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Exercising by playing sport is one of the greatest ways to stay fit and healthy. However with sport and exercise comes the risk of injury. Stretching and warming up appropriately before embarking on physical activity can help to prevent any possible muscular injuries.
As it is recommended to a driver to warm up his or her car for a few minutes before driving, an athlete is advised to warm up his or her muscles before working them. Exercising with cold muscles makes a person more susceptible to injury, especially muscle injuries such as pulled muscles.
Warming up before exercise by stretching out the muscles also increases flexibility. This in turn also decreases a person susceptibility to incurring an injury whilst exercising. If you were to incur an impact whilst exercising, such as a fall, a warmed up and flexible body could take the impact better than a cold and non-warmed up body could.
Research has found that whilst it is good to be warmed up and flexible for exercise, it is an idea to not be too flexible. Just as a person who has not warmed up and is not flexible may be susceptible to exercise, a person who has stretched too much and is too flexible may be putting themselves at risk of injury because they are overworking the muscles.
So whilst it is good to warm up and stretch in order to be flexible to avoid injury, it is a good idea to not do too much stretching. Aim for an average amount of warm up exercises and hopefully you will be injury free whilst exercising.
