The science behind the warmup

[evelynk]

@jesusloverr For me a student who just sit his ass on the bed for couple of hours, warmup is just for prepping my body, like preparing my muscles and my heart for a workout.
When I don't warmup, I basically has less strength and mobility by a bit because I've been inactive for so long.

So do a warmup just to make sure nothing bad happens.

 

[uselessnumberone]

@jesusloverr I've gotten injured a fair bit from doing cold pullups for example. I never particularly cared about the theory of it or what anyone had to say about it, I just personally experienced more strain and injuries whenever I would not warm up so it's just a purely logical thing to not skip it these days.

 

[seekingthelord633]

@jesusloverr Way I see it, if someone is completely healthy(in terms of joints, muscle, bone), then they can do without warmup.

How many people are realistically 100% healthy tho?

From (6 years of) trial and error, I know that if I warmup before benching, I have a decent chance of finishing that workout without right shoulder pain. Without a warmup on the other hand, I have a very high chance of aggravating my shitty shoulder girdle.

 

[anthonysrbn]

@jesusloverr I see a lot of people posting their personal experience so I thought I'd share mine as well. I rarely warm up. For upper body days, I do literally nothing and just jump into my first set. On leg day I do 1-2 warm up sets building up to my working sets on barbell squats and deadlifts.

I'm 36. I've had my fair share of injuries but all of them were either from overtraining or poor form on an exercise I wasn't experienced with. I often wonder if warmups could improve my performance in a session but I've never made the effort to include them as I have limited time and I'm happy with my progress most of the time.

 

[hello_there]

@jesusloverr When I was younger I never warmed up. As I get older I find I need to more and more.

 

[myaccount1]

@jesusloverr Thanks for posting this. I have been fairly active for most of my life and pretty much never warmed up for anything. I spent the past few years working as a furniture delivery person and mover and again, never warmed up. My "major" injuries have all been due to accidents, not lack of warmup.

For the past few years I've been training in HEMA, as well--again with minimal warmup. I've started doing some warmup just because I enjoy doing some other movements, but with my workouts, it seems to just make the whole process longer without any benefit. I've never heard good arguments for warming up beyond that it is received truth.

Honestly, at this point, "warmup" just seems like an excuse to add on some other exercises which many people would otherwise ignore--brief cardio, range-of-motion exercises and other things which aren't as glamorous as focused training.

 

[dawn16]

@myaccount1 I'm with you.

I kinda feel like the more higher frequency training and the less variety I do, the less warmup matters.

 

[jesusloverr]

@myaccount1 Had never heard of HEMA before. Looks exciting!

This thread has produced some really divided opinions on the subject of warming up. Clearly if science had categorical proof of one or the other you’d think we would all be closer to an agreement, but the fact that it hasn’t makes me really unsure about which is better. I guess the jury is still out on this one.

 

[mikejohn1]

@jesusloverr I think it is important to warm up. I've noticed a difference in myself, I would get shoulder pain, but warming up basically solved that for me and prevented it. I pay special attention to the shoulders/rotator cuff. I may go workout without warming up properly but I can't do that every single session and it's purely laziness regardless. I don't want to take time rehabbing when I could've just warmed up.

I think the whole idea of not warming up to "be able to use your full strength at any time" is a dumb argument that I've seen a lot.

Also, others have mentioned it but just look at the literature about warming up. I get it works for him but avoiding warming up will absolutely not work for everyone and it shouldn't be advertised as such.

 

[neda]

@jesusloverr If I don't warm up by doing dynamic warmup moves for my legs I'll get a calf cramp. I have to increase blood flow and mind body connection to certain muscle groups of they will sleep on the job and other muscles will take over and it'll hurt.

It's like 3 minutes of movement before I do whatever. Small price to pay for a smooth workout.

 

[carrhappy]

@jesusloverr I have done both no warm up and excessive warm ups. What I have found works for me is to treat my 'warm up' like a stage in my work out. I just do a bunch of crawling drills, pushups, chin ups, body weight squats of various kinds, center line things like various plank drills and some light loaded carries and any mobility work I feel needs extra work. It doesn't actually feel like a warm up so much as it does moving my body around the way it was meant to. After that I can easily jump right into deadlifting 400+ pounds or doing 300 burpees, sprinting, weighted calisthenics, or whatever I want to do and it feels good to me

 

[valentinusheretic]

@jesusloverr At my age getting out of bed, getting to the bathroom is a warm up.

 

[jesusloverr]

@valentinusheretic Feels! How old are you?

 

[liv212]

@jesusloverr I feel like warm ups are a way of creating mind-muscle-jpint connection before you start loading them why th a lot of stress.

 

[dawn16]

@jesusloverr Feels like doing stuff like a full back lever or an iron cross or something without warming up is like asking for your tendons to snap or fuck up your shoulders

Is it needed for basic exercises? Probably not and basics can be used as a warmup

 

[miketemple2008]

@jesusloverr So I have no idea about science background of warmups but I will speak nonetheless, just based on my own experiences.

I've been working out for two and a half year now. Mostly calisthenics but also with a free weight from time to time. At the beginning I was warming up for 15-20 minutes before every workout - it was at this time when I got my 2 major injuries, and yes - both of them during the warmup and not actual training.

The first time I sprained my wrist. This forced me to completely stop working out for 2 months and my wrist hurts to this day if I perform an uncontrolled move.

Second time something snapped in my shoulder. This yet again made me stop working out and hurts to this day, but only when I sleep, not during workouts.

Since the second injury I stopped warming up in general, and surprise surprise... not even a minor injury since then, and I'm in my peak performance ever. As I mentioned, I don't know a thing about science behind warmups, maybe I was doing it wrong, maybe I'm the type that shouldn't warm up at all, but what I know is that I probably won't ever warm up again.

 

[jesusloverr]

@miketemple2008 This is interesting. How old are you? And what kind of movements were you doing in your warmups?

 

[miketemple2008]

@jesusloverr I'm 23 now. During warmups I've been doing dynamic movements like jumping jacks and arm circling, and also resistance bands excercises.

 

[carley9897]

@jesusloverr I've found for handstands, I don't do wrists warmups. However, when I try to do a handstand within one or two hours after waking up, it just feels wrong and bad. In the afternoon or evening it is fine. So I imagine I do 'naturally' warm up the muscles. I always do a little baby kickup to test if my wrists are fine nowadays.

For flexibility I do stretch without a warmup, but the range that I can comfortably stretch is much shorter than after I'm already warmed up. So from those I clearly surmise that a warmup does change things in your body.

Is a warmup necessary? My answer is that it probably depends on whether the person can feel if it is safe to do something or feels of. Are you the kind of person who always pushes 100%? Probably want a warmup to be safe. Are you the kind of person who is careful? Maybe not necessary.

 

[jesusloverr]

@carley9897 Yeah this seems like a fair observation. The only thing I’d add is, I wonder if some people may go into a workout “feeling” fine, but then still go and injure themselves. So in your scenario we have to question our own ability to judge whether we need a warmup or not. I suppose some will be better judges than others in this regard