6 best warm-up exercises

The content of the article

• Squats
• Strap
• Side lunges
• Push ups
• Hand rotation
• Run

Before any kind of sports, whether it is cardio training, strength training or team play, it is important to spend a few minutes to prepare the muscles. This will reduce the load on them, help avoid injuries. There is a set of warm-up exercises that can be performed both in the gym and at home.

Squats

Performing this warm-up exercise correctly captures many of the muscles in your lower body, including the quadriceps, popliteal, and gluteal.

How to do squats:

1. Stand with your feet wide apart, turn your socks slightly forward or outward..
2. Keep your back straight and lower your hips slowly until they are parallel to the floor. No need to sit down completely.
3. Take a short pause, freeze in a half squat.
4. Exhale, stand up. For a normal workout, you need to do 1 to 3 sets of 12-15 repetitions.

After a light warm-up, you can increase the intensity or take weighting agents (dumbbells, etc.). An alternative would be to take 1–2 sets of full squats, when the hips fall as low as possible until they touch the lower legs.

Strap

This is an excellent exercise for the development of the cardiovascular system and back muscles, improve balance, posture.

How to make the bar:

1. Accept the emphasis lying.
2. Raise your head, straighten your shoulders. Pull in your stomach, squeeze your buttocks, connect your feet. Keep your back, legs straight.
3. Tighten the press, lower back. When executed correctly, the body should form a straight line.
4. Stay in this position for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Repeat 2 to 5 times.

Beginners can start doing these warm-up exercises by kneeling additionally, i.e. On knees. For the physically developed, there are other options – with emphasis on the elbows or lifting one of the legs. After warming up, you can try to make a side bar when the whole body rests on the right or left hand. The lead time is the same – 30-60 minutes.

Side lunges

They develop muscles of the lower body well, help strengthen the legs, buttocks and hips.

The exercise is performed in the following order:

1. Stand up straight. Spread your legs wider than your shoulders. Keep your hands in front of you.
2. Transfer body weight to the right leg, half bending it. The back should remain straight in this case. No need to bend your left leg.
3. Stay like this for a few seconds, then return to the starting position. Repeat the exercise for the other leg, leaning this time to the left side. Perform 1 to 3 sets of 8–15 reps.

You can alleviate the first few lunges by not making them to the end, but only by slightly bending your leg. After you have warmed up and performed at least 1 approach, you can increase the difficulty by doing an exercise with dumbbells or putting one of the arms out of the way.

Push ups

Warm up before training must include this exercise. It develops well the upper body ?? and buttocks.

How to do the exercise:

1. Take emphasis lying down. The back should be straight, the abs extended, the feet together, and the legs shoulder-width apart..
2. Bending your arms, slowly lower your body to the floor. Control your back and legs – they should still be in a straight line. Avoid sagging torso.
3. Lower yourself as low as possible, ideally – until your chin touches the floor. Lock the body in this pose..
4. Lift the body up, returning to its original position. Perform 1 to 3 sets, with 8 to 12 reps.

To simplify the performance, you can do push-ups with emphasis on the lap. To complicate things, lock the body at a low point for a few seconds.

Hand rotation

With this exercise, you can quickly warm up the biceps, triceps:

1. Extend your arms to the sides so that they are parallel to the floor. Palms point down.
2. Keep your arms straight, rotate them back in circles. Do this movement for 20-30 seconds.
3. Change the direction of rotation. Perform also 20-30 seconds.
4. At this point, tilt your arms back and forth. Runtime is the same.
5. In the final part, the hands alternate up and down. This should also take 20-30 seconds. Having completed one approach, you can then repeat it up to 3 times.

The complication of this warm-up exercise is the use of dumbbells or other weights. No need to choose a large weight, 1-2 kg is enough. It is much more effective in this case to increase the number of approaches by completing a set of exercises several more times..

Run

This will help your heart pump blood better throughout your body. Regular exercises develop the lungs, make a person more resilient. Depending on the availability of free space, you can jog along the street, back and forth in the gym or at the place when the warm-up is carried out at home.

The exercise is performed in the following sequence:

1. Run at a slow pace. Lead time – 30-60 seconds.
2. Change the run – at this stage, the knees should rise high, to the level where the hips are parallel to the floor and above. This should take up to 1 minute.
3. A new variation – you need to run, overwhelming the feet to the buttocks. After spending up to 1 minute on this, return to the first stage. The total number of approaches is from 3 to 5.

To complicate, you can use weighting materials weighing 1-2 kg per arm, leg. As an option – take small dumbbells. The number of approaches should not be increased, since this is just a set of exercises for warming up before the main training.