usually consist of a brisk minute jog on the treadmill, minutes jumping rope personal favorite because it makes me feel like Rocky , and then by pyramiding weight up for your exercise you are about to do.
Deadlifting, squatting, and bench-pressing are all huge compound movements which always require a good amount of warming up, due to the fact they involve many muscles. More muscles, more room for error and injury.
I take many precautions when I deal with big compound movements, because when I lift heavy there is no room for error. As the weight of your deadlift, squat, and bench go up, you must adjust accordingly to warming up. Pyramid your weight starting low. This situation is for maxing out, but it can also be used in normal work-outs. But instead shorten the reps and go deeper, faster. It is important to warm up, but its just as important not to fatigue yourself with it.
I see people doing 7 sets for warm up, what the heck is that! If your warm up for bench is 7 sets, I do not even want to see your actual work-out. That is overkill. Use logic when you lift! If you know in your gut what you're doing is stupid, don't do it. You rep and you never tried past ? Don't go benching , you will just tear a muscle and it will set you out of commission for a while.
Common sense and logic is your best friend. Neural pathways serve to connect relatively distant areas of the brain or nervous system, compared to the local communication of grey matter. Basically efficiency in neural pathways is a good thing, which will help your coordination- and help keep you focused throughout your workout. Basic Ballistic Stretching.
With ALL the benefits of warming up, why shouldn't you do it? Now that you have been introduced to warming up, meet its cousins "stretching" and "cooling down". Though, the sequences of stretching, cooling down, and warming up are highly debated among fitness enthuses I will go into further detail why stretching isn't as essential to US in the beginning, as it is in other sports. Ballistic stretching uses the momentum of a moving body or a limb in an attempt to force it beyond its normal range of motion.
Stretching isn't just bending over to touch your feet for 5 seconds, but it also is a process which adapts your body to what it has just undergone. I truly believe that stretching after a work out will help you with its long-term and short-term benefits. Even though a man like Ronnie Coleman is admired for his size, he isn't exactly the stiff macho-man he is made out to be. Ronnie Coleman can actually do the splits, which is a sight to see. You may be his size in a matter of years, so it's probably best to stay flexible.
Stretching routines are fairly simple to follow, don't think of it as another workout. Make your stretches fun, I may come off as sounding like a yoga instructor but trust me, I am far from that. Instead of only stretching muscles that you recently used, start by stretching as many muscles as you can. This will help promote better growth in the long run. You should also know that stretching was believed to be better pre work-out but recent studies prove that if you do stretch before a workout, it can drastically reduce your strength.
If your strength is reduced, you cant lift as much, which will lower your potential of growth. Hyperextensions are a great way to stretch your abs, you can even add weights after you are comfortable with your body weight. The first two tasks were easy because I could easily work myself up to it, but run five miles!
I was an ectomorph weighing in at about lbs and I got pretty winded after a single mile. My best time was so I was terrified of the five miles. The time came at the end of the semester when I had to run it, and I started the first mile by jogging lightly until I was covered in a light sweat, the second to third mile I was jogging on, still going at a decent speed. The fourth mile hit me like a brick wall, but I persevered and I walked a bit until I was at 4 and a half miles.
I sprinted the last half and I was done. I collapsed and went straight into the weight room! I lifted for about half an hour and I went home and took a cool shower and fell asleep.
The next morning My whole body shutdown, every inch of my body was aching. It took me about a week or two to fully recover, that is how I know the importance of cooling down.
Now that you have been formally known about my painful mistake first-hand, I can tell you why I felt like I did. Destroying your muscles and then letting them heal to grow bigger and stronger. Muscles will protect themselves by contracting and bunching up once you have stopped destroying them, this will shorten the muscle. Eventually it will stretch back to a good length once it is repaired, but this will still leave it shorter than it was before.
In order to keep your muscle length, you must stretch! As your time goes on, the waste products will make your muscles stiff when they eventually cool down. If you can remove all possibly waste products that you physically can before the muscles cool down, then they will be less stiff afterwards. All you can do is to get rid of the waste the best you can, by cooling down. Whey is always a must in recovery, before you even touch any other canister, bottle, or jar you should always turn to your best friend- protein.
Protein will never turn its back on you, it will always give itself fully, to help you build your muscle promote great growth. I use Optimum Nutrition Whey simply for the fact that it is cheap, great tasting, and it's given me great results. I have tried numerous whey products but they never lasted the test of time, because a frothy chocolate shake is always welcome anytime of the day, but you can easily grow tired of lemonade, berry, and all that other fruity stuff.
My secret is to add a tablespoon of It will make it very airy, sweet and add tons of flavor. Lets face it people. Due to poor agricultural farming, over production, pesticide infestation, and many other horrible things- we can never all get the vitamins we need from our food nowadays.
Eating all our wheaties, vegetables, and milk just won't cut it anymore. We need a reliable source of vitamins and multivitamins are our answers. It is hard for me to put it in a simpler way than this, so I will quote it straight out of Bodybuilding.
Glutamine is basically a product which will reduce muscle atrophy when cutting, or help grow muscle when bulking. It is a great product which many bodybuilders and other athletes swear by, it helps in protein metabolism and also is stored deep within our muscle cells, so be sure to refill on your glutamine.
I truly believe Green Tea is underrated in the world of athleticism. Green Tea is high in anti oxidants, so it will flush all the toxins out of your body. It will relieve oxidative stress, protects skin from ultraviolet light, and it has a very high caffeine content.
