It is important to subject your body to a warming up exercise, before performing any strenuous physical activity that involves movements to various muscles of the body. Any negligence to comply with this requirement may end up in various complications to the physical system.

Warming up increases the blood flow and helps the nutrients to pass through different parts of the body, besides speeding up the pace of respiration and preparing the body for the hard physical activity to follow. Unless the body is properly warmed up for the next pace of strenuous physical exercises, the benefit of the physical activity may not act upon the body.

Warm up exercise loosens the body muscles, invigorates the nervous system, alerts the mind and protects the whole system from physical injuries that may occur from hard physical exertions. It is the fluids in the joints that protect the body from injuries and keep free from wear and tear.

The heart needs adequate preparation to pump excessive blood to various parts of the body during hard physical exercises, which is possible only through a warm up session. As the age of person advances, the joints and heart become susceptible to risks during the sudden movements.

Sometimes such movements in aged persons may also pave way for heart attacks. Hence warming activity of any nature such as walking, jogging, cycling or rowing machine helps increases the pumping rate of the heart and raises the temperature of the body to the required level.

Warming up programs are not designed for total physical exhaustion, but for keeping the body adequately energized to meet with the next level of strenuous physical exercise. What is required is to go through a few minutes warming up to get a light sweating. Stretching can be slightly enhanced in cooler atmosphere.

After going through a proper warm up, the next pace to follow is stretching out the muscles, focusing on shoulders, back and hips, to make them flexible to cope up with the main physical activity. If the idea is to participate in sports or martial arts, suitable stretching activity should be selected and followed as the occasion demands.

The muscles should remain stretched for a minimum duration of eight seconds. During the stretching activities, care should be taken to ensure frequent movements to the legs to avoid pooling up in the legs and feet. But no bouncing should be attempted while doing the stretching to avoid muscular tear or pull.

Those who go with weight lifting as an exercise should take care to begin with a load of 50 to 60% of the maximum weight planning to be lifted, that too, with repetitions. The weight should be increased between 80 to 90% slowly with repetitions, after the initial warm up.

Adequate rest is an inevitable part of any weight lifting activity. Before going to the next level of weight lifting, one must take rest for at least 30 seconds to minimize the body strain. At the end of all activities of warming up, stretching and the final exercise, the next course to follow is to cool down of the body.

After every strenuous exercise, there is a tendency for the muscles to pool the blood and block the oxygen from reaching to the vital parts of the body that may even lead to dangers of heart attacks. Hence, cooling down is also an equally important like the warming up the body.

To maintain a healthy life style, physical exercise is unavoidable and one should take care to derive maximum benefits out of it.

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