WEEK THIRTY-TWO :: How Important Is Warming Up?

[sword chucks]

And 8-bit Theater rules!

yeah

did u hear about those peons? They would tell them "your a peon"

[TheMind]

I don't mean to be a jerk, but I don't think your editted response should be considered, Muscleboy333.

The deadline was yesterday, and even though it's only editted, that'd be like getting an extra day's extension to write....I know there's a lot more that I would have loved to wrote, but time permitting I had to rush things...I just don't think it should be allowed to have your second posting of your response to be considered for placement, it just doesn't seem fair to me, and I know that it would probably lead to future "But you let Muscleboy333 do it!" kind of problems with TOTW.


Ultimately that's up to Will, and like I said, I'm not trying to make you hate me or anything.....It just doesn't seem fair to me, or else I would have added more to mine as well, as I'm sure others would have to theirs. Deadlines are deadlines.

[muscleboy333]

I don't mean to be a jerk, but I don't think your editted response should be considered, Muscleboy333.

The deadline was yesterday, and even though it's only editted, that'd be like getting an extra day's extension to write....I know there's a lot more that I would have loved to wrote, but time permitting I had to rush things...I just don't think it should be allowed to have your second posting of your response to be considered for placement, it just doesn't seem fair to me, and I know that it would probably lead to future "But you let Muscleboy333 do it!" kind of problems with TOTW.


Ultimately that's up to Will, and like I said, I'm not trying to make you hate me or anything.....It just doesn't seem fair to me, or else I would have added more to mine as well, as I'm sure others would have to theirs. Deadlines are deadlines.

What are you talking about? I thought we had until Friday? My bad if deadline was yesterday...

[LosersWhine]

deadline was yesterday at 11:59 pm the results are posted at 5 pm mountain time friday

there ya go good post but like the mind said deadlines are deadlines

[TheMind]

What are you talking about? I thought we had until Friday? My bad if deadline was yesterday...

Week of 8th - 13th. The deadline was Midnight(EST I Assume) on the 13th.


From what I've seen, it's always over on a Wednesday, so that there is plenty of time to judge and reformat for the main page.

[sword chucks]

I don't mean to be a jerk, but I don't think your editted response should be considered, Muscleboy333.

The deadline was yesterday, and even though it's only editted, that'd be like getting an extra day's extension to write....I know there's a lot more that I would have loved to wrote, but time permitting I had to rush things...I just don't think it should be allowed to have your second posting of your response to be considered for placement, it just doesn't seem fair to me, and I know that it would probably lead to future "But you let Muscleboy333 do it!" kind of problems with TOTW.


Ultimately that's up to Will, and like I said, I'm not trying to make you hate me or anything.....It just doesn't seem fair to me, or else I would have added more to mine as well, as I'm sure others would have to theirs. Deadlines are deadlines.

this happens very often actually, people like doggiejoe post a day late or whatever, it's not a deadline set in stone and im sure if you posted a day late but it was before Will looked over the articles he wouldn't care.


besides, he's our buddy muscleboy333 how can you say "no" to muscleboy333?

[Semtex]

I don't mean to be a jerk, but I don't think your editted response should be considered, Muscleboy333.

The deadline was yesterday, and even though it's only editted, that'd be like getting an extra day's extension to write....I know there's a lot more that I would have loved to wrote, but time permitting I had to rush things...I just don't think it should be allowed to have your second posting of your response to be considered for placement, it just doesn't seem fair to me, and I know that it would probably lead to future "But you let Muscleboy333 do it!" kind of problems with TOTW.


Ultimately that's up to Will, and like I said, I'm not trying to make you hate me or anything.....It just doesn't seem fair to me, or else I would have added more to mine as well, as I'm sure others would have to theirs. Deadlines are deadlines.

Yea I also had stay up many extra hours working on mine, because I thought it was due wensday. I am not trying to bring up an excuse but if I had more time it would of been alot more detailed. Meh its basically over now, may the best man win. No use holding grudges.

[bigcalves]

Man, people that plagerize should be banned from Topic Of The Week. Its likely that they will register again and plagerize more.

I spend 2-4 hours developing and then writing my articles every Sunday night, and it feels bad that some loser can just copy some info, and if the webmasters dont catch it accidentally, can win instead of me or other hard working writers

[LosersWhine]

Yup, Im not trying to sound like im agreeing that you should plagerize. but putting myself in there mind set. They probably look up all this information spend hours just on that. Start typing then they read these excellent posts and realize that everything they just looked up has already been said so they need to be more detailed or add something so they just copy and paste since it is already detailed and everything.

