Contents:
- Medical Video: How to warm up before exercise
- What is the difference between heating and stretching?
- Effects of warming up
- The effect of doing stretching
- So, what to do before exercise, heating or stretching?
Medical Video: How to warm up before exercise
Every member of the human body, especially muscles, needs adaptation to bodily activities. In exercise, this is done by heating andstretching,aka stretch. You may already be familiar with these two terms, but did you know that they have a different role for muscles?
What is the difference between heating and stretching?
Heating is an activity session before exercising, which serves to prepare the body for physical activity. As the name implies, heating aims to increase body temperature before exercising, so that the body will begin to adapt to the increased intensity of physical movements to be carried out.
Heating can be done in general or specifically. General heating (general warm-up) Does not involve specific movements, only by doing a series of light sports such as push-ups, spinning hands, running in place, jumping, and squat-jump. While specific warming is done by doing a number of movements that will be carried out when exercising, only with a lighter intensity. Proper heating will prepare the physical capacity needed when exercising.
READ ALSO: Types of Heating for a Wide Range of Sports
While stretching or stretching is a series of movements to train the flexibility of the limbs such as the back, legs and hands. Stretching is done to relax the muscles by making them contract.
Stretching also do not have to be done before exercise because it does not really help the body to adapt. Even some people already have a very good level of muscle flexibility so they do not need to carry out these activities before they move.
Stretching useful to restore muscle flexibility after the body has repeated activities or does not do any movement at any time. The essence of this activity is to carry out movements to approach, or pass through, the normal range of muscles in the body. For example, by standing and then touching your knees and toes, rotating your chest, and doing split.
Effects of warming up
Warming helps prepare the body to exercise by increasing the heart rate slowly, so that blood flow becomes faster. This will facilitate the distribution of oxygen and nutrients to all parts of the body that need it.
Heating also prepares the nervous system and brain to help regulate bone and muscle movement capacity before carrying out activities with heavy intensity, so that the risk of injury can be minimized. The sign that the heating is running optimally is the presence of sweat, which is the body's mechanism to control temperature in the muscles.
READ ALSO: Morning Sports vs. Night Sports, Which Is Better?
The effect of doing stretching
Activities stretching done by pulling the muscle to the limit of its reach, so that the contraction will make the muscles become more flexible after being released. Stretching can be done statically or dynamically.Stretching Statically it focuses more on holding the muscle until it contracts close to its range for 10-20 seconds, whereas stretching dynamic is done by stretching the muscles with repetitive movements without holding them to contract. Stretching static will be more effective in muscle relaxation, whereas stretching dynamically helps flexibility in doing movements.
So, what to do before exercise, heating or stretching?
Basically,stretching and heating has a far different function. Heating serves to prepare the body's muscles for activity, however stretchingcauses the muscles to become more relaxed. Muscles that adapt to movements to use when exercising will be far more important than the flexibility that is done with stretching. On the contrary,stretching need to be done after exercise as an effort to cool down, because it can help the muscles become more relaxed after contracting too long while exercising.
In addition, there are several other things that cause it stretching not effective to do before exercise, including:
- Increases risk of injury - pulling the muscle away from its range when in a rigid and cold state such as before exercising can cause a small tear in the muscle and may get worse when exercising.
- Cannot prevent injury while exercising - Flexible muscles can still be injured if there is an increase in the intensity of physical activity that is too large and too short.
- Can interfere with the effects of heating - do stretching after heating can reduce the level of muscle adaptation to contract after warming up.
READ ALSO: 7 Ways to Not Run Out of Breath When Running
