Exercise Habits You Need To Break : Number 1

Going in Cold (Build the Heat)

Yes, my job here stinks, because you’ve heard this a million times, and now I have to make you believe it.  What I want from you is to consider the value of what I will now call “the heat phase” only, warm-ups no longer exist in your world. It’s now called the heat phase.  I’m not going to talk about risk of injury just yet but I want you to focus on the benefits of building the heat.  When you build the heat you start an internal fire, metabolically speaking.  You won’t combust I swear.  You open up the stores in your body by telling it the work load is going to increase and we need to be prepared. You’re cells say “Ok, I’ll start opening up the channels.”  What it means here is that it’s going to increase the flow of energy.  You’re muscles cells and nerves are going to need elevated quantities of glucose (to put it simply) and oxygen.  By building the heat, you’re giving your cells warning and your body will start to break them down where they are stored. It takes a long time for this to happen from fat, but for now, you have to tell your body this is happening. This gives your muscles a really good shot at recovering well between sets during your workout.

Building the heat increases your heart rate and deepens your breathing, literally your alveoli (the little air pockets in your lungs that exchange air become more flexible and expand slightly to allow this).  This means more oxygen enters your system, gets to your blood therefore gets to the muscles.  If you start with shoulder presses before building the heat, your shoulders aren’t going to be able to get enough oxygen to complete your sets successfully.  This means that you likely won’t get the same repetitions at the same weight.  Essentially you will be building yourself weaker shoulders just by cutting your potential right off from the start.  That’s kind the opposite of the goal right?  

By building the heat, you’re able to elongate your muscle tissue. This is way more important than you might think.  Inflexibility of the muscle means shortened ROM or Range of motion.  So, you are literally only building strength through the ROM that you use.  If your arm motion is shortened even slightly, you are literally not strengthening outside of the range in which you complete the rep. This is also not benefiting you the way you imagined.  Why put in the hours of work, and dedication by gym or picking up those free weight, or even attempting a sitting V on your living room floor.  You want to be strong through the whole ROM, and better yet through your whole body.

Ok, let’s be honest, building the heat means you are less likely to get injured.  You can’t forget that you have knees, lumbar discs, ligaments, cartilage, etc, all throughout your body.  These tissues also have to build the heat to become more elastic.  Increasing your core body temperature does this very well when you start small and build up.  You literally increase the ability of your Synovial Fluid (joint fluid) to reduce friction.  This means reduced wear and tear(avoid a knee replacment anyone?).  The image I want you to think of here is the tin-man.  Building the heat is like oiling his joints.   You may not creak just yet, but most of us do when we get a little older.  Keep that in mind, and you won’t forget to build the heat.