Im not trying to defend plagerizers here as I think its totally wrong to steal another persons work that they pored hours into. People that should do it should be disqualified for that week and hopefully they learn. If it happens again they should be banned from participating in this weekly contest thing.

[TheMind]

besides, he's our buddy muscleboy333 how can you say "no" to muscleboy333?

I couldn't. I wouldn't. Is that even Possible?!

BUT....

He already had an article written, he just editted it....I think his original article should be his "entry", and his edit not be judged. Tha's all.


<3 Muscleboy333

[sword chucks]

I couldn't. I wouldn't. Is that even Possible?!

BUT....

He already had an article written, he just editted it....I think his original article should be his "entry", and his edit not be judged. Tha's all.


<3 Muscleboy333

depends if webmaster looked at it or not

lol

[Semtex]

Awesome thank you for the prizes. Only if I found this section out sooner, *sigh* so much wasted time arguing with trolls in the teen section.

[TheMind]

depends if webmaster looked at it or not

lol

According to the page, he didn't lol......


I think it's the right thing to do(not count it) but at the same time I think that sucks to put the time and effort into editting and then have it all for nothing

[Semtex]

According to the page, he didn't lol......


I think it's the right thing to do(not count it) but at the same time I think that sucks to put the time and effort into editting and then have it all for nothing

Well you can share your prize with him :P.

[rdjensen]

Proper warm up will affect your entire workout. I live in a cold climate and the warm up process for me starts with making sure I don’t get cold while traveling to the gym. If my body is cold then my muscles won’t preform. It’s like warming up your car before using it. If you step on the gas before your car is heated up then it will damage the engine. If your blood isn’t moving through your muscles when you lift heavy weight you may tear that muscle.

If you take pre-workout drinks like NO-Explode or Jacked 3D, your muscles have to have bloodflow. If your heart rate is resting the supplements won’t travel through your system efficiently. Even if your not using the pre-workout drinks your muscles still need sufficient blood flow before heavy lifting.

Those that don’t warm up will often complain that their supplements don’t do anything and they don’t feel the effect. This is because it is just sitting in their system. If you don’t start doing something it will eventually digest. And it will give you gas if not utilized. Same goes for protein shakes.

If you are lifting heavy I suggest jogging a half mile then doing about 15-25 reps of the muscle group that you will be lifting heavy with that day. If your have pre-workout supplement in your system you will start to feel them kick in during your reps.

If you skip the warm up process you will miss out on the “pump” sensation that you get in your muscles when you lift. Your skin gets tight around your muscles and it feels fantastic.

[gethuge1234]

Warm up = Happy muscles!!!!!!

[grantashley]

Warm up and warm down are as important as what you are warming up for. One thing doesnt work properly without the other.

[jp513]

I use my cardio as a warm up. I like the ellipticals the best cause your whole body is working. If it is LEGS day i keep it light 30 minutes on the teadmill walking at 3.5 mph

[tiger1999]

It is very important to warm up before training, but it is equally important to warm down after training.

[mimisoffice]

It is very important to warm up before training, but it is equally important to warm down after training.

Yes and it is so good to meditate after all the work!


It puts energy into your body!

[BBenti]

very important

[J-Beck]

Normally, everybody could see people stretch their muscle before workout. But you may notice that not everybody do that.

However, I'm just one person who do not see any important from stretching for a very long time until I injure. I try to find out the reason that why I feel pain at my shoulder joint, my tendons are tear, and many other injury. (many time.) and I have to off work out for months.

I think that it's happen because I never perform warm up set before work out. I skip the warm up set and life the weight that I should do. (Especially, on Bench Press day.) Now, I do warm up 1 set with 40 - 60% of the normal weight that I expect that I want to lift that day. I do tell everybody to see the necessary of warm up, too. If you never feel pain, you never know how it could be. You have to stop work out for a long time and this not worth.

Anyway, I think in my country do not have much people lift over-weight much. There are only a few people try to lift over-weight and I do not heard that those guy have seriously injure or not. However, maybe those guy injure but I do not heard.

In my opinion, stretching only the body part you want to workout is just fine and once you finish working. Stretching again for whole body part if you have time is great. I heard from trainer in my fitness claim that stretching after workout maybe reduce the recovery time of your muscle. If you can, try to attend the Yoga class, it's helpful.!