The high caffeine content will keep you energized and ready to blast through your workout. I always drink at least 10 oz of it pre-workout because it always seems to help me. No-Xplode is always a great Nitric Oxide product. The caffeine that it contains will keep you mentally focused and make you feel confident.
It has been known to give vascular pumps immediately after consumption and give better performance, strength and endurance. I usually take No-Xplode as a pick-me-up on those days when you're not quite feeling it. Whey will always be my number one and only Post-Workout supplement. I do not like to put a lot of foreign substances in my body unless I know how they are going to react, but Whey is always useful.
Protein post-workout will go straight into the blood stream and provide your muscles with the material it needs to grow. There is a minute time span in which you must supply your muscles with sufficient protein, which will further increase your potential for growth. How Important Is Warming Up? Everyone wants to make progress, but sometimes injury can haunt us and not allow us to make progress and instead send us backwards.
The good news is the majority of injuries can be prevented from occurring. How may you ask? By preparing properly for all your workouts carefully and correctly. This means warming up and cooling down before putting your joints and muscles under the stresses of heavy resistance. Unfortunately these two processes are very often done incorrectly, unsubstantially and sometimes not done at all. Warming up is very important before any workout, whether it be before a m sprint or before maxing out on bench press.
But the question you may be asking is why is it important? The answer is because it prepares muscles and joints for greater levels of activity, and also primes CNS to fire. It also has numerous other benefits such as:. Stretching, when done correctly and properly, can assist in the prevention of both injury and soreness, as well as increasing flexibility.
There are many types of stretching, such as static, dynamic, ballistic, passive, active and assisted. All serve their different purposes, but the two you should be most concerned with, in terms of your warm up and cool down for weight training and other similar activities are dynamic and static stretching, which I will talk about later.
Overstretching however is not a good idea. This will make you more prone to injury by overtraining and will consequently take you longer to improve your flexibility. Overstretching will produce microscopic tears micro traumas causing your muscular soreness, which will occur during or immediately after the stretch if severe, or a day or two later if minor.
This can hinder your ability to recover quickly from a workout, so don't over do it. When stretching prior to working out, the best type of stretches to perform are dynamic stretches. These stretches reduce muscle stiffness, which is related to muscle injury. Dynamic stretches consist of controlled leg and arm swings.
Stretching during your workout is not necessary; just perform your warm up sets prior to each exercise. If you are going to stretch during your workout, don't stretch the muscle you are directly using in the movement s , stretch the antagonistic muscles e. This has been shown to be of great assistance and can help improve your performance in the movement s. You are only required to stretch the body parts you are working on the day. However keep in mind you must know what muscles and joints you are working in the particular exercise s , a lot of the time there are a lot more muscles involved than you think.
After a light jog, to increase body temperature break a sweat I will perform some of the following stretches, depending on what muscle and joints groups I am targeting on that day.
Once I have finished my workout, I normally go for a light 5 minute walk to cool down, then perform the following stretches, again depending on the muscle groups that have been worked during my workout. Does It Affect Muscle Recovery? Cooling down decreases body temperature and will remove any waste products, such as lactic acid, from the muscles that are being used. The other benefits of cooling down include:. A good meal will energize you. So, go ahead and make yourself a good meal before hitting the gym.
Before you start your weight training , learn this mantra: always lift weight lighter than what you think you can and then progress slowly. Picking the heaviest weight just to prove that you are not weak is not a very sustainable way to go.
You might be risking swelling, damage and injury. Sleeping well is extremely important. So, go to bed early and get some sleep!
We already know that everyone must drink at least eight glasses of water to stay healthy. While H2O is crucial for your overall health, it plays a significant role in your fitness routine. So, you need to make sure that you are consuming water to avoid dehydration. Being hydrated will ensure that your energy levels are high enough for you to maximise on your physical potential.
For best results, focus on muscles that tend to be short and tight. The main culprits across the anatomy are:. Before diving in, a quick word on static stretching when you hold a stretch in a set position for a set amount of time. Static stretching for more than 60 seconds does negatively impact performance namely, it reduces power output.
Dynamic stretching on the other hand does improve performance. It also does a great job to unlock mobility as it reduces tension in the surrounding soft tissues.
Pick movements and perform 10 reps of each. Focus on the joints that are key players in the exercises you have planned. As a general guideline, here are 3 dynamic stretches for the lower and upper body that pretty much everyone can benefit from:. CARs controlled articular rotations are a mobility exercise that involve isolating a joint and actively moving it through its full range of motion.
This is going to engage all the surrounding muscles as they work together to coordinate the motion — great for enhancing motor control.
This action is also going to siphon blood to the joint and stimulate the release of synovial fluid. All in all, this promotes smooth, efficient, and coordinated motion. The purpose of this phase is to fire up key stabilizing muscles. Examples are the rotator cuff in the shoulder for the upper body and the gluteal group the butt in other words for the lower body.
The activation drills you pick should match up with the main lift you have that day. Pick exercises and perform 2 sets of reps with a second rest between sets. For example, before squatting, you can perform one move for the stabilisers such as x-band walks for the hip abductors and one for a prime mover such as glute bridges for the gluteus maximus. There are many exercise options and to choose from. Everyone will respond differently. Whichever you choose, be a stickler for pristine form and focus your mind on the muscles being targeted.
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