Warm Up
Never start to exercise without warming up first as it can lead to injury. In a warm up you should aim to get the muscles warm by stretching them, the heart pumping and your body temperature up with some cardio and at the end of the warm up throw in some explosive strength exercises like sprinting or jumping to get the body prepared for whats to come. The older you get the longer you should warm up as it takes longer for older joints to become lubricated. When I start my bootcamp sessions I always start by walking and warming up the shoulders with some arm rotations, 30 seconds in either direction. Followed by opening up the arms wide, in and out for 30 seconds to warm up the chest muscles. We push up onto our toes whilst walking to warm up the calves, then stop for some body squats to warm up the hamstrings, quadriceps, calves and gluteus muscles. Then we get up to a jogging speed, throw in some side steps and backwards jogging before doing some butt kicks and high knees. By this time people are starting to get warm and their heart rates are elevated so I get them to pick up the pace to around 75% of their sprinting speed, changing direction every now and again before doing an explosive 20 second all out sprint. Grab a quick drink and do some 5 second static stretches on your calves, quadriceps and hamstrings then we’re ready to rock n roll.
Cool Down
When you finish your work out its time to cool down. A lot of people forget about doing this but it is equally as important as warming up to avoid injury. Cooling down is necessary to help stop blood pooling, this can lead to the blood pressure dropping to quickly which could cause you to faint. Cooling down also allows the heart rate and breathing to slow down slower and the body temperature to lower gradually. Cool down with some low intensity work like walking, shaking the limbs and always finish with some long static stretches, the longer the better but aim for around 10 minutes of stretching.