For the supplement that help recovery, I think Glutamine is the best. But if you want to increase your power, Any Carbo (i.e. Dextose) and Creatine is the Best supplement that you should try. It's worth for you money.

It's very important to warm up if you are going to be competing in an athletic event. I usually do a few stretches for the muscle group I'm going to be training in the gym and do about 15 reps for my first set as a warmup.

[grej]

it depends comp. on my mood..

[CapsL]

I'm bookmarking this thread

[yassinevitch]

-Lat stretch
Hang from a pullup bar with straps for a 60 seconds. Pretty simple and safe. Try varying up the grip for full development!
Another thing I like to do is grab onto a doorknob or the edge of a machine and extend to a full lat stretch and then twist my body. This really hits my lower lats as well.

-Biceps stretch
What I do to stretch biceps is get on an incline bench with my straps and turn my palms away from each other so that the biceps are sticking out directly at my side. What I mean is, with your palms facing behind you, turn your hands 270 degrees, not the short way. Then let your arms hang down.

-Chest stretch
I like to use dumbbells for this (well actually I don’t particularly like any stretch but you get the idea). I get on the flat bench and face my palms towards myself and then arch my back really hard and push my shoulders back as far as possible. After 40 seconds, I take 20 seconds to lower the weights with my biceps so it has an effect like a dumbbell flye.

-Shoulder stretch
This is a more traditional stretch. I put an elbow behind my head and push it back while holding onto the same limb with my other hand. Pretty simple, you have probably seen a lot of people doing this already.

-Tricep stretch
Put your elbow on a flat surface in front of you and put your hand in a bicep curl position. Push down on the forearm of this arm with the opposite hand. It is like you are contracting your biceps really hard actually.

My stretching routine

Something that is more useful for us bodybuilders to know is that stretching will increase the muscle size greatly by expanding connective tissue, giving it more room to grow. Arnold and many others believed in this technique and called it “fascia stretching”. My experiences with this have been great. I saw a huge difference in my muscle development after I added in these stretches- in fact, once I incorporated these, my weight gain began to skyrocket again after I had been stuck at the weight for 1 month! Coincidence? No such thing as a coincidence!

I use all of the stretches above but only those stretches. That can target every muscle effectively, there is no need to take time to stretch out the forearm extensors and flexors and other small muscles such as those.

After the last set for each muscle group in a given workout, I immediately go to my stretching station and perform a stretch for about 60 seconds. For the first 15-30 seconds I am easing into it and in the last 45 or so I am really feeling the pain but I push (not the best word choice mind you) through. Make sure you can look at a clock during these or you will cheat yourself!

Before training a muscle I feel that simply completing a few warm-up sets through a full range of motion is enough to adequately stretch the muscles. If you want to stretch before training make sure to warm up first. My coaches always said “you don’t stretch to warm up you warm up to stretch.” Remember, don’t stretch the muscle too much or you will not allow maximum training results!

My stretching routine has caused explosive growth all over my body. I am still more or less a scrawny punk compared to the bodybuilding greats, but I was amazed when I saw the results from just incorporating one minute of stretching into my workout!

Benefits to the Cool-Down

Like I said before, stretching and cooling-down go hand-in-hand. They allow the muscles to get back to a normal state after training.

Think of a sport practice. After a hard workout loaded with sprinting, hitting, and focusing, an athlete is usually jittery with a highly elevated heart rate. It is beneficial after this to take some time to “unwind”. It is the same for a bodybuilder after any workout.

How important the cool down is

I am going to be honest here. The cool down is NOT the most important part in any training program. However, myself and many others encourage it just because it is worth the one or two minutes that it takes to do a proper cool-down. A cool-down can simply be one light, high rep set for each muscle group to further prevent the muscles from being over-tightened.

Cooling down and recovery

As stated before, a proper cool-down can allow the muscles to lengthen and return to a normal state faster than they would if you had not cooled down. If you stretch properly, that will limit muscle soreness greatly. If you then take the time to cool the system down you can pretty much kiss soreness the day after a workout good-bye (unless you have not trained for the past month or more- but it will still help a great deal!)

As bodybuilders or athletes, we want to do all we can to maximize recovery and maximize the amount of growth we can get in during a short time frame, so we should take every action to maximize recovery!

Conclusion

I hope that after reading this article, you understand the many ways in which warming-up, cooling down and stretching are important. I also am confident that you learned a few tricks to build your own warm-up, cool down, and stretch routine, or if you already have some you can now add some new techniques to them. The methods explained in this article can be useful for people with any type of goal!

