If you exercise, you’ve probably heard it a million times – Never exercise without warming up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know it’s probably a good idea, but working out takes long enough. You really don’t want to add to your workout time by doing some mamby pamby warm-ups. Wrong thinking.

Let me say it again, “Never exercise without warming up.” If you think you don’t need to – keep reading for five good reasons.

Reason #1 – Burn Extra Calories

Contrary to popular belief, the best way to warm up isn’t by stretching. Stretching cold muscles is actually harmful. Don’t do it.

The recommend method of warming up before your workout is with ten minutes of light aerobics. This will gently get all of your muscles warmed up and clue them in to the fact that they are about to be forced to put forth some effort.

Warming up gently with aerobics is good to wake your muscles up and prevent injuring cold muscles, but the best reason is that in ten minutes of light aerobics, you can burn up to 100 calories. Warming up suddenly sounds better – doesn’t it?

Reason #2 – Mobilize Your Body Sugar

When you warm up with light aerobics for ten minutes, your body will use up the sugar in your blood and muscles. By using up this readily available sugar, when you start your workout, you will be forcing your body to tap into your stored energy – namely your fat. This will cause you to burn that fat which is the whole purpose of exercising.

Reason #3 – Improve Your Performance

You want your workout to be the best and most efficient it can be. In other words, you don’t want to waste your time. By warming up, you are increasing blood flow to your muscle tissue and removing waste products from your muscles like lactic acid that makes you want to quit working out.

Warming up also improves the response of your nerves. This in turn improves your motor skills, coordination, reaction time, and agility. Your warmed up muscles can move faster than cold muscles which means you will burn more calories.

Reason #4 – Prevent Injuries

When you raise your muscle temperature, it lubricates your joints and your muscle tissue becomes more elastic. This keeps you from tearing muscle fibers and connective tissue.

Reason #5 – Protect Your Immune System

Finally, exercising your body without warming it up will flood your muscle tissue with stress hormones. These stress hormones can weaken your immune system which in turn will make you more susceptible to getting sick.

Burning extra calories, using up sugar, improving your performance, preventing injuries, and protecting your immune system are some pretty good reasons to warm up before you exercise. Burn more calories and fat and do your body a favor – Never exercise without warming up!