Warming Up

Warming up does more than just warm up your body in preparation for exercise, it;

• increases your heart rate and thus blood flow around the body
• increases your respiration rate
• 'lubricates' your joints (motion is lotion)
• prepares muscles for stress (when resistance training)
• more...

Get your muscles warm, blood flowing etc. throughout your body, e.g. a five minute run on a treadmill or the same time on a cross trainer.

If resistance training, also do warm up sets to prepare the muscles for the hard work and stress ahead (use a weight between 50-80% of normal, or in other words between 20-50% lighter).

More beneficial than stretching in most cases although many stretch as part of their warm up.

See: Is it true that … stretching before exercise prevents injury?

Cooling down too?

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Created: 2026-01-14

Last Updated: 2026-06-23