Overall, warming up does prevent injuries and maximize lifting performance. Warming up isn’t just a safety precaution though- it also has positive effects on a bodybuilder because after a warmup strength and focus should be peaked. Cooling down and stretching follow a workout and increase recovery greatly while also adding to overall health of the muscles.

Warming up, stretching and cooling down properly are often overlooked yet integral parts of any training program. They are very basic and traditional aspects of any athletic activity, but are often overlooked in the gym where they can be even more beneficial than in the field. These elements of training should become more commonly used in the future by those wishing to maximize performance and recovery! If you have time to exercise, you have time to warm up and cool-down/stretch!

Bonus

Recovery supplements

Before I go into actual supplements, I will take the old-fashioned route and say that NOTHING will aid in recovery like a calorie surplus and a lot of carbohydrates, especially around workouts. Basic food is what makes the difference, supplements just add tiny bits here and there for the most part.

Taking an EFA supplement will naturally boost testosterone levels. Taking Omega 3, 6, and 9’s come in pill form and will help recovery in many ways. Another thing I noticed is that ever since I began consuming 2-4 whole eggs per day, I have felt a lot stronger. Feels like more testosterone to me!

A simple creatine supplement is known to maximize ATP production so that the muscles readily become prepared for the next workout.

Citrulline Malate is called the “new kid on the block” as far as performance enhancers go. This product has effects ranging from limiting waste product build-up to increasing Nitric Oxide production. Both of these things help the body in the recovery cycle.

Pre workout

Pre workout energy and focus boosters have been getting great feedback recently. Sciviation, a great company with a lot of kind people behind it, has produced Neurostim. This product increases alertness and focus in a workout. You can imagine how much this will benefit and if you are having one of those days where you are dogging it in the gym you will wish you had bought neurostim! MRM’s Driven has similar effects while also packing some body composition-helping effects.

Taking a shake with amino acids and glucose is proven to greatly increase availability of both before a workout. This will really improve performance in any activity. The glucose provides a “carbed-up” feeling while the amino acids, which means things like glutamine and Taurine, will further aid energy and strength!

Post workout

There are two things to think of post workout. You should look to replenish muscle glycogen. This will increase the muscles’ energy for the next workout (not to mention post workout carbohydrates get sapped up into the muscles like water into a sponge). Also, think of reversing the catabolic processes that take place after a workout. NOW Dextrose does both things. Dextrose is the one carbohydrate that has the biggest effect on muscle glycogen stores and is the fastest absorbing.

What I recommend is to sip on a glucose and amino acid solution through your workout. Nothing too major, just 20-30 grams of glucose and 10 grams or so of amino acids. You can also put in any other supplements you use such as your creatine or citrulline malate and create a great recovery-aiding cocktail.

The main thing to think about post workout is not how many milligrams of Super Placebo RX you get in but getting in a good amount of carbs and protein so you feel re-fueled and simple supplementation can accomplish this just fine.

[yassinevitch]

-Lat stretch
Hang from a pullup bar with straps for a 60 seconds. Pretty simple and safe. Try varying up the grip for full development!
Another thing I like to do is grab onto a doorknob or the edge of a machine and extend to a full lat stretch and then twist my body. This really hits my lower lats as well

[transcend365]

I hear a lot of good points from both sides of the argument all the time about this. However, I can only say from personal experience...I run 5 to 6 days a week between 3.25 and 4.80 miles each run and I've never stretched before the run. I just never did it and I've had no problems. I've been running for years and I'm stuck in my ways so there is a good chance I will never stretch before a run. Sometimes I'll stretch muscle groups while doing free weights because it feels good or if I want to investigate a pain in a specific muscle, but no, I'm not a stretcher and I've had no problems, especially running.

[hotdog12345]

How important is it to warmup is like asking how important is it to breath. Without a proper warmup you do not get a good blood flow and oxygen flow to your muscles which would help you with your workouts. With proper warm up not stretching but warmup you can be more efficent in your workouts maximizing your muscles. Without proper warmup it will lead to injuries and also you wont be utalizing your muscles to the maxium. With stretching it is used for after your workouts not before. It keeps flexibility and also helps from muscle soreness plus proper stretching can lead to maxium muscle growth.

[TaylorBrahh]

when i first started i never warmed up and messed by body up, always warm up now never cool down thou

[JackNbone]

i pulled my shoulder out with no warm up learnt the hard way