The warm up is an essential component of any fitness routine but is often overlooked by many. If you find yourself ignoring the warm up and hoeing right into your exercise routine, then think again because you could be short-changing your fitness goals. A proper warm up can turn a ho-hum workout into one of the best calorie burning, fat blasting sessions you will ever give yourself.

Why We Need To Warm Up

A warm up consists of much more than simply getting on a treadmill and walking/jogging for 5-10 minutes. Conversely the warm up also should never be as intense as your actual workout. The level of effort lies somewhere in between.

The warm up is intended to increase the blood flow to the muscles to reduce the risk of injury when exercising.

But it also helps to ‘wake up’ the central nervous system (CNS). This is important because an activated CNS will switch on the motor units in the muscle fibres. In effect, it helps you to run faster, jump higher, swim longer, set your own PBs (personal bests) when exercising.

In essence, a switched on CNS can help you burn body fat more efficiently.

How To Activate the CNS in Your Warm Up

Long gone are the days when we used to stretch before exercising. We now know that stretching cold muscles prior to exercising actually makes muscles vulnerable to injury. Stretching after a warm up also is now considered unnecessary as it allows the body to cool down too much, detracting from the benefits of the warm up.

The best way to warm up is to use dynamic movements that promote flexibility, improve blood flow to the muscles and wake up the CNS.

A slow, steady paced start-up routine such as walking or slow swimming, will simply keep the CNS idling away. In fact what you need is a routine that revs up the CNS enabling fast communication to be directed from the brain to the muscle fibres.

The faster the messages can be sent from the brain to activate muscles, the faster your work ratio becomes and the more calories you burn when exercising. This is important and it’s what you want as it allows you a better workout that delivers results.

Below are some suggested exercises you can use for your next warm up routine.

1. Switche on the CNS
   1. Jumping Jacks x 15
   2. Spiderman Lunges x 10-15 each leg
   3. Hill runs x 5 (run up a hill for 25 metres and walk back down to repeat)
2. Activate the Muscle Fibres (warms the smaller joint stabilizers of the glutes, hips and back)
   1. Walking Lunges 25 metres
   2. Downward Dog and Spiderman Lunge combo x 8 each side
   3. Swimming strokes with the arms only x 10 each arm
3. Increase Joint Mobility (stretches the muscles for better joint movement)
   1. Standing Torso Rotations x 5 each side
   2. Lateral Lunge with Front Arm Raises x 5 each side