An effective warmup is an important part of your exercise routine, making it a key cog in the wheel of keeping fit. There are numerous ways you can stretch your muscles to prepare them for a workout, though when warming up, it's best to perform active stretches. This means performing dynamic moves that involve several muscles and joints at once. Not only does this safely warm muscles up, making them more supple, it also raises your heart rate in preparation for the actual workout itself.

To stay as healthy as possible, you need to avoid injury where you can. Obviously, this sometimes can't be helped - for example, if you have an accident - but when it comes to exercise, warming up properly is a great way to reduce the risk. When your muscles are warm and prepared, you're a lot less likely to injure them when you workout out, highlighting the importance of warming up. Another one of the benefits of a good warmup is allowing you to check in with how your body is feeling ahead of your workout and if there are any areas of it, you need to be more careful with.

When you warm up properly, you're able to get the best out of your workout and really challenge yourself. Certain exercises, like the squat, engage numerous muscles at once, and if even one of those is not properly warmed up, you won't perform the move as effectively. Strength workouts that involve resistance training especially require a warmup, as you're loading your muscles more than usual.