Ensuring Healthy Warm-up and Cool-down for Soccer Players

Warm-Up

Why Warm-up?

The body needs to make certain adjustments to change the environment it operates in. Commencing heavy exercises requires gradual warming up of muscles to adjust several factors in the body. For example, adjusting to substantial heart rates, increased blood flow in muscles for more oxygen supply and carbon dioxide removal, etc. 

The human body has a limited ability to adjust to heavy physical exertion. However, warming up helps set change all these things gradually to avoid injuries. Warming up also improves performance and sustains the physical and mental health of the body. 

Active Warm-up Options

Active warming up of the body is the key to agile movements and better energy transformation from one organ to another. The practice of warming up can be called successful when you let out a little sweat. Also, a complete warm-up includes Youth soccer warm-up suits from Adidas that are highly recommended. 

After ensuring that you have all the physical equipment for a proper warm-up, go through the options for the techniques. 

• General Warm-up

A general warm-up is the first thing most sports persons do. As the name suggests, it includes low-intensity physical exercises like jogging, cycling, trampoline, etc. Other exercises include gradual circular movements of every muscle that exists in the body. General warm-ups are usually followed by stretching and specific warm-ups. 

• Stretching Exercises

Stretching is mostly done after a general warm-up that makes the muscles more apt for the next exertion period. Stretching exercises include controlled and slow circling, movement of prominent joints, shoulder rolls, etc. However, you must not force stretching exercising on your body as it can trigger muscle pain, periodic strain, and various other injuries. 

• Goal Specific Warm-up

Most sports have a different kind of warm-up that require different physical exertion intensity for various muscles. For example, a cricketer needs a different set of exercises to warm his busiest muscles in the game than those of a football player. In fact, there are specific warm-up exercises in sports according to the different roles assigned to different players. 

Cool-down

Why Cool-down?

Just like warm-up enables gradual adjustment of muscles for heavy physical exertion, cool down exercises allow a gradual adjustment with a sober environment after the training session. Cool-down exercises help in the following. 

• Bringing the breathing and heart rate to normal levels as before.

• Avoiding dizziness or fainting that results from blood pooling in muscles.

• Preparing muscles for the next physical exertion, etc.

In fact, in many cases, cooling down is more important than warming up. 

Healthy Cool-down Options

Most sports persons don't give much attention to their muscle building for the next session. It actually sustains the health for longer and assists in better performance of the body as a whole. However, not every exercise can act as a cool-down option for every player. The Adidas Youth Soccer warm-up jackets that were used while warming up can also be used during cool down. Let's go through the exercises that help the muscles cool down. 

• Brisk Walking or Slow Jogging

Both can act as an effective cool down for the muscles. It's because when a person engages in heavy physical activities, the muscles are highly charged and must be gradually brought to a resting state. That's the whole point of cooling down. Remember, it's not necessary to jog for a few kilometers. A short distance can do the job. 

• Stretching Exercises

To bring the whole body to a uniform level, stretching exercises should be performed but of a lower intensity than that while warming up. Stretching exercises can bring the temperature and energy of the muscles down. 

• Muscle-specific Warm-up Exercises with Low Intensity

While stretching every muscle targets the whole body, warm-up exercises with low-intensity help in cooling them down. The muscles that were fully engaged while training must be targeted specifically. 

With all these points up your sleeve, now you can say that you are a complete sportsperson. Remember, irrespective of your performance on the field, these exercises can play a huge role in your future achievements. Even a minor disrespect to fundamental rules of the body can lead to irreversible injuries.