WARM UP

A warm-up is a set of exercises that we do for the express purpose of getting different parts of
the body involved in a physical/sports activity to start working.

We warm up before intense exertion to allow our organism to adapt to the physical exercise.

In order for the physical activity to be beneficial, pleasurable and risk-free, we must prepare
the different parts of our organism by progressively adapting them to the exertion through a
process known as worm-up.

Effects of warm-up.

Cardiopulmonary system:

Lungs: Our breathing gets faster, carrying more oxygen to the blood.

Heart and blood vessels: When our heart rate increases, more blood moves around the body,
bringing the muscles more oxygen, which is necessary for movement.

Locomotor system:

Muscles: Our temperature increases, which increases contraction speed, improving movement
and decreasing the risk of injury.

Joints: The temperature of the joints also increases, enabling us to move more flexibly and
decreasing the risk of injury.

All the above means that the body temperature rises. That is why this stage of the organism’s
adaption to physical exercise is known as warm-up.

The warm-up also prepares us psychologically for the activity to come:

• It makes us more willing to move because we feel looser and more agile.
• It increases our motivation to do physical exercise, play games or complete.
• It improves our ability to concentrate on what we are doing, making our movements
more precise and useful.

A warm up can be described as the gentle and progressive activation of the entire organism to
prepare for more intense exertion under favourable conditions and without risk of injury.

The stages of the warm-up

1.- Start.

We begin with a slow jog. This is known as continuous running and it is the best way to get our
cardiopulmonary system to begin working. You will notice that your heart rate gradually begins
to increase.

2.- Mobilizing the joints and stretching the muscles.

Mobilizing the joints means performing as many different gentle, repetitive movements with
each joint as possible. We do the same thing with all the joints: knees, hips, spine, shoulders,
elbows and wrists.

Stretching our muscles means adopting body positions that lengthen the muscles, making
them longer than they are when in their resting position.

At rest, our muscles tend to shorten (like elastic bands when not stretched). When we
exercise, our movements cause the muscles to stretch to their maximum in order to exert
more strength, jump higher or throw farther (the elastic bands stretch as far as they can).

After the warm-up, when we do more intense exercise, there is no risk of injuring our muscles
when they stretch to their full length.

3.- Final activity.

To finish, we can play more intense games such as tag, or do races in pairs, bringing our heart
rate up to 120-140 beats per minute.

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.