As a mom and resident physician, time is of the essence. I don’t want to waste any time in the gym, so I make sure I’m doing the most effective warm-up and exercises to achieve my goals.
As a former physiotherapist, I saw two major mistakes people make with warming up: The first is not warming up at all. A solid warm-up can reduce the risk of injury and increase the amount of force your muscles generate.
The second mistake is having an onerous warm-up that eats up a lot of time. I remember the warm-ups for wrestling practice used to be a whole workout in and of themselves.
This may not be a problem; if you love your 20-minute warm-up, then keep going! But time is the most common reason cited as to why people stop working out. Cutting back your warm-up reduces total workout time, and can lead to better consistency.
So, let’s go through how to warm up quickly and effectively.
Know Your Workout Goals
The right warm-up will depend on what you’re aiming for with your workout.
Most people, myself included, workout to be healthier.
Like I wrote about in this post, the Canadian guidelines recommend 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise and two muscle-strengthening sessions per week. Hitting these guidelines means that you’ll reap serious health benefits, like reducing the risk of death and chronic disease, and improving mental health.
If the goal is to workout to improve health, the aim of the game is consistency. Other goals of working out can be building muscle, improving endurance, or having fun. If you play a competitive sport, your workout goals will be sport-specific, and beyond the scope of this post.
Once you know your workout goals, it’s time to figure out what you want to get out of warming up.
Know Your Warm-up Goals
If you workout for your health, great job! Let’s keep the ball rolling with a warm-up that’s good for your health too.
Warming up can help reduce the risk of injury. This is key for keeping you active week after week and year after year.
Warming up can also help prepare your nervous system, joints, and muscles for the task ahead.
My goal is to do the least amount of work while effectively reducing my risk of injury. Read on for how to do a proper warm-up, and have a look at this review article if you want more detailed information.
The Right Warm-up
Warming up properly is actually extremely simple: do a lighter version of the movements you’ll do for your workout.
That’s it.
If you’re lifting weights, this means doing one or two warm-up sets of an exercise before you get into the working sets. (Working sets are the difficult sets that promote strength and muscle-building, where the true work is done.)
For example, I start one of my weightlifting workouts with hamstring curls. I do one to two sets of curls at half the weight of my working set. That’s my only warm-up. For my next exercise, lateral raises, I do one set at half the weight of my working set.
In practice, the heavier the weight, the more easier sets I’ll do before building up to my full working sets. For bicep curls, I do one warm-up set. But for squats I’ll do two.
For my weekly cardio session, I like the elliptical. My warm-up is easy: I do a few minutes at a slower pace, and then I ramp up into intensity.
This is called a specific warm-up. Makes sense – it’s specific to the exercise you’re about to do. Specific warm-ups reduce the risk of injury, increase strength and power for weightlifting, and take very little time to do.
This works for any sport or activity. Just dial down the intensity for 5-10 minutes before you start exercising at a higher intensity. (More about how to judge intensity here.)
What About General Warm-ups?
General warm-ups are different. They focus on physically warming the body up with general movements. An example would be walking on the treadmill before lifting weights. Or doing some light calisthenics before going for a jog.
General warm-ups may not be as effective as specific ones, especially if the warm-up movements are very different from the ones you’ll be doing in your workout.
Also, they shouldn’t replace specific warm-ups. This means that doing a general and specific warm-up takes more time, without evidence of reducing injury rate more than a specific one alone.
For example, I used to walk on the treadmill for ten minutes before I started my weight lifting session, but then still have to do an easy set before each exercise. Now, I’ve cut out the general warm-up and stuck with what’s been shown to work better to reduce injury.
What About Static Stretching?
Static stretching is when you hold a muscle in its lengthened position for 30 seconds or more. I recommend against doing this before a workout. First, there isn’t enough evidence to show that it prevents injury. In fact, some scientific studies show that it reduces force output from muscles, which is detrimental to anything you’re trying to achieve with a workout.
Plus, stretching like this is often completely different from the workout movements. Doing a hamstring stretch doesn’t look much like doing a hamstring curl.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s not dangerous. But static stretching is the least effective way to warm up.
My three main messages from this post are:
1. Warm up with movements and exercises that are specific to your workout
2. Don’t feel like you need to stretch or do a cardio session as a warm-up
3. Do whatever you want for a warm-up if you love it and it’s working for you!
Stay well friends,
Dr. Kuhnow
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