A warm-up and a cool-down both involve doing exercises at a lower intensity and slower pace, which improves your performance, prevents injuries, and helps with recovery from exercise.

Warm up activities include light jogging or cycling slowly on a bike. Warming up before exercise prepares your cardiovascular system for physical activity, by increasing the blood flow to your muscles, and raising the temperature of your body. It also helps to lower the risk of getting injured — when your muscles are adequately warmed up, the movements, stretches, and strain you put on them during your workout is less severe. This also minimizes muscle soreness.

Cooling down after your workout aims to gradually bring your heart rate and blood pressure to its normal level — the level it was at prior to exercising. During your workout, your heart rate has been pumping much higher than it does normally, and it’s important to ease it back down instead of abruptly stopping all motion. Cooling down also helps to regulate your blood flow, which is especially important for people who undertake endurance sports such as long distance running. To safely cool down, gradually reduce the pace of your exercise during the last 10 minutes of your session — for example, if you’re jogging, reduce your pace to a brisk walk for the last 10 minutes.

You can sign up for a free Introduction to Exercise class that also covers warming up and cooling down at the RGCF by calling 915-562-7660.

Source: https://www.tricitymed.org/2016/12/warming-cooling-important/

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