Do you do one of the most important things before your work out? Do you warm up sufficiently before hitting the weights? While it is tempting to just start lifting, there is a scientific basis for the need to warm up before subjecting your body to a grueling work out.

You will have a much more effective workout when you take the time to warm up properly. The two main reasons why you should warm up are

i) You will be able to lift much more weight. If you recall from an earlier post, the key to building muscle is progressively lifting more weights so this is pretty important.

ii) You reduce your chances of getting injured.

I recommend structuring your warm up into three mini-parts. Trust me, it is a lot less work than it sounds. First you should do a light cardio exercise on either the treadmill or any of the other cardio machines. StairMaster and cycle machines are fine too. The cardio should be light so that you do not burn energy that is best used for making your workout as intense as possible. 5 minutes at 3.5 miles/hr works great.

Doing light cardio exercise causes synovial to be secreted. Synovial is a fluid which lubricates the joints and reduces friction whenever there is movement. A good amount of this makes your workout ‘frictionless’ if I may use that term!

The second mini-part of your exercise is stretching. Doing a whole body stretch not only makes you more flexible but it also eases any tension in your muscles and helps avoid muscle cramps. Some body building experts like the legendary Frank Zane (3 Time Mr Universe) estimate that stretching properly doubles the effectiveness of your workout.

The last part of the warm up phase is light exercise on the muscles that you will be working out that day. If it is a leg day, for example, do squats and dead lifts with a really light weight. Once this is done, the heavy lifting can commence.

With each part taking about 5 minutes you can complete the entire warm up phase in about fifteen minutes. Your goal should always be to do short intense workouts and spend as little time as possible in the gym. In total try and get in and out of the gym in less than 90 minutes. 15 minutes for warm up and roughly an hour of intense workout. Use the time you do cardio to mentally prepare for the intense workout.

Cardio is relatively less mind intensive than any of the other things you will ever do in the gym so use this time to do ‘theater of the mind’ exercises and imagine yourself already in possession of the body you want. This isn’t mumbo jumbo voodoo science by the way. Visualization is a proven powerful technique for attaining success of any kind.

In closing, don’t be like those muscle heads who storm into the gym and begin lifting weights immediately. They are the ones who usually have nagging injuries. Warm up and your body will thank you.