Login | August 24, 2026
How important is the warm-up...really?
PETE GLADDEN
Published: August 24, 2026
I’ve been joking with my girlfriend about a recent tv commercial.
It’s for a med, where an actress is seen agonizing over a vine wrapped around her waist (symbolizing GI distress), then after taking the med she’s all smiles and warming up for a run by doing a static arm stretch followed by a few bunny hops before blasting off for an invigorating run with her crew.
And my sarcastic comment has been: “That’s one awesome warm-up!”
Now it’s funny to us because we’ve been around the block enough to know that a warm-up prior to running is way more then an arm stretch and a bunny hop.
What’s more, as we’ve unfortunately found out, the older we’ve gotten the more important that bothersome warm-up becomes.
So let’s go over the basics of the warm-up, and then discuss how you can incorporate an appropriate warm-up into the type of workout you’re intending to do.
So first and foremost, the primary goal of a warm-up is to get the body ready for the activity you’re about to engage in.
Thus, think of it as an important bridge that connects your resting state to your eventual workout state.
Now some of the best reasons for performing a warm-up are as follows.
Muscle Protection
By warming up muscle tissues you’re allowing them to become more pliable and more elastic, and that helps to reduce the chances of getting muscle strains and tears while at the same time it helps to improve performance capabilities.
Better Blood Flow
It promotes blood vessel dilation, which in turn increases blood flow to the muscles so there’s the opportunity for more oxygen and nutrients to enter the muscle, and at the same time it allows metabolic nasties like lactic acid to be removed quicker.
Increased Nerve Activation
It also has a positive impact on the nervous system, this because as the muscles warm up nerve conduction speed increases, thereby promoting better reaction time.
Faster Energy To The Muscles
And finally, warm-ups speed up those biochemical processes which resupply energy to the muscles so that the muscles aren’t deprived of fuel.
So now that I’ve put a good spin on warm-ups, let’s take a look at warm-up specificity and the notion of performing activity-specific warm-ups, exercises which can be employed pre-workout to better optimize the type of workout you’re doing.
For example, if your activity is a leg workout, then a warm-up entailing five to ten minutes of light jogging followed by some hip, knee, and ankle mobility exercises like glute bridges, ankle rocks and leg swings would be a great way to prepare the legs for the subsequent resistance session.
Conversely, if your intended activity is running or cycling, then you’d want to perform a warm-up with a different kind of focus.
In this case you’d be looking to activate the glutes, quads and hamstrings with what’s called a “dynamic warm-up,” a procedure where you’d perform light movement exercises like walking lunges, high knees, butt kicker drills and hip openers prior to doing the actual aerobics.
So how long should your warm-up last?
It’s really a minimal amount of time, eight-ten minutes is enough to do the trick, so it’s not like you’re investing a whole lot more into your workout routine.
And finally there’s those warm-up no-no’s.
The number one biggest mistake I see, and I’m talking like a no-no that I see all the time, is a person doing static stretches prior to an aerobic workout - as in the previously mentioned tv commercial.
Remember, muscles in a cold state are more inelastic, and therefore they’re not as pliable as when they’re warm.
Then there’s the fact that static stretches on cold muscles have been found to reduce muscle strength by 5.5 percent as well as reduce muscle power by 2 percent.
And the second warm-up no-no…well…not even bothering to warm-up!
Yes, warming up prior to a workout can be a bit bothersome, yet this simple little five-ten minute procedure can help you to improve your workout performance as well as reduce your risks of an injury.
So the next time you’re heading out the door for that group run, dispense with the token arm stretch and bunny hop and instead put a couple of minutes into something a bit more substantial.
This simple little act just might lead to a fantastic workout.