Warm-up movements are physical activities before the sport or exercise. They aim to prepare the body physically and mentally, which helps avoid muscle stiffness or cramps.
It's worth noting that a cramped body may damage various body tissues and tense the muscles. This can happen when you engage in intense activities without warming up or stretching.
Various ways to warm up allow your body to move and ensure the workout can go off without a hitch.
Examples of Warm-Up Movements
Before stretching your body, you need to understand some well-known warm-up movements. They're essential to ensure your safety during the exercise and have many positive effects. There are various warm-up movements that you can apply before exercising:
1. Head Warm-Up
To do the head warm-up, you can move the neck clockwise for 8 seconds. After that, do it in the opposite direction and count up to 8 seconds.
The head will respond by increasing brain function, heart rate, and oxygen absorption to help perform excellent sports activities.
2. Waist Twist
The next move is the waist twist, which plays almost similarly to the head warm-up.
Stretch the legs in the direction of the shoulders, then rotate clockwise for 8 seconds. Likewise, do the same thing in the opposite direction.
This movement aims to maintain the flexibility of the waist when engaging in various activities. A flexible waist can help you engage in many sports activities more intensively.
3. Twisting the Knees
You should also warm up your knees before engaging in vigorous activities. Bring your knees together, wiggle them clockwise for 8 seconds, and vice versa.
This warm-up helps keep your knees flexible, which minimizes ankle sprains.
4. Shoulder Twist
The body movement relies heavily on the shoulders that constantly perform their functions, especially in sports activities like running.
To do this warm-up movement, you can hold your shoulders with your hands, then rotate them forward for 8 seconds, and vice versa towards the back.
5. Twisting Both Arms
The arms are also not out of the range of warm-up motions. This time, move both of your arms like a windmill for 8 seconds regularly. Do it carefully because overdoing it can risk soreness or joint errors.
6. Stretching the Thighs
You need to stretch your ankles, especially if you like to run long distances, such as 10 kilometers. Widen the leg gap and rest on one thigh, either on the left or right side.
Do this movement gradually, usually within 8 seconds, to maintain the thigh muscle's flexibility that supports body weight first compared to the ankles.
7. Ankle Bends
Raise your legs while maintaining balance by warming up properly before sports activities, especially swimming, cycling, running, or soccer.
This warm-up step helps train the leg, thigh, and heel flexibility. This way, your body will regulate your body balance and provide signals to regulate temperature before exercising.
8. Wrist Bend
Before doing pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, and planks, bend the wrists to lessen the injury risks. You can fold the hands to the opposite part, such as the right hand to the left, and then gently press with the left hand. Vice versa, fold the left hand to the right and hold it with the right hand.
9. Straightening the Leg
This movement helps those who want to engage in long-distance running activities. Usually, the lower thighs and ankles serve as the main fulcrum.
Warm up by straightening your legs widely while sitting on the ground. Then, slowly move your body to adjust your leg's direction.
10. Forward Bends
One of the most important warm-up movements is bending the body to the front. You do this by straightening the legs. However, when you straighten the legs to each side, your body will bend forward with straight arms.
11. Menggerakan Torso Dalam Posisi Membungkuk
This movement can help increase waist flexibility, efficiently minimizing the risk of injury. To perform this movement, you can bend your body forward to form a 90-degree angle.
In this position, both legs and knees must remain straight, not bent. Move the torso to the left and right for eight counts each.
12. Leg Lifts and Twists
Lift one leg with the knee bent forward and hold it for eight seconds. Alternate between the left and right legs.
Then, bend one knee and pull the leg backward with your hands. Hold it for eight seconds before switching to the other leg. When finished, bend the knee and pull towards the side alternately left and right legs.
Pros of Warming Up
Warming up is easy and not as difficult as the sport itself. Here are the advantages of warming up before exercising:
- Flexes muscles.
- Increases heart rate.
- Increases body temperature.
- Improves blood circulation.
- Reduces the risk of injury.
- Improves body performance.
- Improves body breathing.
- Prepares joint flexibility.
- Improves muscle metabolism.
- Improves nerve impulse conduction.
A good and proper warm-up can take up to 15 minutes. One of the advantages of warm-up movements is that they help prepare the body.
So, those are some examples of warm-up movements you can try before starting a sports activity. By knowing these advantages, you fully understand its usefulness.
There are many activities you can do before exercising; all vary according to the needs of the sport. Usually when running, consider the thighs and waist, as they are different for swimming or cycling.
But it would be nice to train the whole body so your muscles are ready for sports activities.
However, do not forget post-exercise, including drinking enough water after spending a lot of energy. This lets you avoid the risk of dehydration after exercise.
So don't forget to drink AQUA to restore lost body fluids after exercise. The purity of AQUA is unquestionable because AQUA protects the ecosystem around the water source, properly maintaining 17 mountain springs spread from Sabang to Merauke.
The healthy mineral water content of AQUA also has health benefits for the body. It contains calcium, potassium, magnesium, zinc, silica, and so on to fulfill the needs of bones, teeth, and other organs.
Only AQUA has 3 protections, one of which is protecting its water source ecosystem. In doing this, AQUA maintains its minerals and carefully processes them.
So, prepare AQUA bottles first to keep yourself hydrated, especially after exercising.
So, have you drunk AQUA today?
