All too often do we hear people talk about how they hate warming up or how they have no time to cool down. With society throwing hundreds of “habits that will transform your life” in our faces, it’s hard to discern what is actually helpful versus what is just a marketing tactic.
What we can tell you is that the basics of human physiology has not changed, even if technology has a way of making you think it has.
What does this mean?
Specifically, we want to educate and inspire you to warm up and cool down properly! Our bodies need time and attention to be ready for exercise. It also needs time to decompress after exercising to ensure that we start recovering properly.
Warming Up
If you take CrossFit classes, every coach might warm up a little differently, but let’s talk about the different components that create a great warmup.
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Blood Flow
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Occurs when we start moving our body in a steady state, increasing our heart rate, skin temperature, and oxygen to our muscles. This prepares our muscles for exercise and reduces our risk of injury.
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Examples: light machine work (bike, row, ski), going for a light jog, jumping jacks, or single unders.
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Mobility
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After blood flow, it’s important to open up any areas of restriction. This will vary from person to person, but generally speaking, opening up our hips, shoulders, and thoracic spine are important before exercising. This allows us to move at our full range of motion, optimizing our performance.
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If we neglect mobility and allow areas of tightness to persist, we are setting up our body for injury.
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Examples: Deep lunges, boot strappers, hip circles, downdog to press-up, extended child’s pose, thread the needle, scorpion, cat/cow, iron cross.
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Specific Prep
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The goal is to break down complex movements of the workout to warm up movement patterns.
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This allows us to practice movements under light load and in a progression.
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It primes the muscles for high intensity and heavy load.
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Examples: Drills for olympic lifts and gymnastics (Going from simple to complex, we don’t just grab the bar and snatch, we warm up each piece first).
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Cooling Down
After the clock stops, most people rush out of the gym because they have a long to-do list waiting for them. But they are missing a crucial part of the workout. Cooling down enhances our recovery and gives us time and space to relax after working out.
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Low Intensity Cardio
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We don’t go from a full sprint to a dead stop, so why would we just walk out of the gym after a hard workout? Continuing to move after we stop working out can help lower our heart rate and relax our muscles.
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Examples: going for a walk with friends, riding the bike, easy rowing
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Foam Rolling
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Myofascial release helps to loosen tight and restricted fascia (connective tissue that surrounds the muscle). This gives a relief of tension and allows our muscles to move more freely.
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Any foam roller will work, or using other instruments like a lacrosse ball.
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The habits we keep are the ones that are easiest to stick to. Warming up and cooling down doesn’t have to be an elaborate process (although it can be if you have the time and resources). Warming up can be time to prepare the body and mind, and chat with some friends before the workout. Cooling down gives us the time to return our body back to its normal state, and our favorite way to do so is walking with friends and light foam rolling or stretching.
If you want to have a great workout and reduce your risk of injury, you need to be warming up and cooling down. We can increase our performance outside the time domains of the workout, in our warm up we can get better! We can improve our fitness level by cooling down and starting the recovery process faster. We can improve our lives by treating our bodies with the best care possible. We can even meet some new friends and have conversation before and after the workout!
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