How many times have you heard “let’s warm-up” or “let’s stretch” used interchangeably?
It happens a lot, and these days it goes almost unnoticed.
It’s not so much that the terminology creates problems for physical and recreational activity: rather, it’s the content of the activity that is performed.
Let’s try to clear up the confusion as far as possible.
Warming up
Warming up is the activity that prepares an athlete (or also someone who is performing a simple motor activity) to begin training or to compete. In general, we can say that warming up improves performance and reduces the risk of injury.
We could certainly content ourselves with that, but to take things a bit further we can also say that warming up creates the physiological conditions that:
· Make muscles contract faster
· Make intramuscular coordination more effective (meaning the coordination between agonist and antagonist muscles during contraction and relaxation)
· Improve muscle activity in terms of strength and power
· Decrease viscosity in the muscle
· Reduce the nerve stimulus transmission time
· Improve the release of oxygen from hemoglobin and myoglobin
· Improve the circulation of blood to the muscles involve
· Improve all metabolic reactions
· Activate all biochemical reactions
And that’s just a small sample of the conditions that are created during the warm-up phase; there are many others but these are probably enough to show that it’s a necessary step.
Scientific evidence however has not completely cleared up whether the risk of injury is also reduced, in part because some of these conditions can reduce the perception of pain and therefore lead athletes to push harder against their own pain and self-protection thresholds.
Stretching
Stretching on the other hand is an activity that can be “integrated” into the warm-up but can never replace it. In this case as well, safe prevention against injury and accidents has been fully revised in the literature. Currently there is some small evidence that stretching before and after exercise can reduce the pain or the risk of injuries.
At the same time, there is strong scientific evidence that definitively advises against stretching before a competition, as well as before strength, power, speed, and strength resistance training and any exercise that requires instant reaction times.
Therefore, whether exercising as a team or in the gym, the first step must always be at least 10 minutes of warm-up. Stretching can be included after this phase.
In upcoming articles we’ll try to clarify good recommended warm-up activities, including some for athletes striving for lofty goals.
For now, enjoy your workout and watch your terminology. 🙂
Wellness regards,
The Technogym Oman Team