Welcome to the warm up and cool down area of the training hub. Please read on for all our tips and tricks to an effective warm up and cool down.
Warming up
What is a warm up?
Before any form of exercise you should have a sufficient warm up. This allows the muscles to fully prepare, and heart rate to slowly increase, before undertaking your activity. The aim of a warm up is to help the body prepare for your form of exercise and is an important factor to prevent injuries.
What should a warm up consist of?
A warm up should consist of a low intensity form of the exercise, such as a slow jog or cycle. This allows your heart rate to increase and gets your muscles ready for the session ahead. This should be followed by some dynamic stretching.
What is dynamic stretching?
Dynamic stretching is a movement based type of stretching. Instead of your traditional ‘static’ stretching, whereby you hold the stretch, a dynamic stretch involves movement and actual use of your muscles. This form of stretching is recommended before exercising. Static stretching should be used more in your cool down (see below for cool down tips).
What dynamic strectches should I be doing?
Performing dynamic stretches is very important before exercising. It helps to increase the range of motion and flexibility within your muscles. A few dynamic stretches you may want to perform include, but are not limited to:
- Walking forward, backward and lateral lunges
- High knees
- Heel kicks
- Feed the pigeon stretch
- Bounds
- Sumo squats
- Side skips
- Walking quadricep stretch
Googling dynamic stretches might help give you an idea of what stretches best work for you. After a few dynamic stretches, you’ll then want to perform some pulse raisers. A pulse raiser is what it says on the tin. They help to raise your pulse (heart rate). This will be the final part of your warm up to get you ready for your main session.
How long should my warm up be?
As a general rule of thumb a warm up should be between 5 and 15 minutes long, depending on the intensity of your main session.
Cooling down
What is the purpose of a cool down?
Similar to the warm up, a cool down is just as important to make sure you prevent any injuries from occurring. After your main session, performing a cool down is crucial to help reduce muscle soreness and to help lower your heart rate. This would generally consist of a lower intensity form of whichever activity you just performed. Followed by some static stretching or foam rolling.
What should my cool down consist of?
After your lower intensity run, cycle, walk or swim you will want to perform a series of static stretches. This will help to reduce the delay of muscle soreness (DOMS), meaning you’ll be less likely to have those dreaded ‘heavy legs’ the next morning. Performing each stretch for between 15 to 20 seconds will help to flush out any lactic acid buildup in your muscles and will help to aid recovery.
What streches should I do?
After your activity you’ll want to stretch the main muscle groups you worked out during the session. This'll be different for each sport. But here are a couple of major muscle groups my might want to focus on:
- Calves
- Hamstrings
- Quadriceps
- Glutes
- Adductors & Abductors
- Shoulders
- Lower and upper back
- Arms
- and so on and so forth
Once again, doing an online search or visiting youtube will help to give you an idea of how to properly stretch each muscle group.
Should I eat anything after exercising?
Making sure you have some sort of snacks, high in protein and carbohydrates, after exercise will also help to aid recovery. There’s a theoretical window to get these all important nutrients back into the body, this is generally within 30 minutes after exercise. Doing this will also aid recovery and help the body to repair. You’ll find some more nutrition tips here.
Contact us
If you have any question please get in touch by emailing events@parkinsons.org.uk.
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