Warm-up: One exercise is better than cardio

That’s why you shouldn’t warm up with cardio or stretching exercises

The personal trainer says in one interviewThat doing cardio or stretching as a warm-up is an outdated misconception. Cardio training increases your body temperature, but it doesn’t prepare you for strength training or HIIT.

“Movement Prep”: individual warm-up in just 15 minutes

The personal trainer recommends so-called “movement prep”. This translates to “movement preparation” and consists of exercises that are intended to prepare you optimally for your training.

The trainer does not recommend seeing this phase as a warm-up, but rather as an integral part of your training. If you spend the first 15 minutes of your workout on “Movement Prep,” you will not only get better results, but you can also minimize the risk of injury.

This is how Movement Prep works

For “Movement Prep” it is important to recognize your body’s needs.

• If you sit all day, do exercises that open your hips.
• But if you stand all day, you’re more likely to need stretching exercises.

It is important to leave the positions in which the body has already spent a large part of the day. So you can think of “Movement Prep” as a transition from what you do all day to the training that follows.

Activate the right muscles

Deadbugs and glute bridges activate the entire body. Depending on which training you have to do, you should activate exactly the muscles that you use during training.

For example, if you want to do deadlifts but have trouble tightening your lumbar muscles, then lat pull downs with a resistance band would be ideal to prepare you.

On his Instagram channel, personal trainer Luke Worthington shares numerous tips and tricks about training:

No time for “Movement Prep”?

Is 15 minutes too much for you? If you have less time, the trainer recommends skipping the exercises in training rather than the warm-up.

At the end of the workout, many do abdominal exercises or movements that work a muscle group, such as the biceps, in isolation. If you don’t have much time, avoid these isolated exercises.

Stretching exercises before training can even be harmful

Pre-workout stretching is not only ineffective for warming up, but can actually harm the body. Muscles have protective neuronal tension to protect the body from injury. Stretching the muscles as a warm-up reduces this protective mechanism and makes the body more susceptible to strains.

It’s not just Worthington who is convinced that stretching before training reduces performance. A study of the University of Zagreb found out in 2013 that people who stretched statically before exercising ran slower, were able to lift lower weights and didn’t jump as high as the comparison group.

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