Prevent Injury With Dynamic Warm Up And Cool Down
Want to stay healthy, prevent injuries and perform your best? Learn the benefits of dynamic warm up and cool downs. Research shows that using only static stretching (holding a stretch in one position for 15-30 seconds) before a sport activity actually relaxes muscles and reduces its ability to produce power. To perform your best in any sport, start with a 5-minute cardiovascular activity and then perform 5-10 minutes of dynamic movements that mimic the activities you are getting ready to perform and save static stretching for post exercise/sport.
Dynamic warm up
A warm-up is done prior to an activity. It should be dynamic and invigorating to get the best physical and mental preparation to play a sport. It incorporates active stretching with movement and provides many benefits.
Benefits Include:
- Primes the cardiovascular system.
- Elongates muscles actively to help improve joint mobility and body’s ability to handle forces during sport activities.
- Engrains proper movement patterns which leads to improved technique and performance.
- Wakes up nervous system and gets the brain connected to the muscles allowing them to work more efficiently.
Cool Down And Recovery
A cool down should actively relax your body and return the physical and mental energy you spent, to get you ready to bounce back strong the next day.
Benefits Include:
- Slowly decreases heart and breathing rate back to normal level.
- Creates a gentle pump action to reduce lactic acid (produced by exercise) in muscles. Allows the muscles to elongate and increases joint range of motion.
- Static stretching is ideal during your cool down and should be performed on all the main muscle groups used in your sport to helps these muscles relax, improves body posture, improve mental clarity, and reduce pain and/or muscle soreness. You can also perform similar dynamic exercises performed in your warm up during your cool down.
