It is essential to properly warm up before any strenuous exercise, if you repeatedly ignored the importance of warming-up before your working out, without knowing the consequences of doing so.

Why warm up? Because there are several changes in the body taking place when you start a physical exercise.

Your breathing rate, blood flow, oxygen and nutrient levels delivered to cells are increased.

The rate of increase must be settled in a steady pace to prepare the body for the physical stress that the will be demanded by the exercise. If you skip the warm-up, your body will be less effective, and the workout will be less affected.

Warming up also preps up the nervous system, increases mental alertness and awareness, and loosens up the muscles and joints which will make them less prone to injury.

Warm up also begins the flow of lubricating fluid in the joints, minimizing the risk of wear and tear on the muscles.

And gives the heart a time to adjust and pump blood rich in nutrients to muscles.

It is even more essential for the elderly, because their muscle tissue is less supple, and the joints have less synovial fluid and weaker hearts, as doing a sudden strenuous exercise can result in a heart attack.

How does a person warm up properly? Any procedure that makes the heart beat faster, you can jog or take brisk walks as well as using a rowing machine or a bicycle.

Always start with a slow gentle pace and slowly increase until your heart beat increases and your body temperature rises.

It is important that you only excises within your fitness level, where at the end you are energized and not exhausted.

You should work up a light sweat, which usually takes between 3-5 minutes; you should also do some stretching exercises as stretching helps you get more flexibility from your muscles, especially with the spine, shoulder and hip region.

The type of stretching depends on the type of excises you are going to do, if you are going to do martial arts, it might be best to do some gentle sparring as well as doing the movements in slow motion.

You have to make sure that the major muscles groups have been properly stretched for a minimum of 8 seconds. Always remember to keep your feet moving or do leg exercises when you are stretching your upper body to prevent blood from building up in the legs.

You should only do stretching exercises after your muscles have warmed up fully. Also you should not bounce while you are stretching as you can tear or pull a muscle.

If you are planning on doing weight-lifting you should do this after the initial warm up. Put 50-60% of the heaviest weight on the bar that you would be using for that session and do the number of repetitions you would do for the heavy sets.

Then for the second set increase the weight by 80% and then to 90%, decreasing to 2-3 repetitions. Then rest for about 30 seconds before repeating the steps.

After warming up you can continue with the heavy lifting. By doing it this way reduces the stress while doing the heavy sets.

Once you have warmed up you can carry on with the main workout, cooling down is as important as the warm-up, because if you suddenly stop excising the blood can build-up in the muscle blocking the oxygen supply. If this happens you can have a heart attack.

Exercising is very good for keeping healthy, but remember to properly warm-up and stretch which will help you get the most out of your workout.