Best Dynamic Warm Up Before Exercise

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How do you get your body ready for exercise? Is there a wrong way to warm up before exercise? Well, actually, yes. When you start to exercise quickly, without warming up your body, literally, you make it easier to get injured.

The best way to prepare your body for exercise is with a dynamic stretching routine to warm up your muscles.

Even when you are excited and don’t want to take any time to warm up for your run, yoga practice, or tennis match, warming up your tissues is simply the best way to prevent injury.

You may have “gotten away with” quick starts for your body at one point in your life, but our tissues begin to require a more tender, slower approach.

Dynamic stretches are the perfect way to get ready for your golf swing, 5-mile run, or contact sport.

What Are Dynamic Stretches?

Simply, dynamic stretches involve moving your joints and muscles around a full range of motion before you start intense actions.

Think about doing the jumping splits. Before you jump down on the ground with your legs in opposite directions like David Lee Roth, it’s best to rotate those hips at little first. Those hip rotations are a perfect example of a dynamic stretch.

Unlike static stretches, which do not involve much joint movement, dynamic stretches are active, using motion to do the warm-up.

It’s best to use “softer” less aggressive motions in your dynamic warm-up of the activity you are about to do.

For example, a tennis player would jump rope to warm up the ankles and feet. Next the tennis player would gently rotate their arms, shrug their shoulders, or press their hands together, palm to palm, as their first dynamic warm-up. Next, a plank or just a few pushups can help get their rotator cuff muscles moving and warm.

Why Is Dynamic Warm-Up Important?

The simple motion, like walking lunges, squats, or a plank, without any weight or aggressive speed or power is the perfect way to get the body primed for more intense exercise.

These and other dynamic warm-ups are important because they prepare the muscles for more intense pulling, which helps prevent tissue tearing, pulling, straining, and other injuries.

Essentially, you start slow in the activity you are doing, and then, as you feel warmer, stronger, and start to sweat, you are ready for more intense movement.

A runner preparing with a dynamic warm-up, for example, could either run slowly for 100 meters or so, jump in place for 30 seconds. Next, they could add some butt kickers and high knees, walking squats, and toe raises before they start to put any effort into their stride length or sprinting. This will get all the tendons around the feet, knees, and hips full of circulating blood and ready to perform.

If you make a habit of starting with a dynamic warm-up, you are paving the way for your body to work at its peak performance for much longer than without warming up your body.

What Type Of Warm Up Is Not Good Before Exercise?

If you have seen several US Presidents & their staff move in & out of the White House, then you will remember the days of static stretches and bouncing.

Remember when athletes would show up to their sports practice or activity and start bouncing down to stretch their legs?

Or, another favorite memory of warm-up gone wrong is the 10 seconds warm-up: swing your arms really fast, shrug your shoulders a few times while you do a few air punches like Rocky Balboa, and then start your flag football game, soccer game, or playing basketball?

These are a recipe for injury.

How NOT To Warm-Up Before Exercise:

• Bounce towards the area you are stretching
• Stay in a deep stretch for more than 5-10 seconds
• Warm-up for less than 5 minutes
• Start fast or heavy

Dynamic Warm-up Examples:

Again, think of the activity you are about to do, and tone it down a notch with your active motions as your “Dynamic Warm-Up”.

Here are some examples of some active motions you could try. But remember, this list has almost endless possibilities, so come up with the best actions that focus on the areas you know you have problems with.

If you have a “frozen shoulder”, start with some shoulder shrugs or wrist rotations, for example. (Wrist rotations can help your shoulder calm down). Focus on your problem areas first and really pay attention to make sure the problem area is NOT HURTING with those basic mini movements BEFORE you go do the Big Golf Swing, or the Roger Federer serve.

If you are hurting with the mini, soft, small movements, consider NOT moving into the more intense movements. Or, maybe you could try a longer warm-up for those hurting areas.

Yoga Basic Dynamic Warm-Up Examples:

• Gently turn your neck from side to side
• Reach your hand over your head slowly
• Try the standing Cat-Cow stretch
• Tuck your chin

Golf Basic Dynamic Warm-Up Examples:

• Shrug your shoulders
• Stretch your arms out like Superman
• Push your elbows behind you like your were pushing ski poles
• Tuck your chin

Weight Lifting (chest & arms) Basic Warm-Up Examples:

• Cat and cow
• Planks and side planks
• Shoulder shrugs with twist
• Jump and holds
• Half (or full) pushups

Weight Lifting (chest & arms) Basic Warm-Up Examples:

• Walking lunges
• Crab walks
• Squats
• Jump rope
• Lean low, side to side
• Butt kickers
• High knees

Conclusion: Using A Dynamic Warm-Up Before Exercise Is A Smart Game Plan

Start your exercise with slow movements that are “smaller” versions of the “big movements”.

The goal of dynamic stretches is to warm up the tissues and joints before you do more intense motion.

This is a better plan than the outdated static stretching or NO warm-up at all. Though this saves time and gets you playing right away, it is a disaster waiting to happen in the long run.

Dynamic stretching is the best warm-up routine you can choose to prevent injury and keep your body moving pain-free for as long as possible.

Create your home workout plans now!

Related Article:
Back Stretch For Beginners

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