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Avoid the pain of injury and muscle soreness

Note:  There is a hypothesis around at the moment (late 2002) that suggests that warming up actually does more harm than good.  This idea comes from a scientific paper which was written about endurance Athletes (swimmers, Cyclists and Middle-long distance runners) and does not apply to Sprinters, Jumpers and Throwers.

Warming up and warming down are tow of the key elements of a Training session.  All experienced Athletes of all abilities and ages take this for granted.

However, as this site may be used by Novices, or experienced Sportspeople from other Sports where warming up and warming down are not taken seriously, here are a few words about it and a description of what constitutes a warm-up and a warm-down.

Warm-up

Always find a way to get your body from it's resting state to a warm, comfortable working state where the heartbeat is around 120 beats per minute at the end of the warm-up.  Test your heart rate at the end and make sure it is not over 120 bpm and not under 100 bpm (this will help with stretching, which always comes after a warm-up).  For example, either:

Stretching follows the warm-up (some people may say it is part of the warm-up, though this is semantics).

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Warm-down

After a session, a warm down is designed to return your body to a state of resting.  Some examples of how you might do this are:

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Why do it?

The warm-up will make sure that you body is ready to stretch.  There are many components that do not have a good supply of blood and oxygen whilst you are traveling - this might sound obvious, but most sports ignore warm-up.  By getting your heart rate from its resting of around 60 beats per minute (bpm) to around 120, and by jogging, you start to get blood supplied in quantity to the parts that will need it.

Particularly, you should note that whilst traveling in a Car/Bus etc, you are sitting and limbs and joints will have the blood shaken to your extremities, whilst the heart rate lowers, ensuring that the supply of blood to the extremities is poor.  If you stretch after traveling, you will be asking for trouble.

Similarly, after a training session, you will have built up chemicals in your muscles as well as possibly collection a number of microscopic muscle strains and tears.  A warm-down simply raises your breathing without overstraining your muscles and increases the concentration of oxygen within the blood, whilst gently washing out chemicals (such as lactic acid) from your muscles.  This gentle "internal washing" could be visualised as somewhat similar to a shower after a Rugby Match....it wont mend a broken leg, but it will take away the mud that could cause an infection or make your skin uncomfortable.  It's the best you can do and injuries will show themselves and can be treated.

I have seen many people treated for Sports Injuries at Athletics meetings by trained professionals.  Their advice after treatment, despite the discomfort factor, is to "warm down as well as you can" if the Athlete had been competing so that Muscle soreness does not add to the injury.