Warm up

A warm-up is usually performed before participating in technical sports or exercising.

A warm-up generally consists of a gradual increase in intensity in physical activity (pulse raiser), a joint
mobility exercise, stretching and a sport-related activity. For example, before running or playing an
intense sport one might slowly jog to warm muscles and increase heart rate. It is important that warm
up should be specific to the exercise that will follow, which means that exercises (of warm up) should
prepare the muscles to be used and to activate the energy systems that are required for that
particular activity. The risks and benefits of combining stretching with warming up are mixed and, in
some cases, disputed.

The warm-up exercises prepare the body physically and mentally for a better performance in a
posterior effort and give you protection against injuries.

Benefits of warming-up
Physiological:
Starting a physical work suddenly has been proved to decrease the blood level that enters
the heart in the first seconds of activity, which involves a high risk, mostly for undertrained
people.
However, if we start a physical activity with a warm-up, we get all the systems of our body
(cardiovascular, respiratory, locomotor, nervous…) to start working in a progressive way, and
blood will flow properly through the circulatory system. That will provide enough oxygen to
the circulatory system, and nutritients in order to satisfy the improving demand due to the
increasing of activity.
In addition, muscles will improve their temperature, a fact that helps the muscular contraction
(due to the decreasing of the intramuscular viscosity) and facilitates enzyme activity.
Psycological:
All our body systems respond as a unit. In this way, during warm-up our nervous system will
adapt for the subsequent effort, allowing the individual to get focused, decreasing the anxiety
and minimizing the possibility of accidents or injuries.
It is very important that you are concentrated in the physical activity and let outside the gym
all your troubles or thoughts, to make the best of your work.

Types of warm-up
Usually, we start with a general warm-up (of all parts of our body) to continue with a specific
one, that depends on the kind of sport or physical activity that we will do later. However, we
will consider both as indivisible one from another in a correct warm-up. In other words, we
first have to do a general warm-up and later a specific one, based on the exercise that we are
going to work in class.

Another classification of warm-up distinguishes between passive warm-up, which increases

body temperature by external means (sauna, massages, physiotherapeutical manipulations…)
and active warm-up, based in the physical work.
With passive warm-up, you can elevate your body temperature, but it is not easy to get a
complete activation of all your systems; so supplementing this type of warm-up with some
body movements is highly recommended.

Effects of warm-up

Warm-up and performance

Physical exercise makes that the body needs to adapt to new conditions. Warming-up
correctly helps in this process of getting the highest performance.
 Cardiovascular adaptations:
Increased heart rate.
Increased systolic volume (blood volume ejected in each heartbeat by left ventricle).
Dilation of capillaries.
Respiratory adaptations:
Increased breathing rate.
Balance in the respiratory adjustment.
Locomotor adaptations:
Increased production of synovial fluid located between the joints to reduce friction.
Allow joints to move more efficiently.
Increase of temperature in the muscles.
Facilitated enzyme activity.
Decreased viscosity within the muscle.
Greater extensibility and elasticity of muscle fibers.
Increased force and speed of contraction.
Increased muscle metabolism.
Nervous adaptations:
Increase in speed of nerve impulse conduction.
Improved ability for focusing on new stimuli.

Warm-up and protection against injuries.

One of the most important considerations about warming-up, is the fact that it
prevents sports injuries. We have just talked about the effects of the muscular
temperature, but this is not the only factor, because it is crucial to get a
progressive physical work adaptation, even more in people who are not trained (just
as pupils).
The psychological factor is also very important in order to be focused on the
activity and prevent injuries.

Warm-up and learning

In our context, it is important to know that, by doing a good warm-up, we will be
able to fix the abilities acquired in previous sessions. We can also include some
exercises of the previous session as a part of the warm-up.
Likewise, it is very important be concentrated to learn something, and we can get
this by a good warm-up.

Factors to elaborate warm-ups.

To develop a good warm-up, we must count on several factors such as:
- Our age
- Time of day.
- Level of physical fitness.
- Post traumatic areas.
- Posterior physical activity.
- Weather conditions

Besides, there are some further characteristics that there should be included in a correct warm-up:
- Complete (we must work all the parts of the body)
- Progressive (keeping an order – head to feet or viceversa).
- Enough duration.
- Miscellaneous (different exercises)
 Endurance training

• Continuous training: Involves training for long periods where the intention is that your
heart rate stays in your training zone
- Continuous running involves running with moderate intensity with an
extended duration without rest intervals, keeping the same running pace.

- Fartlek involves running different speeds over different terrains for a long
period of time, changing the speed during the work.

• Discontinuous training: Involves intercalating periods of hard maximum effort with

periods of rest.

- Interval training enables you to work at high level of intensity followed by

periods of rest.

- Circuit training. We work in stations, going to the next one when the
established time is over. While we are rotating, we rest.

Speed

Speed is the ability to do one or more movements in a short period of time.

When we talk about the speed to move from one place to another (running, biking or
swimming), we call it a sprint.
Speed means reacting quickly and moving fast.

So you can find two types of speed:

Speed of an isolated movement: e.g. a karate kick or a tennis service must be very quick.

- Reaction speed: moving as fast as you can after the referee blows the whistle in a
100m sprint. In team sports there is also reaction speed: chasing your opponent
when he runs away from you, or reacting to a volleyball spike quickly.
o In the reaction speed, there some variables: Position, sense…

Speed of combined movements: any sprint in running or swimming, a dribbling in football...

In this type, we must consider aspects like:
• Stride length.
• Stride frequency.

Some aspects that you have to consider when you are working the speed ability:
- Type of muscle fiber.
- Stimulus transmission speed.
- Motivation and concentration.
- Warming up.
- Fatigue.