The primary reason to warm?up that everyone agrees upon is to warm-up your body and muscles, i.e. to raise your body temperature.Warm-up All Major Joints.You will want to do a complete warm-up. The first step is to warm up the muscles with some type of moderate aerobic exercise such as jogging for a few minutes until your body temperature rises.

Then you want to stretch and warm-up all of your body's major joints - Ankles, Knees, Hips (Splits), Back, Shoulders, Wrists, and Neck.NOTE: You don't want to stretch your knees or elbows past a straight line position because excess flexibility can contribute to problems.Pre-Stretch Your Body and Muscles.Warm-ups can pre-stretch the muscles to prepare them for any potential purposeful or accidental stretching of the muscles during the workout.

Depending on the workout, structuring warm-up can allow gymnasts to spend a period of time working before practice on increasing flexibility.Build Up to the Intensity Level of Your Upcoming Workout.Warm-ups can be a method to build up to the level of intensity that your workout will be. Warm-ups can also be a time to spend time learning some new skills and drills. We frequently use warm-up time to develop skills for FX and beam.

Transition to Tumbling.Warm-ups also provide an excellent transition into line tumbling, beam line tumbling and tumbling practice.Vary the Warm-Up.For variety, sometimes it can be fun to wear weight vest and ankle weights during some warm-ups, warmup on the tumble tramp or even on the beam.Take the Time to Prepare for Practice.

Take the time to carefully prepare your body for the stress of practice and anything that might happen during practice.Train to Compete.Warm-ups are also an excellent time when the team is all together to increase competition experience with contests, like handstand contests. This can also serve to build team spirit with this type of intra-squad team competitions.

15 Books and Counting
John Howard is the author of 15 books and e-Books about gymnastics, gym design, gymnastics humor and cheerleading. More books are already on the way. He has 25 years experience and has coached State, Regional and National champion gymnasts and international competitors and cheerleaders at the National level in NCAA Division I.Enter the Gymnastics Zone
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