The four virtues of warming up before a workout

Loane Nader 7:00 p.m., February 03, 2023

After months of sports practice, are you still waiting for the first results to appear?

Worse, you hurt yourself without even knowing how!

It's probably because you neglected the essential part of the warm-up.

Coach Akim Ben Mzakar reminds Mélanie Gomez and Julia Vignali in

warming up is the key to effective and successful sports practice.

Whether you play basketball, football, or bodybuilding, good physical preparation before exercise is full of virtues. 

Prepare the heart for effort

First, the first virtue of warming up is that it increases your heart rate and thus prepares the heart for the effort.

If you start with a particularly intense workout without warming up, you expose your heart to a lot of palpitations.

It is therefore better to avoid being out of breath after ten minutes of training!

Oxygenate the organs

The second virtue, which you will notice in the quality of your performance, is the oxygenation of the organs.

As the coach explains, "oxygen arrives through the blood, and the blood passes through small pipes. It's simple, if the pipe is wider and more dilated, it brings back more oxygen.".

Again, shortness of breath will come more quickly if you don't give the blood time to circulate through your body, organs and muscles.

Once is not custom, the athlete must know how to be patient.

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Prepare the muscles for possible shocks

Obviously, like an engine, the joints of the body must be oiled to run smoothly.

The third virtue of warming up is therefore to prepare the tissues, ligaments and muscles for possible shocks, in order to avoid injuries.

For

, Sébastien Ratelle, teacher and researcher in exercise physiology at the University of Clermont Auvergne, advances his expertise.

For the latter, "raising the temperature of the muscles makes it possible to lower their stiffness and that of the tissues. It is not advisable to play sports when cold. There seems to be more muscle elongation, sprain . Ligaments can be affected."

Prepare yourself mentally to exceed your limits

Finally, the last virtue and not the least is that the warm-up allows the athlete to prepare mentally to exceed the limits of his anatomy.

This is also the effect that the sports trainer likes the most: "The warm-up allows you to enter into the session psychologically. I visualize my session, my program, it is such and such an exercise. You you are focused, focused, and it allows you to better approach the session."

So that's a good reason to extend your sessions by an additional ten minutes, to be as determined as Rocky Balboa before entering the ring!

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The coach's advice for a good warm-up

After praising the merits of the warm-up, Amir Ben Mzakar gives a complete program, suitable for all kinds of training.

"The first small round is intended to warm up your joints, so rotation of the head for 30 seconds, rotation of the wrists, ankles and knees. You do this small circuit three times", explains the specialist.

Then comes the effort with the flagship exercise of the military: "Then there is the warm-up. You will start with jumping jacks for 30 seconds". 

Hold on because there are still 30 seconds of knee and heel-butt lifts to loosen up your joints.

Finish with the "shoulder taps" by putting yourself in a cladding position: "You will touch the left shoulder, the right shoulder, the left shoulder" and so on for 30 seconds.

Same refrain for the "mountain climber" by bringing the knees to the chest in the sheathing position.

These exercises will allow you to stimulate your wrists, shoulders, ankles and all the joints prone to injury.

With all these tips, you will be the most efficient and resistant of athletes!