warming up?

[Bgkatz]

this is probably a really silly question:

How important is a 5 min warm-up before starting your lifting session?

[Sunshineslynn]

very.....you never want to train cold muscles. I generally do warm up sets on my first exercise then hit the weights heavy. Just make sure that the warm ups are very light since you do not want to drain the muscle to much before you workout.

[gfundaro]

Yes, very! You have a greater risk of strain/sprain/tearing when you skip your warmup. I always speedwalk for a mile before I lift, cause the gym is a mile away hehe :-) Then when I get there, I stretch and do some easy high knees to make sure I'm really warmed up, and it's sort of a mental thing too. If I don't warm up I feel like I won't perform as well on my lift.

[moon girl]

I do 2-3 warmup sets for each body part and that works well for me. I walk to the gym (25-30 mins) so that might help loosen things up as well.

[Bgkatz]

ooohh, Yup Ive been a bad girl then. I kinda knew it though, in the back of my mind. I have such limited time I guess I just want to jump into it. Ive never had a problem hurting myself or anything so I just kept omitting a warm-up.

But I def. dont want to wait to strain something, so I'll start adding a warm-up on the ole treadmill.

Thanks gals!