We all have heard of the importance of warm up exercises before undertaking any workout. Warm up exercises help in preventing injuries.  Breathing exercises and general stretching exercises are often used for warming up of body. Static jogging to arm and leg stretches are few of the most common used techniques for warm up stretching. Let’s look at some stretching exercises in detail.

Slow circular movements of your joints helps in lubricating them. To lubricate and warm up your joints, you can rotate your fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles and other joints in a slow circular motion. Then you should move into the general stretching exercises as mentioned below.

Leg raises, arm swings, and static jogging are few stretching exercises for loosening up of stiff muscles before a workout session. Warm up stretching includes stretching of all the muscles, be it back, neck, chest, arms, thighs, buttocks and others. For an easy and a normal stretch, stand with your feet apart from each other and extend one foot slightly ahead than the other. The leg on the front should be kept straight and then slowly bend your rear leg, while resting your hands on the bent thigh. Exhale during this position and then slowly inhale when you are relaxing from this stretching exercise.

A lying down stretching exercise includes lying straight on the back and slowly pulling both the legs into the chest region, while supporting them through your arms wrapped around the knees. Then, exhale slowly while you are pulling down on your legs. Similarly, you can perform upward arm stretches by putting both your arms straight above your head with palms touching each other. While pushing your hands upwards, inhale slowly and exhale while bringing them back to their original position.

Along with the above given stretching exercises, there are many others which can be performed for warming up the entire body before a workout session.