Following is the General Warm Up & Stretch to follow prior to your workout.  

The Warm up is just that, a moderately intense set of exercises or light running/jogging to raise your heart rate, get your blood pumping and warm your body to start followed by focused stretching on certain muscles that are sore from the previous workout and/or will be used most for the day’s workout.  To some the warm up can be boring, and they want to just get to the main workout.  But the warm up is highly important.  If your body is not sufficiently warm prior to your workout you can easily injure yourself.   It’s important to keep in mind that although your skin temperature may rise quickly during the initial warm up, you should finish the warm up.  You may even have to spend a little extra time on the movements and stretches or incorporate more to warm up other joints and muscles that may not have been worked on during the prescribed movements.  Don’t think that because you feel warm and you have a little sweat on your brow you are sufficiently warmed up for the workout.

Learn to tune into your body and what works best for you.  For example, if the prescribed stretch for your hamstrings is the “Standing Hamstring Stretch” but it doesn’t quite stretch your hamstrings as well as the “Lying Hamstring  Stretch” with a band looped around your foot, then by all means, do the “Lying Hamstring  Stretch”.

As you start to become more aware of your body and what sort of exercises work best for getting your heart rate and body temperature up and stretching certain muscles, feel free to add or make any changes.  But please do not skip or make any changes until you have become more proficient in your fitness level.

WARM UP:

400m jog.  (Don’t sprint or do a 100% effort run.  This is just to warm up your muscles)

If you cannot jog, then….
3 rounds x 30 sec Each exercise (No Rest in between)

• Knees up (in place)
• Butt kickers (in place)
• 10m Bear Crawls

STRETCH
2 rounds x 10 sec.

• Arm huggers
• Front Arm circles (10 sec. Each arm)
• Back Arm circles (10 sec. Each arm)
• Front Leg Swings (10 sec. Each Leg)
• Back Leg Swings (10 sec. Each Leg

2 rounds x 20 sec holds.

• Standing Hamstring stretch
• Standing Quadriceps stretch
• Arm shoulder stretches
• Downward dog w/ alternating calf stretch

COOL DOWN
One of 3 options:

• 3 min. on a stationary bike.  Light cycling.
• Walk 800m.
• Or pace for about 3-5min.

This is just to get your heart rate back to normal before you begin to your stretch.  If you’re walking or pacing then you can start swinging your arms, do some arm huggers after about 2 minutes.

STRETCH
Same stretches as your warm up.  Focus on any areas that may feel a little tight.