warm up and cool down

Warm-up and cool-down are important

If you suddenly perform high-intensity exercise, it may cause a breakdown or poor physical condition. Therefore, it is necessary to warm up before doing high-intensity exercise. Also, if you stop without cooling down after performing high-intensity exercise, the training effect may be weakened and you may become unwell.

Normally, when you are not exercising, a lot of blood flows to various organs such as the stomach.

However, when you start training, you need to make sure that more blood flows to your muscles. By starting to move slowly, you send a signal to your body to start exercising, and gradually shift blood flow to your muscles. This will allow your entire body to respond to the exercise.

A good way to warm up and cool down is to gradually change your heart rate over 15 minutes. Below are examples of common ways to warm up and cool down.

warm up

Over the first 15 minutes, slowly increase your resting heart rate to your target heart rate.

training

Perform high-intensity exercise (interval training, speed running, etc.).

cool down

After training, take 15 minutes to slowly lower your heart rate to your resting rate.

I'm going.

When doing high-intensity training, it's important not to let your heart rate rise or fall too quickly. Raising your heart rate too quickly or stopping without cooling down will not only reduce the effectiveness of your training, but may also put stress on your organs and cause you to feel unwell.

It is said that exercises such as dynamic stretching, walking, and jogging are suitable for warming up, and exercises such as static stretching, walking, and jogging are suitable for cooling down.

Do dynamic stretching during warm-up

In the past, "static stretching" (normal stretching) performed during warm-ups was considered necessary to prevent injuries and promote good performance. However, in recent years it has become clear that this is not actually the case.

It is known that there are two types of stretching: static stretching and dynamic stretching.

"Static stretching" is a normal stretch performed to widen the range of motion of joints and increase the flexibility of muscles by stretching the muscles slowly without recoil and holding it for several to tens of seconds.

It has been found that performing static stretching during warm-up reduces the spring-like elastic energy and reduces performance, and that it does not affect the frequency of injuries.

On the other hand, "dynamic stretching" involves stretching the limbs or twisting the body while moving while creating a reaction. Typical examples include radio calisthenics and Maeken calisthenics (the exercises that pitcher Kenta Maeda does in his warm-up before pitching).

Dynamic stretching has been shown to improve performance when performed before exercise, and is now recommended as a warm-up stretch.

Therefore, it is now considered effective to perform ``dynamic stretching'' while moving your body as a warm-up before exercising, and ``static stretching'' after exercising or after taking a bath to help recover from fatigue.